Archaeology of the Ionian Sea

Landscapes, seascapes and the circulation of people, goods and ideas from the Palaeolithic to end of the Bronze Age

Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, Christina Papoulia, Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, Christina Papoulia

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781789256741
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Greek Ancient History
• Index: Social Sciences

Presents a thematic collection of papers dealing with the Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeology of the Ionian Sea, situated off the south western Balkan peninsula. It is based on an international conference held in Athens, Greece in January 2020. The eastern Ionian occupies a geographically complex area, which since the Pleistocene has undergone significant alterations due to tectonic activity and sea-level fluctuations. This dynamic environment, where islands, mainland, and sea intertwined to present different landscapes and seascapes to the human communities exploring the region at different times in the past, provides an ideal setting for their study from a diachronic perspective. This book deals thematically with the processes of circulation of people, materials, artefacts and ideas by examining patterns of settlement, burial and multi-layered interconnections between the different communities via land and sea. It investigates aspects of regional and interregional communication, isolation, collective memory and the creation of distinct identities within and between different cultural and social groups. It focuses on the islands of the Central Ionian Sea, offering new data from excavations and surveys on Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaki and the smaller islands of the Inner Ionian Archipelago between Lefkada and Akarnania. The cultural interchange between the islands and the continental coasts is reflected in the volume with the addition of chapters dealing with contemporary sites in west Greece and southeast Italy. The Ionian, often regarded as 'at the fringes' of the Aegean, the Balkan and the central Mediterranean archaeological discourse, has lately offered new and exciting data that not only enrich but also alter our perceptions of mobility, settlement and interaction. The collection of papers in this book enhances theoretical discussions by offering a geographically and culturally comparative approach, ranging from the earliest Palaeolithic evidence of human presence in the region to the end of the Bronze Age.

PART B

PREHISTORY

1

Lithics as diachronic proxies for the circulation of people and ideas in the dynamic Ionian landscape

Christina Papoulia

The dynamic Ionian seascapes and coastscapes together with the – now submerged – landscapes have significantly influenced human adaptations, mobility networks and economic activities with multifaceted implications in terms of socio-cultural organisation in each and every part of prehistory, from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. Lithics, the most well preserved archaeological find perpetually used in the history of our species since the earliest of times, although abundant in the Ionian region, have not been adequately included in the historical narrative of west Greece. Surveys, excavated open-air sites and caves from the Ionian islands and the opposite Epirotic and Akarnanian coasts have yielded a plethora of lithic collections able to provide significant clues about the way people moved across the land and the sea west of the Pindus mountain range, about the transportation of goods and the transmission of ideas. By examining the lithics as proxies for the circulation of people and ideas, it is possible to explore the diachronic and reciprocally transformative relationship between human agency and the sea, the critical role of coastal environments in the formation of small and extended networks of cultural and economic exchange and the implications in terms of behavioural, cognitive and social transformations within prehistoric communities and between them. This needs to be done through a holistic approach including macroscopic and microscopic analysis of the technology, the use-wear patterns and potential residues, geochemical study of imported materials and GIS analytic techniques.

Keywords: lithics; Stone Age; Palaeolithic; Mesolithic; Neolithic; Bronze Age; maritime activities; microwear and residue analysis; procurement networks; GIS.

Introduction

Along with people travel goods and ideas. Nowadays we may employ unmanned vessels to explore the Red Planet, yet for most part of our evolutionary past the human body was the only means of transport. Once bipedal locomotion allowed a novel relationship between hands and brains, thoughts were externalised in the form of shaped objects and the capacity to make tools evolved (Hoffecker 2011). Similarly, once it became possible to travel much farther than the physical body allowed, a radically new relationship with the environment was born. This dynamic interplay is inscribed in the Stone Age archaeological record, albeit that its fragmentary nature presents substantial interpretative challenges.

