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Rillenkarren at Vayia: geomorphology and a new class of Early Bronze Age fortified settlement in Southern Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Thomas F. Tartaron
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA (Email: thomas.tartaron@yale.edu)
Daniel J. Pullen
Affiliation:
2Department of Classics, The Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA (Email: dpullen@mailer.fsu.edu)
Jay S. Noller
Affiliation:
3Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA (Email: jay.noller@oregonstate.edu)

Extract

With ever more inhibited programmes of excavation, new methods of site survey are always welcome. Here a soil geomorphologist joins forces with archaeologists to read the history of limestone blocks exposed on the surface at sites in southern Greece. Rillenkarren for example are vertical grooves caused by rainfall on stones that remained for long periods in the same place. These and other observations showed that what looked like clearance cairns had in fact been piled up in the Early Bronze Age and led in turn to the definition of a new type of settlement.

Type
Method
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

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