Gourimadi Archaeological Project. The results from the first excavation season

Abstract

The Norwegian Institute at Athens received a permit from the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports in 2018 to conduct a five-year excavation project at the site of Gourimadi in southern Euboea. The first field season, conducted in June 2018, lasted for four weeks during which two trenches were opened at the site and partially excavated by a Norwegian-Greek team of researchers and students. The aim of the project is to understand the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in this part of the Aegean in the light of emerging regional maritime interaction networks and lasting settlement of the Cycladic islands. In addition, data collected from both the surface and excavation indicate that Gourimadi can contribute potentially crucial information needed for examining the Aegean prehistoric obsidian exchange and the introduction of metallurgy in the same region. Finally, the project is the first systematic (i.e. non-rescue) excavation of a prehistoric site in southern Euboea. The 2018 excavation confirmed our expectations about the importance of the site and has added to our understanding of prehistoric Euboea and the Aegean. The paper contains a brief preliminary but comprehensive report of the 2018 Gourimadi Archaeological Project results.