Soil and bedrock mapping

Principal Investigators:
Charles Frederick (Independent)
Nancy Krahtopoulou (Sheffield)

  This involved a two person team investigating three specific zones of the archaeological survey area: the Mitata plateau, and the basins of Livadi and Palaiopolis.

One of the aims was to map the bedrock and soils of these areas in more detail than the existing 1:50,000 IGME map. The latter is a first approximation of reality but clearly, if the main aim is to make solid inferential linkages between land use/settlement and variables like the bedrock geology, a more detailed map is required. For example, in Palaiopolis, the IGME map does not show a sizeable outcrop of Neogene or Pleistocene gravel that denotes the re-establishment of the ancestral Palaiopolis river following Neogene transgression. This deposit consists of interbedded gravels and fluvial muds, many of which may have served as a source for pottery production in more than one period. The same deposit underlies Kastri, and on the opposite side of the valley it is over 40 m thick, several km long and almost 1km wide. Quaternary alluvial deposits throughout the survey area are also heavily underpresented.