Archaeological geophysics of a Bronze Age agricultural landscape: the AROURA Project, central mainland Greece

Lane, Michael F.; Horsley, Timothy J.; Charami, Alexandra; Bittner, Weston S.

doi:10.1080/08869634.2016.1176375

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Further encouraging examples of geophysical prospection at other contexts include the town surrounding the palatial complex at Dimini (Sarris et al 2002), the Mycenaean fortress of Gla (Maggidis 2010), the hydraulic management systems in the polder surrounding Gla (Lane et al 2016), and the multi-method prospections of the densely settled Bronze and Iron Age site of Mitrou (Tsokas et al 2012b). An early application of magnetometry alongside the excavations at the Menelaion near Sparta in 1974 and 1975, however, was not found to be helpful in locating archaeological remains, despite the detection of possible wall remains south of the excavation (Jones 2009).…”

Section: Previous Geophysical Research At Ayios Vasileios and Other Mycenaean Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A palace under the olive trees. Investigating the spatial organization of the Mycenaean palatial center at Ayios Vasileios (Laconia, Greece) through large-scale magnetic gradiometry

Neef

Voutsaki

Ullrich³

et al. 2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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The results of a large-scale magnetometry survey are used to investigate two key aspects of the spatial organization of the Mycenaean palatial settlement at Ayios Vasileios (Laconia, Greece): the extent of the site and the existence, or possibly even zoning of distinct functional areas. These include the palatial core, funerary zones, industrial areas, and infrastructure. The unique situation at Ayios Vasileios, which remained relatively undisturbed after its abandonment, provides the possibility to explore the potential, limitations, and challenges of spatial research based on geophysical data of a prehistoric urban context. We do so by engaging different sources of information: geophysical contrasts mapped by our own and previous surveys, information from the excavations of the palatial core and the adjacent North Cemetery, preliminary observations on surface materials, and wider scholarship on Mycenaean palatial settlement. This dialogue between the disciplines enables us to problematize the interpretation of non-invasive geophysical prospection data and to check our implicit assumptions. Taking into account the different resolutions of these interdisciplinary sources, we formulate hypotheses about the layout and organization of the site which we hope to substantiate in the future by comparing against the surface data and the progress of the excavation.

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Section: Previous Geophysical Research At Ayios Vasileios and Other Mycenaean Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A palace under the olive trees. Investigating the spatial organization of the Mycenaean palatial center at Ayios Vasileios (Laconia, Greece) through large-scale magnetic gradiometry

Neef

Voutsaki

Ullrich³

et al. 2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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“…Settlement expansion in the 14th and 13th centuries BC, particularly in "palatially" controlled territories, appears to be associated with an interest in expanding cultivated land (Weiberg et al 2019). Major infrastructure projects probably facilitated this expansion, for example, the partial drainage of the Kopaïs basin (Aravantinos et al 2006;Lane et al 2016Lane et al , 2020 and possibly also of the Nemea Valley (Cherry and Davis 2001). The most important of these settlements, socially and politically, are located on either flat ground or small hills (up to 300 m), which combine easy access to the surrounding land and defensibility (Malaperdas and Zacharias 2018).…”

Section: Settlement Patterns and Demographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

et al. 2021

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The Late Bronze Age (1700–900 BC) represents an extremely dynamic period for Mediterranean Europe. Here, we provide a comparative survey of the archaeological record of over half a millennium within the entire northern littoral of the Mediterranean, from Greece to Iberia, incorporating archaeological, archaeometric, and bioarchaeological evidence. The picture that emerges, while certainly fragmented and not displaying a unique trajectory, reveals a number of broad trends in aspects as different as social organization, trade, transcultural phenomena, and human mobility. The contribution of such trends to the processes that caused the end of the Bronze Age is also examined. Taken together, they illustrate how networks of interaction, ranging from the short to the long range, became a defining aspect of the “Middle Sea” during this time, influencing the lives of the communities that inhabited its northern shore. They also highlight the importance of research that crosses modern boundaries for gaining a better understanding of broad comparable dynamics.

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“…Building the dykes on either side of the canals involved moving an estimated 2 million cubic meters of earth and 250,000 cubic meters of stone. The total amount of land reclaimed was approximately 1,500 hectares (Knauss, Heinrich, and Kalcyk 1984;Knauss 1987;Iakovidis 2001;Kountouri et al 2012;Lane et al 2016Lane et al , 2020. Recent work by the AROURA and MYNEKO projects has suggested that the drainage works in the Kopais are 300 to 400 years older than the fortification works at Gla, which are traditionally dated to LH IIIB1 (Lane et al 2016).…”

Section: Contest and Confrontation In The Plains Of Boeotiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Societies in Transition in Early Greece

Knodell¹

2021

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IllustrationsFIGURES 1. Nested (but often overlapping) scales of social and spatial units 20 2. Line graph and table of number of sites by period, by region, in central Greece 44 3. Comparative sizes of Mycenaean palaces 72 4. Some lesser-known tholoi of central Greece 87 5. LH IIIC pottery with seafaring, siege, and feasting scenes 130 6. Toumba building and cemetery at Lefkandi 163 7. Examples of Geometric pottery with early writing and figural scenes 221 MAPS xiv Preface and Acknowledgementsto the Mediterranean? How can archaeological analysis cross these scales? How do the trajectories of early Greek societies relate to those of other human groups (or not)? These questions are necessarily broad, and in this book I have aimed to address them in a way that will resonate with archaeologists interested in other parts of the world as well. With this in mind, I set out to write an archaeological history relevant to people working in a variety of disciplinary traditions-archaeologists and historians of ancient Greece, as well as anthropological archaeologists concerned with the broader archaeology of complex societies.The arguments in this book are built on the achievements of generations of previous scholars. I hope to do justice to their work in discussing it here, incorporating it into new analyses or visualizations, or reframing it in new interpretations. Even if I am in occasional disagreement with these scholars, I have tremendous respect for the efforts of fieldwork, interpretation, and publication that have allowed for the type of synthesis presented here. This book deals with a broad range of evidence and ideas, and it is inevitable that I have gotten some of it wrong. There are certainly sites, discoveries, or interpretations that I have overlooked, and the relevant dataset is ever evolving. Nevertheless, I hope to have provided some new insights concerning early Greece and the Mediterranean world, in ways that will be useful to other scholars as well.My interests in early Greece and the archaeology of complex societies were fos-

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Archaeological geophysics of a Bronze Age agricultural landscape: the AROURA Project, central mainland Greece

Cited by 7 publications

References 21 publications

A palace under the olive trees. Investigating the spatial organization of the Mycenaean palatial center at Ayios Vasileios (Laconia, Greece) through large-scale magnetic gradiometry

A palace under the olive trees. Investigating the spatial organization of the Mycenaean palatial center at Ayios Vasileios (Laconia, Greece) through large-scale magnetic gradiometry

Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

Societies in Transition in Early Greece

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