Lithics, in particular knapped stone tools, are the only well preserved archaeological artefacts testifying activities of the genus Homo since about 3.3 million years ago (Harmand et al. 2015). Ground stone tools, although traditionally associated with the development of a Neolithic mode of production, appear in the Balkans and Italy from at least the late Upper Palaeolithic (Stroulia 2010; Cristiani et al. 2012; Stepanova 2020), while use-wear and/or residues has been observed on the surfaces of grinding tools found in Middle Palaeolithic contexts (e.g. Pawlik and Thissen 2017), and percussion tools (hammer stones) were used for knapping since the Lower Palaeolithic.

Stone tools, being directly related to prevalent socio-cultural changes, serve as cultural markers that inscribe ‘road signs’ (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 2013) on the landscape by reflecting places of short or long term stasis. Thus, they are key proxies for a diachronic approach into the scrutiny of mobility routes and cultural interconnections, both on land and across the sea. By examining lithics as proxies for the circulation of both people and ideas in a geographically dynamic place, where in the longue durée landscapes transform into seascapes (and vice versa) it is possible to explore the diachronic relationship between human communities and the sea. This relationship is reciprocally transformative revealing important implications in terms of behavioural, cognitive and social transformations within prehistoric communities and between them.

It is also possible to explore the critical role of coastal environments in the formation of small and extended networks of cultural and economic exchange. The procurement of raw materials and the exploitation of marine resources, the subsistence strategies, settlement patterns and migration through terrestrial or marine routes, as well as the overall relationship between prehistoric communities and the sea, are firmly related to the geomorphology and the geographic configuration of coastal zones. The importance of the coast and the effect of sea level fluctuations on the archaeology of prehistoric foragers has, during the last decade, regained the necessary academic attention (e.g. Bicho et al. 2011; Bailey et al. 2020). Thus, by tracing the most ‘persistent’ archaeological artefact we may be able to stipulate a diachronic tale of human activity in the region under study, the Ionian.

Figure 1.1. Regional geotectonic features of the south Balkan peninsula drawn on an image from Google Earth (2020). Stars indicate volcanos of the Hellenic Volcanic Arc.

Why the Ionian?

A most dynamic landscape and seascape

The Ionian is characterised by an intense seismo-tectonic activity, one of the highest in the Mediterranean. The Ionian islands are submitted to a compressional tectonic regime due to the African plate, the Eurasian plate and the Aegean microplate (cf. Styles et al., this volume). The Ionian margin is the western end of the Hellenides mountain belt (Fig. 1.1). In the deep geological history of the region, the Pindus mountains were progressively uplifted and the large coastal basins to the west were gradually submerged. Pindus mountain range is today an impressive physical barrier of about 160 km with a maximum elevation of more than 2600 m, dividing in a longitudinal manner the south Balkan peninsula. The Kefalonia Transform Fault, an important tectonic structure affecting mostly the south-central Ionian islands, is responsible for the significant land uplifts at the west shores of Lefkada and separates the south tectonically active part of the Hellenic Arc from the inactive part to the north (Sachpazi et al. 2000; Sakellariou and Galanidou 2016; 2017).

The Pleistocene geography of the region was significantly different than today with an important part of the archaeology associated with the Palaeolithic period remaining hidden below the current sea level (Tourloukis 2010; Papoulia 2013; Sakellariou and Galanidou 2016; 2017; Galanidou et al. 2020). Since then, the natural environment has been constantly altered due to climate change and the associated sea level fluctuations recurrently connected or fragmented the land turning islands into continental coasts or separating them into smaller locales (Sordinas 1983; Ferentinos et al. 2012; Zavitsanou et al. 2015; Evelpidou et al. 2017).

Geological and geotectonic processes connected the north Ionian islands to the west part of mainland Greece creating a unified whole for most of the Pleistocene. Thus, any Palaeolithic evidence of human presence on the islands of Corfu, Lefkada, Meganisi and Kythros is indicative of moving across the landscape exclusively via terrestrial routes (Papagianni 2000; Galanidou et al. 2016; Galanidou et al., this volume). On the other hand, a rise in the sea level due to climatic fluctuations since the early Holocene (10,000 years before present) suggests that the available accounts of a Mesolithic presence at the Sidari shell midden, Corfu (Sordinas 2003), for example, are strong evidence not only of the exploitation of the locally available aquatic resources but also of the available marine routes.

