Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece : Site, Environs, and Techniques.
Title:
Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece : Site, Environs, and Techniques.
Author:
Rapp, George.
ISBN:
9780816655144
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (368 pages)
Series:
Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece ; v.1
Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece
Contents:
Table of Contents -- 1. Introduction -- The Chronological Framework -- Microregion and Environment -- The Site -- Stratigraphy -- The Excavation -- The Excavation House and "On-Site" Specialists -- 2. The Holocene Environmental History of the Nichoria Region -- The Written Record -- The Hydrologic Regime -- The Meteorological Regime -- Vegetation History -- Geomorphic Change -- Conclusions -- 3. The Physiographic Setting -- The Regional Physiography -- The Topography of the Ridge -- The Early Holocene Topography of the Ridge -- 4. Soil Formation -- Soil-Forming Factors -- Field Studies -- Trends of Soil Development -- A Correlation of Soil and Archaeological Interpretations -- Glossary -- 5. Modern Vegetation and Fossil Plant Remains -- Historical Aspects of the Vegetation -- The Local Setting -- Charcoal and Seed Analysis -- Results and Discussion -- 6. Zooarchaeology of Nichoria -- Materials and Methods -- Description of Species -- Chronological Summary of Animal Remains -- A Dark Age Small Vertebrate Assemblage -- Conclusions -- 7. Nichoria and Vicinity: Settlements and Circulation -- The Geographical Setting -- The Problem of Archaeological Reconstruction -- Models of Behavior -- MH/LH Nichoria -- Dark Age Nichoria -- Archaic/Classical/Hellenistic Messenia -- Roman Messenia: Nichoria and Vicinity -- Pattern and Variation -- Transition and Break -- Appendix: Register of Archaeological Features and Sites in the Five Rivers Area -- 8. The Excavated Areas -- Area I -- Area II -- Area III and N Veves Field -- S Veves Field and Area V -- Area IV and Tsagdis and Athanasopoulos Fields -- Area VI and VII -- Summary -- 9. Cartography and Photography -- Cartography -- Photography -- 10. Screening and Gravity Concentration: Recovery of Small-Scale Remains -- Description of Equipment -- Selection, Size, and Distribution of Samples.
Results and Recovered Materials -- Summary and Evaluation -- 11. Analyses of the Metal Artifacts -- Optical Emission Spectrographic Analyses -- Discussion of the OES Analyses -- X-Ray Fluorescence Analyses -- Discussion of the XRF Analyses -- Neutron Activation Analyses -- Metallurgical Practices at Nichoria -- Appendix -- 12. Slags and Other Metallurgical Products -- Mineralogical and Chemical Constituents in Nichoria Slags -- Treatment of Specimens for Microscopic Examination -- Characteristics Used in Identifying Crucible slags -- Loss of Copper and Alloying Elements during Crucible Melting -- The Arsenical Coppers -- Other Constituents in Nichoria Crucible Slags -- Corrosion and Alteration in Crucible Slags -- Molds -- Copper Smelting Slags -- Possible Sources of the Copper Ores Smelted at Nichoria -- Furnace Practice at Nichoria -- Iron at Nichoria -- Smelting Iron Ores -- The Nichoria Iron Slags -- The Quantity of Slags Derived from Iron Smelting -- Sources of the Iron Ores -- Sources of the Fuels Used in Iron Working -- Summary -- Glossary -- Appendix -- 13. Lithological Studies -- Mud/Clay Building Materials -- Pottery Clays -- Biogeochemistry -- 14. Archaeological Geology of the Site -- Site Geology -- Geomorphic Processes -- Analyses of Nichoria Sediment -- Buried Soil Horizons -- Summary -- 15. Conservation of Finds -- Conservation at Nichoria -- Concluding Remarks and Recommendations -- Retrospect -- Plates -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Z.
Abstract:
This volume is the third of four reports (and the second to be published) on the findings of an excavation in the Southwestern Peloponnese of Greece. In the 1960s an interdisciplinary group known as the University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition first explored the region of Messenia, then focused on a specific site, the Nichoria ridge, where fieldwork was completed in 1975. Volume I in the Nichoria Series, published by Minnesota in 1978, dealth with the site and environs as they existed in prehistoric times and evolved to the present, and with specific analytic techniques. Volume II (in preparation) will present the cultural evidence for human occupation of the ridge in its most flourishing phases, the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and Volume IV will provide an overview of the site within the context of the Messenian region and the wider Aegean setting. Volume III deals with the two major occupation phases after the Bronze Age - the so-called Dark and Early Iron Age (about 11500-800 B.C.) and the Middle Byzantine period (about 961-1205 A.D.) Previous documentation on these periods has been meagre; information on the Dark Age was based on the contents of scattered graves and cemeteries, and the absence of stratified habitation debris made it difficult to establish a dependable relative chronology. The Nichoria study, however, derives from the first intensively excavated Dark Age settlement on the Greek mainland, and it should help illuminate these poorly understood epochs in Greek history. In fourteen papers, the authors describe architectural remains, pottery, burials, and small finds of metal and clay, and discuss their significance. Among their findings is archaeological evidence that Nichoria may be equated with one of the major towns recorded in Linear B tablets as part of the kingdom of Pylos. The discovery of a very large apsidal building
of the Dark Age, which seems to have been a communal religious center and home of the chieftain, may represent an important early link in the evolution of the classical Greek temple. And the ruined homes of a medieval farming village provide the first material evidence recovered outside of Corinth for secular life in the Peloponnese during the Middle Byzantine period.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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