The Prehistory of the Paximadi Peninsula, Euboea

Tracey Cullen, Lauren E. Talalay, Donald R. Keller, Lia Karamali & William R. Farrandy

City: Philadelphia

Year: 2013

Publisher: INSTAP Academic Press

Series: Prehistory Monographs 40

Description: Hardback, 280 p., 22 tables, 37 b/w figures, 47 b/w plates, 28.5x22 cm

Abstract

The results of two related fieldwork projects are presented: a brief salvage excavation at Plakari (a Final Neolithic site near the modern town of Karystos) and a survey of prehistoric sites on the Paximadi peninsula (the western arm of the Karystos bay), both located in southern Euboea. These ventures were part of the larger mission of the Southern Euboea Exploration Project (SEEP), a multidisciplinary research program dedicated to the study of the Karystian past and which maintained a presence in southern Euboea for over 25 years. These projects have found that, contrary to what archaeologists once believed, southern Euboea was hardly an uninhabited and isolated region in prehistory. The inhabitants actively participated in the expanded maritime and social landscape that characterized the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Aegean, taking part in exchange networks of stone, ceramics, marble figurines and vessels, and possibly agricultural goods and metalwork.

Contents

List of Tables in the Text [xi]
List of Figures [xiii]
List of Plates [xvii]
Preface [xxiii]
Acknowledgments [xxv]
Abbreviations [xxix]

1. Introduction [1]

Early Travelers to the Karystia [3]
Previous Archaeological Research [6]
The Southern Euboea Exploration Project [7]
Artifact Analysis, Chronology, and Terminology [11]

2. Landscape and Environment [15]

Topography [15]
Soils and Vegetation [17]
Climate, Water, and Wind [18]
Marine Deposits and Dunes [18]

3. Investigations at Plakari [21]

Excavation in Areas I and II [23]
Ceramics [27]
Lithics [35]
Faunal Remains [39]
Mineral Sample [40]
Summary [41]

4. The Survey [43]

Field Methodology [43]
Revisitation of Sites [46]
Limitations of the Sample [47]
Sites and Findspots [48]
Small Sites and Findspots [62]

5. Ceramic and Lithic Industries: Synthesis and Interconnections [67]

Ceramics [67]
Lithics [75]
Summary [83]

6. The Paximadi Peninsula in Broader Perspective [85]

Patterns of Prehistoric Settlement in a Marginal Landscape [85]
Interrogating the Major Sites: Signs of Emerging Social Complexity? [92]
Elsewhere in the Karystia [97]
Connections to a Wider World [104]
Out from the Shadows [109]

Appendix: Gazetteer of Prehistoric Sites and Findspots [113]
Sites [115]
Findspots [133]

References [137]
Index [153]
Figures
Plate