I visited Butrint Archeological Site yesterday in southern Albania and saw that the ancient city is buried by at least 2 or 3 metres of earth, that archeologists are excavating to uncover the site.
What is the mechanism for these ancient cities becoming so buried in a relatively short amount of time?
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Imagine a car that’s parked outside, somewhere in nature, not even necessarily under a tree. If the car doesn’t get.used, moved, cleaned or in any way cared for, dust will settle in the nooks and crannies, creating more and more areas where seeds can germinate and plants can grow. Moss is starting to build up, creating even more biomass until the car is hardly recognizable.
The same goes for any structure in nature. The wind brings dust, seeds, leaves etc. The biomass adds up over the years, decades centuries, millennia. After such long time, nature has taken over and covered everything.
Plants.
Plants grow through roads, over buildings etc. Soil is the broken down remains of plants that grew in that location.
There’s lots of different ways this can happen:
– Dust can blow in on the breeze and settle in the corners providing a place for seeds to settle, grow and drop leaves which rot into dirt (similar to how you’d get dust in your home and garden if you didn’t clean, but over much longer time)
– Animals can bring in nesting materials which decompose in the buildings and animal poop also turns to dirt after a while – they like to nest and hang out in abandoned buildings because they’re sheltered from wind and rain within the walls.
– A layer or two can be created by the roof or upper floors disintegrating.
– Big weather events can blow in deep layers of leaves which rot
– Particularly in desert environments sand or dust storms bring in dirt which is never cleaned up from abandoned buildings
– Major events like rainstorms, floods or tsunamis can wash mud from surrounding land which settles in buildings because the walls slow the flow of water so much that it doesn’t have the energy to carry out the dirt it washes in – or if the flood leads to standing water the water can evaporate over time leaving the dirt behind
– Volcanic eruptions can spew dust and ash into the air which then fall on the buildings – sometimes enough to cover a whole city in just a day or two (this is how Pompeii got buried)
Edit: fixed some punctuation
This is a common question I hear.
First it is a bit of observation bias. You don’t pay attention to the things that aren’t buried, that are laying on top of the ground. Over the years, the things that are on top of the ground have already been collected and cataloged.
Mostly though, plant growth will cover the objects. Plants grow up, over the items, then fall back or drop leaves. Over several years, you’ve got a layer of decayed plant material (soil) over the object.
ALso grasses expand outwards….and I’m willing to bet you’ve seen this. Ever notice a sidewalk getting overrun at the edges with grass? Homeowners will “edge” the sidewalk and remove a few years of growth that the grass has expanded over.
I laid down a paver in my yard 20 years ago. I’ve been watching it. If I didn’t know where it was I’d never know it was there, the grass has virtually covered it.
When we got our current house it had been empty for five years. While digging just outside the back door I discovered we had a patio – it had vanished under two inches of fallen leaves that had turned to mulch. Structures can get buried very quickly.
It all depends on the local environment. Is it depositional, or erosional? Sediments can be deposited by wind or water, burying the ruin and thereby preserving it.
Erosional environments will ultimately erode the ruin along with surrounding materials, removing the room from the archaeological record.
There is a lot of survivor bias at work, here.
I have seen both types in action.
The whole wind and dust theory does not work
Easter island is completely isolated out on the ocean and their statues are half buried. There was no dust to be blown in.
Also, Erosion always gravitates downwards, suggesting dust building up on top structures goes against general laws of physics. There is a reason we do not have to wash the roofs of our homes.
So how did it happen? **We do not know.**
However, theories about volcano ejaculate are definitely plausible, but we should be able to identify this volcanic soil/dust quite easily.
If you look at photos from the 1800s, you will come across hundreds of partially buried structures
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