Mediterranean Soils with Particular Reference to Archaeology

Following a review ofthe Mediterranean environment and its development during the late Quaternary, eleven published papers, one paper in preparation, a book (which accompanies the thesis volume) and as yet unpublished data are presented on seven areas of the Mediterranean (in s Portugal, Sicily and Greece). The aims of the research are to consider methodologies in the study of .soils in relation to archaeology (including the relationships between soils, geomorphology and archaeology), and to consider questions of relevance to such research, including a number which have been raised, but not satisfactorily answered, in the wider literature on the Mediterranean. The research comes within the area of geoarchaeology. The studies presented cover a range of spatial scales: single soil profile and archaeological excavation context - the hillslope - river catchmentand broader region. General conclusions in respect of the questions raised include the following. 1. Significant differences in environment and soils occur between the Mediterranean and neighbouring regions arising particularly from climate, but also from other aspects of the environment and human history. Distinctively Mediterranean soils began forming in the Pleistocene or earlier; Holocene soils tend to be weakly de~eloped and similar to soils of cool temperate regions. 2. Geomorphological changes in the physical landscape during the Holocene are generally well defined, if not always well dated. 3. Evidence from much of the Mediterranean points to environmental resilience (an ability to recover from disturbance) rather than 'degradation', though some 20th and 21 st century land use pressures have caused changes that are probably significantly faster and possibly more severe than any during the Holocene. 4. The 'paradox' ofthe Mediterranean - much diversity within elements of strong regional conformity - may result in local factors in environmental change overriding major regional. In many cases, data are not available to permit more than speculation as to the relative importance of anthropogenic versus natural triggers of change during the last five millennia. Intensive, local studies are required to test assertions about major regional effects. 5. For its impact on the archaeological record, 'erosion' must be defined in terms of precise processes and their potential effects in the context of detailed conditions on the hillslope; analysis of valley alluvial sediments, though invaluable in the study of erosion history, cannot fully address these questions. 6. Geoarchaeological analysis requires close integration of archaeological, geomorphological and pedological analyses. Research applying soil information to archaeological diagnosis of excavation contexts also requires a closely integrated, multidisciplinary approach to sampling and analysis, and to intensive computer processing and advanced statistical methods of data analysis

Beyond the Argo-polis: A social archaeology of the Argolid in the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE

The focus of the present study is on the archaeological record of archaic (700-480 BCE) contexts found on mainland Greece in the region known as the Argolid. Its main concern is with interpreting the archaeological evidence in terms of human activities to arrive at a better understanding of the cultural and social developments of the archaic Argolid. From an archaeological perspective we can only speak of activities that leave some trace in the material record; here I examine writing, subsistence-related activities, and rituals. The first chapter deals with inscriptional evidence, attempting to monitor, through the use of writing, the impact of literacy upon Argolic society. Part I shows how the use of perishables can influence our perceptions of the role of early writing in Greece. Parts II and III assess the kinds of literacy that existed, and the areas of society that were literate, within archaic society, particularly within Argolic society. In the second chapter the survey evidence is given priority, since as many as three Argolic surveys have recently been published. The discussion centres on the exploitation of the landscape by means of agricultural, non-agricultural, and maritime activities, as a way of generating a clearer picture of the region's social organisation. The third chapter places emphasis on excavation material in an attempt to observe ritual activities in Argolic society. Part I concentrates on rituals of a communal nature, in honour of divinities; Part II deals with funerary rituals, mainly the burial evidence. Both aim to gain insight into the social structures that motivated the ritual system. An index of sites (Appendix A) accompanies the main text, providing bibliographic and descriptive material for each individual site. Two more appendices (B and C) can be consulted for an overview of metal objects and the location of cults whose divinities are known

Ancient Greek pottery workshops in their rural landscape setting. Exploring the intersection between production, environment, society and agrarian economy

The thesis aims to investigate pottery production in the rural taskscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic Greek world, focusing on how the environmental and socio-economic settings influenced the locational choices of the kiln sites in the landscape. It also aims to explore the spatial and seasonal connections of pottery making with other economic activities and how these connections create a taskscape for humans living and working in the Greek countryside. The analysis focuses on three regions of the ancient Greek world: the chora of Metaponto in Basilicata, southern Italy; the Berbati Valley in Argolid, Peloponnese; the island of Thasos, northern Aegean. They have different geomorphological and topographical settings to explore the location and affordability of resources for pottery production in different natural settings and the influence on the decision-making of the people involved in pottery production and other tasks. For each regional case study, the geomorphology and palaeoenvironment are studied to assess the availability of resources and reconstruct the vegetation landscape and the agrarian economic activities. In addition, pottery production sites are examined to determine kiln technology, the scale of production and the type of ceramic products. The application of a GIS-based approach with spatial analysis methods enables us to understand the social dimension of landscape. The Cost Distance and Least-Cost Path analysis is integrated with the calculations of labour costs for the transportation of raw materials and provides further information on the effort of movement in the land; it also assesses the temporality of the pottery manufacturing-related tasks and its combination with the seasonality of the agricultural works. The Least-Cost Path also reveals the links between pottery production sites and rural sites in the territory, and the importance of the communication networks for the movement of people, resources and ceramic products. The thesis demonstrates that the rural Greek world was not only centred on the agrarian economy but it was a more holistic world, where people were engaged in different activities tightly entangled with each other. Pottery production in the rural countryside was usually a small-scale activity focused on local distribution for everyday life. Indeed, utilitarian wares, roof tiles, and votive terracottas for rural sanctuaries were produced. The organisation of the workshop space and the energetics of the logistics of pottery production suggest that labour in the small rural workshops was part-time and not specialised, and workshop facilities could be shared by multiple part-time potters. However, there were also some large-scale production sites, such as Pantanello, where the large kilns, the organisation of the workshop, and the energy calculations suggest the employment of full-time labour, with an additional part-time workforce for the busiest firing months. Nevertheless, the ceramic products are still aimed for local distribution. The exception is the workshops of Thasos that produced amphorae part of which were stamped and aimed for overseas export. Finally, the spatial analysis approach demonstrated that the location of pottery production sites was entangled with the accessibility to raw materials, such as clay and fuel, and the presence of roads and pathways

