Curtis Runnels

The earliest farmers in Europe

Some 9000 years ago the first European farmers established themselves in the empty plains of Thessaly, the only region in Greece that provided a reasonably assured harvest and was large enough for significant population growth. They flourished there and after more than a thousand years spread to the Balkans and beyond. The recognition that their success may have depended on the natural irrigation of river and lake floodplains leads us to a modified version of the wave-of-advance model of demic diffusion.

Coastal Paleogeography of the Central and Western Mediterranean during the Last 125,000 Years and Its Archaeological Implications

AbstractIn this paper we present paleogeographic maps of the central and western Mediterranean for 18,000 B.P. at the height of the last glacial maximum, and for 9,000 B.P. near the end of the rapid phase of the postglacial rise of the sea. Sea-level data for the past 125,000 years indicate that, in addition, the 18,000 B.P. map reasonably represents preceding cold stadials, while the 9,000 B.P. map depicts the configuration of intervening warm periods. The presence of large coastal plains during low stands of the sea has long been known, but their exact contours, sizes, and dates have not been widely available. Moreover, some of these coastal plains were well watered and formed important environmental components at low sea level whose existence could not have been inferred from the nature of the adjacent coasts today. Some archaeological consequences of environmental reconstructions not evident from present geography are indicated, though not elaborated, here.

A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day

This volume presents the results of the Argolid Exploration Project, an archaeological, historical and geological survey of a part of the Peloponnese of Greece. It is a study in human ecology that analyses the dynamic relationship between human communities and their environments, both cultural and natural. Before 8,000 years ago, particularly during the last Ice Age, the most important determinant of landscape evolution was climate change. However, in the last 8,000 years, human settlement and land use have had drastic effects upon the land, resulting in deforestation and erosion. For this period a cyclical pattern of settlement growth and decline that correlates with successive episodes of catastrophic damage to the soils and environment is revealed. A shorter study of the Project intended for the general reader has already been published (Beyond the Acropolis by van Andel and Runnels, Stanford, 1987), and at least two other volumes will continue to set out the findings.

Five Thousands Years of Land Use and Abuse in the Southern Argolid, Greece

O REECE is, in the main, a land of dry and barren mountains, poor in fertile, wellk3watered soil. Still, ancient authors refer repeatedly to the wooded hills and rich bottomlands of a remote past. Whether the disappearance of this lush landscape, if indeed it ever existed, was due to natural or to human causes has been debated with passion since Antiquity. Environmentalists of a pessimistic bent like to cite the eastern Mediterranean as a particularly horrifying example of what callous human disregard for the environment can bring about, while others have attributed the stripping of soil from the mountains to the severe climate of the Pleistocene.

A Prehistoric Survey of Thessaly: New Light on the Greek Middle Paleolithic

Abstract As part of a research program aimed at clarifying the date of the Middle Paleolithic in Greece and its relationship with contemporary industries in the Balkans, a survey of the Larisa area of Thessaly for Paleolithic remains was undertaken in 1987. The results of this survey are reported, along with a reinterpretation of the available evidence in Greece for the date of the Middle Paleolithic. The banks and terrace system of the Peneios River were systematically searched along with those parts of Thessaly with deposits old enough to contain prehistoric artifacts. In 1987, we discovered 32 find spots and collected211 lithic artifacts. The lithic artifacts are Middle and Upper Paleolithic types, and are dated by their association with the fluviatile deposits exposed by downcutting of the river. Radiometric dates for the fluviatile deposits indicate an age of 45–27 KYA (thousands of years ago) for the Paleolithic finds. Other dates for the Middle Paleolithic in Greece are on the same order. The Thess...

An essay on the ‘emergence of civilization’ in the Aegean world

The fascicules of the final report on Franchthi Cave in the Argolid, the key Aegean sequence for the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition, are starting to appear, along with the publications of the Stanford survey of the region. Here, those reports prompt a wider review of existing explanations for the emergence of Greek social complexity, and the identifying of a new and major impetus as the basis for a revised model.

Karstic Wetland Dwellers of Middle Palaeolithic Epirus, Greece

Abstract The coastal zone of western Greece from the Ambracian Gulf to the Albanian border is the, foreland of the great Pindos range. It is a complicated, actively rising landscape of limestone mountains and closed intra-montane basins. Archaeologically, this karst landscape is distinguished by numerous Middle Palaeolithic open-air sites embedded in the red sediments of the basins. In contrast,further inland, the river valleys of the western flank of the Pindos harbor only sparse cave and rockshelter sites of Upper Palaeolithic age. A land-use strategy in the Middle Palaeolithic focused on predictable and seasonally-dependable features of karstic origin. This long-term pattern of scheduled Neanderthal residential mobility took advantage of wetlands at fixed locations which provided essential resources such as flint, animals, and plants. As the climate deteriorated in the Upper Palaeolithic the exploitation of wetlands declined and humans turned to caves and rockshelters and the pursuit of game on the upland interfluves and in river gorges.

Flaked-Stone Artifacts in Greece during the Historical Period

AbstractThe evidence for historical flaked-stone artifacts in Greece is summarized. In recent years a number of such artifacts have been recognized in stratified deposits of the early Iron Age, the Protogeometric, Geometric, and Classical periods. Historical flaked-stone artifacts were probably used for making agricultural tools and were low-cost substitutes for metal. The evidence indicates that an ancient Greco-Roman flaking tradition may bridge the gap between the latest Bronze Age tradition and the gun-flint and threshing sledge flint knappers of recent times. An economic model of innovation is used to explain the use of stone tools after the introduction of metal.

The Palaeolithic of the Bosphorus Region NW Turkey

Abstract A survey of open-air sites in NW Turkey identified 16 Palaeolithic sites. Analysis of nearly 2000 lithics identified Lower, Middle, and Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) components. The Lower Palaeolithic is represented by a core-chopper/flake assemblage at one site and an assemblage with small bifaces at another. Middle Palaeolithic assemblages similar to the typical Balkan Mousterian were found at most sites, and an EUP assemblage similar to the Balkan Aurignacian was found on the Black Sea coast. Later Upper Palaeolithic cultures, e.g., Gravettian or Epigravettian, were not found. Palaeolithic sites were also not found in Turkish Thrace west of Büyük Çekmece, and a palaeoenvironmental barrier, perhaps a channel connecting the Marmara and Black Seas, may have existed before the Bosphorus was opened in the Holocene. A difference in the distribution of Lower-Middle Palaeolithic sites and EUP sites was also noted. EUP sites are clustered on the Black Sea coast while earlier sites are found in the interior and on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. This change in settlement pattern may support a hypothesis of cultural change between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and perhaps the replacement hypothesis for the peopling of Europe by early modern humans.

The organization of flaked stone production at bronze age Lerna

A study of nearly 12,000 lithic artifacts from Lerna was undertaken to determine if the lithics were produced by craft specialists. Analysis indicates that the production of lithics was controlled by part-time craft specialists based in individual households and not controlled by an elite central authority. The evidence of continuity in Bronze Age flintknapping does not support a hypothesis of discontinuity or cultural replacement at Lerna. Any interruptions had little effect on flintknapping technology or formal tool types. A decline in the supply of imported Melian obsidian at the end of Early Helladic III (Lerna IV) suggests an interruption of trade.