## 3 Coastal Georadneaology of the Largest Mediterranean Islands: A Brief Overview and Main Highlights
### Central Mediterranean (Sicily-Malta-Ionian and Adriatic Seas)  
Despite Sicily being the largest Mediterranean island, geoarchaeological research along its shoreline is scarce and most existing studies are more in phase with the concept of Landscape Archaeology, where a within-site scale has been adopted. However, we can cite the valuable work conducted on the eastern and western coasts of the island, south of Syracuse [51], and in Marsala Sound [52], respectively. Both studies aimed at investigating lagoonal/brackish sediments in order to reconstruct shoreline shifting and past sea-level changes. Nonetheless, the archaeological implications were limited, and palaeoecological proxies were not systemically included. The potential for developing coastal geoarchaeology along the Sicilian coast is important because the archaeological context is rich [53] and numerous coastal wetlands have been identified, mainly situated within a fluvio-deltaic context and at a short distance from major ancient sites [54]. Moreover, the active tectonics of the island have provoked local subsidence and even the submersion of well-dated archaeological structures [54]. In the future, one component of Sicilian coastal geoarchaeology should be dedicated to reconstructing the past sea- and landscapes in order to obtain long-term estimates of subsidence rates, which could then be integrated into present-day coastal management scenarios. The Maltese Archipelago (Malta, Gozo and Comino islands) is situated between Sicily and Tunisia and has a long-term history of human occupation. Over the last decade, specific interest has been given to the reconstruction of past Human-Environment interactions in Malta (246 km\({}^{2}\)). This island records vestiges of a series of former fluvial valleys (incised during previous glacial periods) that subsequently developed into rias (inundated valleys during the postglacial maximum marine ingression) and finally into fluvio-deltaic plains in the Middle Holocene [55]. These rias are an almost unique geomorphological feature at the scale of the Mediterranean islands and are frequently encountered on Malta. The Mid- to Late Holocene alluvial deposition in these former marine corridors has been investigated to reconstruct both shoreline displacements and, more generally, landscape configuration, including vegetation history. Similar to the research undertaken in the Aegean Basin, the development of coastal geoarchaeology on Malta has helped to better understand human impacts on sediment dynamics since the beginning of anthropization at a catchment scale. Palaeoecological proxies, such as pollen identification and fire signal study, have been combined in order to evaluate the first signs of agriculture and its impacts in terms of soil erosion and related alluvial activity (deltaic progradation). Reconstructing land-use practices has revealed the first signs of agriculture approximately 7300 years ago, which is broadly consistent with the earliest archaeological traces observed in the catchment and its surroundings [55]. On the Ionian coast of the Greek mainland, several islands (Corfu, Levkas, Ithaka, Cephalonia, Meganisi and Zante) have been investigated in order to reconstruct both past sea-level changes and palaeoseismic events [56; 57]. Unfortunately, these studies are of limited archaeological interest, despite the islands having well-documented archaeological backgrounds. The most relevant coastal geoarchaeological research exists for the island of Corfu (ca. 590 km\({}^{2}\)) and was of major multidisciplinary interest in dating the transition from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to the development of Neolithic culture. In the NW part of the island, the site of Sidari is situated on a coastal cliff where, due to marine erosion, a Holocene terrestrial sedimentary sequence was revealed. The site shows an alternation between fluvial accumulation layers and soil horizons which were later studied for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction [58] and accurate dating.