Strabo ahead of his time by nearly 2,000 years

Chalk up another win for the ancient Greeks. The Greek historian and geographer Strabo wrote nearly 2,000 years ago that Piraeus, a small peninsula near Athens, had once been an island--and a new study in this month's issue of Geology shows he was right.

To test out whether Strabo's claim was true, researchers took sediment samples from the area. Using radiocarbon dating to determine how old different layers of the soil were and analyzing the remains of ancient microorganisms trapped in the soil, the researchers reconstructed the ancient environment of the strip connecting Piraeus to the mainland.

While Piraeus was a peninsula 8,000 years ago, the researchers found, rising sea levels had flooded the land linking it to Athens. Sure enough, by about 6,000 years ago, Piraeus was an island....