The importance of palaeo-shoreline reconstructions for archaeological interpretations has been well demonstrated (Flemming et al. 2014; Sakellariou and Galanidou 2016; 2017; Bailey et al. 2017; 2020). However, the difficulty in reconstructing them lies on the many idiosyncratic regional features resulting from local tectonic conditions. To provide adequate bathymetric data entails costly fieldwork that may not always be possible. Nevertheless, during the last decade two projects aimed to reconstruct the Pleistocene shorelines of the central Ionian region. Work done by the Geology Department of the University of Patras (Ferentinos et al. 2012) and by the University of Crete, in collaboration with the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Zavitsanou et al. 2015; Galanidou et al. in prep.) provide the essential background for any archaeological interpretations associated with seaward mobility patterns during the Pleistocene. In later prehistoric periods, palaeo-shoreline reconstructions are less problematic yet, again, not straightforward with one of the main questions being the identification of palaeo-harbours (Styles et al., this volume).

It is, thus, clear that the dynamic seascapes and the now submerged landscapes of the Ionian region have significantly influenced human adaptations, mobility networks and economic activities with multifaceted implications in terms of socio-cultural organisation in each and every part of prehistory.

A rich lithics dataset

Lithics as miscellaneous finds

Lithics have been collected from the Ionian islands since the end of the 19th century. The first discoveries of flake tools by Italian geologists in a plain near Cape Yerakas, southeast Zakynthos (Fig. 1.2b) were classified as scrapers and knives and attributed to the Palaeolithic due to their technological characteristics and the state of preservation (Issel and Agamennone 1894, 15). Since the dawn of the 20th century, the Ionian was a principal arena for the search of Homeric Ithaca, with Wilhelm Dörpfeld’s monumental excavations setting the scene (Dörpfeld 1927; Souyoudzoglou-Haywood 2019 inter alia). Peter Goessler, an archaeologist familiar with the Palaeolithic industries of nothwest Europe and the study methodology of lithic artefacts, collaborated with Dörpfeld (1927) for the publication of the first detailed account of the Neolithic and Bronze Age assemblages from Lefkada. Later, Sylvia Benton and Walter Heurtley, having the adequate academic background, were able to record and value the significance of lithic artefacts in the course of their research under the auspices of the British School at Athens. Benton (1931–32), in particular, visited most of the Ionian islands (Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaca, Lefkada, Meganisi, Arkoudi, Atokos, Kalamos) and the opposite coasts of Aitoloakarnania in order to identify as many sites as possible, yet only a small part of her findings were published.

During the first decades of archaeological investigations the material collected from the islands was mostly part of Bronze Age or Late Neolithic assemblages. However, the study of lithics remained for decades a supplementary analytical tool. Priority was given to the investigation of Mycenaean antiquities with material studies concentrating on ceramics, metals and architectural remains. Nevertheless, the presence of imported obsidian and the possible Melian origin of the specimens was a matter of scrutiny since the inter-war years (Benton 1931–32; Heurtley 1934–35). Sporadic obsidian artefacts and an ‘obsidian factory’ discovered by Benton at Loutraki, southeast Kefalonia, were just an exception in a place she otherwise described as ‘flint country’ (1931–32, 222). Obviously, the amounts of naturally occuring siliceous material and the myriads of knapped stone artefacts could not be overlooked. In due course, systematic archaeological investigations from most of the Ionian islands yielded an array of lithics, both knapped and ground stone, spanning the Palaeolithic to the end of the Bronze Age.

Figure 1.2. The Central and East Mediterranean (a) and the Ionian region (b) with the Pleistocene cave sites and the open-air sites mentioned in the text annotated.

Sordinas’s legacy

From the mid-1960s, at a time when the Greek Palaeolithic was almost totally unknown, Ionian prehistoric research was marked by the pio...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part A. Island Archaeology
• Part B. Prehistory
• Part C. The Late Bronze Age
• Appendix: Continuity in the material culture of Kefalonia: from the Late Bronze Age to the historical period in Drakaina cave by Agathi Karadima