There are numerous reports of ancient human constructions (i) offset a
nd destroyed by seismic surface faulting, or (ii) with small displacem
ents along horizontal discontinuities testifying to high acceleration
effects, or (iii) containing destruction layers below which skeletons
of people killed and buried by fallen debris have been found. In these
cases, destructions can safely be assigned to earthquakes that can be
dated with stylistic archaeological techniques.In coastal areas, on t
he other hand, identification of exposed species of the sublittoral zo
ne that have escaped erosion in the mid-littoral or supralittoral zone
s testify to quick, probably co-seismic uplifts, which can be dated wi
th conventional or AMS radiometric techniques. The amplitude of these
uplifts is up to 9 m in the Hellenic are, and more than 1 m in the Aeg
ean back-arc basin. Finally, two cases of seismic faulting deduced fro
m auger core study of the Holocene stratigraphy are reported. Identifi
cation of such palaeoseismic effects has important implications for es
timation of recurrence intervals and maximum magnitude of seismic shoc
ks in study areas.