Site integrity and geomorphology
Principal Investigators:
Charles Frederick (Independent)
Nancy Krahtopoulou (Sheffield)
| Quarry section revealing Second
Palace walls and a pit (Site 027). Surface remains in this area
were limited due to quarrying and the site was identified through
geoarchaeological prospection. Photography by C. Broodbank 2000. |
Geoarchaeological survey adds a new loop to the process of site identification.
The methods are deliberately different from typical intensive line-walking
(see the Archaeological Survey section from the above menu), and place
greater emphasis on exploiting informative 'windows’ on the
landscape (standing sections, high visibility areas, particularly
dynamic geomorphological zones, etc.). This has led to the recognition
of certain site categories whose detection by standard survey methods
is problematic.
i. lithic sites dominated by local cherts and quartzes — although
such materials are found during normal survey, they represent a low-visibility
type for fieldwalkers more attuned to recognising pottery and obsidian.
ii. steep slope sites in areas that would require contour terracing
if their vicinity were to be cultivated. These are almost always encountered
in road sections, often in areas unsuitable for regular field-walking,
and are conspicuously post-prehistoric (mainly Classical to Late Roman)
in date.
iii. sites along the Palaiopolis river, revealed in its bank where
it emerges from bedrock confinement onto its primary alluvial plain
ca.1.5km upstream of Kastri. During the winter floods of 2000, the
outer cut-bank was intensively scoured, revealing our first glimpse
of the late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits of this large and
very active river.
| Environs map of Site 028 (5x5m
collection grid shown in centre). Notes made on the geoarchaeological
assessment forms use this map as a reference point. |
Within the three broad geoarchaeological study zones, small-scale
site environs mapping was also conducted to assess the contextual
integrity of sites identified during survey. At a general level, these
evaluations provided useful new information on the nature and integrity
of the deposits at some 70 survey sites, and integrated the geoarchaeological
work with the survey in a manner uncommon, if not unique, in Aegean
archaeology.
These evaluations are designed to assess preservation and contextual
integrity, and to search, on a microscale, for places where occupational
materials may lie buried or undetected by the pedestrian survey. They
involve detailed examination of all vertical exposures within about
a 100m radius of each site, as well as more detailed geomorphological
mapping (geoarchaeological site assessment
form).
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