A digital Mediterranean countryside: GIS approaches to the spatial structure of the post-Medieval landscape on Kythera (Greece)

Mediterranean landscapes have been fragmented, connected and reformed by countless trackways, buildings and field systems. On the Greek Island of Kythera, an extensive and detailed record of such structures has been recorded as part of broader multidisciplinary investigation of the island’s long-term history by the Kythera Island Project (KIP). This rich dataset can be complemented further by KIP’s intensive archaeological and geoarchaeological surveys, offering both practical checks on existing data and insights at a greater resolution. This paper draws on this combination of material and deploys spatial analysis techniques to explore and quantify a range of issues relating to anthropogenic landscapes

Photogrammetric re-discovery of the hidden long-term landscapes of western Thessaly, central Greece

This paper introduces a novel workflow for the reconstruction of nowadays disappeared cultural landscapes based on the extraction of morphological information from historic aerial photographs. This methodology has been applied for the first time for the detection, classification and characterisation of upstanding, flattened and buried archaeological sites and various off-site ancient landscape features in the plain of Karditsa, western Thessaly. Although Thessaly has been the focus of prehistoric, and especially Neolithic, research in Greece, since the beginning of the 20th century, western Thessaly has not received as much archaeological attention and its archaeological record remains rather scanty. Moreover, an extensive land reclamation project implemented in the western Thessalian plain during the early 1970s resulted in the flattening of habitation tells and funerary sites of all periods. Thus, recognition of archaeological sites and relict landscape features becomes extremely difficult, whereas standard landscape analysis and application of mainstream Remote Sensing (RS) techniques based on multispectral satellite images are problematic. Digital photogrammetric reconstruction techniques and the subsequent GIS-based treatment of the results allowed overcoming these challenging limitations: the combined use of pre-1970s aerial photographs with later imagery provided a powerful means to reconstruct the landscape before the land reclamation process, using a workflow designed to highlight photogrammetry-derived topographic differences and multi-temporal imagery analysis. Hundreds of previously unknown mounded archaeological sites, as well as other ancient landscape traits such as roads, city grids and field systems were detected. More importantly, invaluable insights into the type and character of these archaeological features were gained, which would have been impossible to obtain by conventional RS techniques

Mediterranean polyculture revisited: olive, grape and subsistence strategies at Palaikastro, East Crete, between the Late Neolithic and Late Bronze Age

This paper examines agriculture, farming and dietary resources in east Crete, and re-evaluates the role of grape and olive in its prehistoric economy, these being key in debates on the emergence of social complexity. To do so bioarchaeological, paleoenvironmental and landscape survey data from the Bronze Age town at Palaikastro and its territory are combined. The results indicate a highly compartmentalised landscape, including intensive crop cultivation and extensive animal herding with careful monitoring to maintain productivity. A heightened specialisation in ovicaprine management at Palaikastro and east Crete seems to be delineated. Marine resources were regularly exploited from easily accessible coastal areas. Other activities included viticulture since the Early Minoan period, with the possible involvement of several houses in wine-making. A final important activity in the area was large-scale olive tree management since the Final Neolithic period and through to the Late Bronze Age, that seems to be entangled with ovicaprine herding and grazing. Thus, the demand for olive oil production does not seem to have been the driving force behind the intensification of the tree management, at least initially, but a corollary of its use in other aspects of the local economy

A digital Mediterranean countryside: GIS approaches to the spatial structure of the post-medieval landscape on Kythera (Greece)

Mediterranean landscapes have been fragmented, connected and reformed by countless trackways, buildings and field systems. On the Greek Island of Kythera, an extensive and detailed record of such structures has been recorded as part of broader multidisciplinary investigation of the island’s long-term history by the Kythera Island Project (KIP). This rich dataset can be complemented further by KIP’s intensive archaeological and geoarchaeological surveys, offering both practical checks on existing data and insights at a greater resolution. This paper draws on this combination of material and deploys spatial analysis techniques to explore and quantify a range of issues relating to anthropogenic landscapes

The discovery of the earliest specialised Middle Neolithic pottery workshop in western Thessaly, central Greece

Disparity in recorded Neolithic activity between the eastern and western Thessaly plain in central Greece is being redressed by the ‘Long Time No See’ landscape project. A recently discovered pottery kiln complex at Magoula Rizava tell site offers exciting new evidence for intra-regional pottery production and circulation during the Middle Neolithic period

Photogrammetric re-discovery of the hidden long-term landscapes of western Thessaly, central Greece

This paper introduces a novel workflow for the reconstruction of nowadays disappeared cultural landscapes based on the extraction of morphological information from historic aerial photographs. This methodology has been applied for the first time for the detection, classification and characterisation of upstanding, flattened and buried archaeological sites and various off-site ancient landscape features in the plain of Karditsa, western Thessaly. Although Thessaly has been the focus of prehistoric, and especially Neolithic, research in Greece, since the beginning of the 20th century, western Thessaly has not received as much archaeological attention and its archaeological record remains rather scanty. Moreover, an extensive land reclamation project implemented in the western Thessalian plain during the early 1970s resulted in the flattening of habitation tells and funerary sites of all periods. Thus, recognition of archaeological sites and relict landscape features becomes extremely difficult, whereas standard landscape analysis and application of mainstream Remote Sensing (RS) techniques based on multispectral satellite images are problematic. Digital photogrammetric reconstruction techniques and the subsequent GIS-based treatment of the results allowed overcoming these challenging limitations: the combined use of pre-1970s aerial photographs with later imagery provided a powerful means to reconstruct the landscape before the land reclamation process, using a workflow designed to highlight photogrammetry-derived topographic differences and multi-temporal imagery analysis. Hundreds of previously unknown mounded archaeological sites, as well as other ancient landscape traits such as roads, city grids and field systems were detected. More importantly, invaluable insights into the type and character of these archaeological features were gained, which would have been impossible to obtain by conventional RS techniques