Negotiating space: routes of communication in Roman to British Colonial Cyprus

Offering a social approach to landscape through the systematic study of communication routes, this study redresses the balance between previous social, historical and data driven archaeological studies of roads, paths and communication routes, while providing landscape survey projects with the techniques through which to address social interaction on a regional scale. Research on roads, paths and communication routes completed over the past 50 years focuses on the technology of road building, descriptive historical accounts of roads, and anthropological investigations that focus mainly on the role of communication routes in movement, memory and landscape. Unlike these previous studies, this research addresses communication routes as socially embedded material culture. Since the 1970s many archaeologists working in the Mediterranean have employed regional survey techniques in order to investigate broader patterns of human activity in the landscape. Communication routes are notoriously absent from these survey projects. Interaction is instead extrapolated from topographical information and sherd densities. In the current climate of landscape archaeology where interdisciplinary regional survey projects employ ever more complex and insightful GIS systems in the attempt to understand social landscapes, the absence of communication data appears glaringly obvious. Within this thesis I argue that the importance of roads and paths goes beyond the places they may or may not connect or intersect. Instead, roads and paths are products of daily practices that reaffirm, redefine and reproduce social and cultural relations. Through the intensive survey of communication routes in three distinct regions in Cyprus, (North Palekhori, Mandres and the Akamas Peninsula Survey Zones), I gained a greater understanding of the interplay between human activity, expressions of identity, land use and settlement from the Roman to the British Colonial period. iii Although the morphology and structural features of roads, paths and communication routes vary between these survey zones the underlying themes involved in the construction, maintenance and use of communication routes cut across geography and time. This thesis pushes the boundaries of landscape archaeology and survey methodologies to address: human-land relations, traditions of road and path building, the role of roads and paths in the negotiation of power and the entwined nature of communication routes and perceptions of landscape

The Historiography of Landscape Research on Crete

This study aimed to construct a historiography of archaeological landscape research on the island of Crete and evaluate the knowledge acquired through different approaches of over more than a century's intense archaeological work. It provides a detailed analysis of relevant projects, which are seen within a wider historical framework of archaeological landscape research from the beginnings of the discipline (19th century) to the present day. The five major 'traditions; ore else 'approaches' of studying past landscapes that are identified, demonstrate certain common attributes in questions asked, methodology followed and interpretative suggestions. Analysis, however, has shown that these 'traditions' have been in a continuous interplay and have each their own limitations as well as worthy contribution to the study of the Cretan past. The assessment of archaeological landscape work on Crete concluded on the need to be explicit regarding 1) the relationship between data and interpretations and 2) on the kind of information we need to produce and publish from landscape research so that we promote archaeological knowledge and allow a higher lever of communication within the archaeological communityDissertati

The historiography of landscape research on Crete

This study aimed to construct a historiography of archaeological landscape research on the island of Crete and evaluate the knowledge acquired through different approaches of over more than a century’s intense archaeological work. It provides a detailed analysis of relevant projects, which are seen within a wider historical framework of archaeological landscape research from the beginnings of the discipline (19th century) to the present day. The five (5) major ‘traditions’ or else ‘approaches’ of studying past landscapes that are identified, demonstrate certain common attributes in questions asked, methodology followed and interpretative suggestions. Analysis, however, has shown that these ‘traditions’ have been in a continuous interplay and have each their own limitations as well as worthy contribution to the study of the Cretan past. The assessment of archaeological landscape work on Crete and the use of landscape data in a case study area for the historical reconstruction of human activity, concluded on the need to be explicit regarding 1) the relationship between data and interpretations and 2) the kind of information we need to produce and publish from landscape research so that we promote archaeological knowledge and allow a higher level of communication within the archaeological community.LEI Universiteit LeidenSaripoleio Foundation, School of Philosophy, University of AthensClassical and Mediterranean Archaeolog

Rural landscapes along the Vardar Valley: two site-less surveys near Veles and Skopje, the Republic of Macedonia

The two small-scale and hyper-intensive surface artifact surveys presented in this study were the first glimpse of the type and distribution of settlement on a parish level and in a rural context, in the regions along the Vardar Valley. Not attempting to offer a representative coverage of the region as a whole or of certain types of micro-geographic entities, the surveys were rather concentrated on 1) reconstructing the long-term history of individual settlements (by means of highly intensive and systematic survey coverage and careful study of the ceramic fabrics); 2) understanding the integral set of habitation practices (by adopting a site-less approach in the interpretation of the surface artifact scatters) and 3) exploring the type of micro-topographic elements preferred by the local farming communities (the concept of settlement niche). The study and interpretation of the field data faced us with the problem of understanding the settlement dynamic on a micro-level, but it also brought up a series of interpretative and methodological problems inherent to all studies of surface archaeological material.Classical & Mediterranean Archaeolog