This article reviews key data and debates focused on relative sea-level changes since the Last Interglacial\ud (approximately the last 132,000 years) in the Mediterranean Basin, and their implications for past human\ud populations. Geological and geomorphological landscape studies are critical to archaeology. Coastal regions\ud provide a wide range of resources to the populations that inhabit them. Coastal landscapes are\ud increasingly the focus of scholarly discussions from the earliest exploitation of littoral resources and early\ud hominin cognition, to the inundation of the earliest permanently settled fishing villages and eventually,\ud formative centres of urbanisation. In the Mediterranean, these would become hubs of maritime transportation\ud that gave rise to the roots of modern seaborne trade. As such, this article represents an original\ud review of both the geo-scientific and archaeological data that specifically relate to sea-level changes and\ud resulting impacts on both physical and cultural landscapes from the Palaeolithic until the emergence of\ud the Classical periods. Our review highlights that the interdisciplinary links between coastal archaeology,\ud geomorphology and sea-level changes are important to explain environmental impacts on coastal human\ud societies and human migration. We review geological indicators of sea level and outline how archaeological\ud features are commonly used as proxies for measuring past sea levels, both gradual changes and\ud catastrophic events. We argue that coastal archaeologists should, as a part of their analyses, incorporate\ud important sea-level concepts, such as indicative meaning. The interpretation of the indicative meaning of\ud Roman fishtanks, for example, plays a critical role in reconstructions of late Holocene Mediterranean sea\ud levels. We identify avenues for future work, which include the consideration of glacial isostatic adjustment\ud (GIA) in addition to coastal tectonics to explain vertical movements of coastlines, more research on\ud Palaeolithic island colonisation, broadening of Palaeolithic studies to include materials from the entire\ud coastal landscape and not just coastal resources, a focus on rescue of archaeological sites under threat by coastal change, and expansion of underwater archaeological explorations in combination with submarine\ud geomorphology. This article presents a collaborative synthesis of data, some of which have been\ud collected and analysed by the authors, as the MEDFLOOD (MEDiterranean sea-level change and projection\ud for future FLOODing) community, and highlights key sites, data, concepts and ongoing debates

The coasts of the Mediterranean Sea are dynamic habitats in which human activities have been conducted for centuries and which feature micro-tidal environments with about 0.40 m of range. For this reason, human settlements are still concentrated along a narrow coastline strip, where any change in the sea level and coastal dynamics may impact anthropic activities. In the frame of the RITMARE and the Copernicus Projects, we analyzed light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and Copernicus Earth Observation data to provide estimates of potential marine submersion for 2100 for 16 small-sized coastal plains located in the Italian peninsula and four Mediterranean countries (France, Spain, Tunisia, Cyprus) all characterized by different geological, tectonic and morphological features. The objective of this multidisciplinary study is to provide the first maps of sea-level rise scenarios for 2100 for the IPCC RCP 8.5 and Rahmstorf (2007) projections for the above affected coastal zones, which are the locations of touristic resorts, railways, airports and heritage sites. On the basis of our model (eustatic projection for 2100, glaciohydrostasy values and tectonic vertical movement), we provide 16 high-definition submersion maps. We estimated a potential loss of land for the above areas of between about 148 km² (IPCC-RCP8.5 scenario) and 192 km² (Rahmstorf scenario), along a coastline length of about 400 km.