Introduction

The rise of systematic archaeological field survey as a key research tool has been one of the most notable features of the discipline over the last 40 years. The trend began during the New Archaeology of the 1970s as emphasis shifted from a mainly site-specific focus to the consideration of regions. Surface survey formed an important component of these new regional syntheses, whose aim was to recover information at a scale appropriate to the study of past human behaviour. In addition, it was a relatively cheap and non-destructive research tool. The pace of new surveys was remarkable. Fish (1999: Table 14.1) identified a tenfold increase in lead articles in the journal American Antiquity between 1970 and 1997 that dealt with regional settlement patterns. Similarly, surveys in the Mediterranean basin increased significantly from the early 1980s. In their study of 15 journals Cherry and Alcock noted a sevenfold increase in survey related papers between the mid 1960s and the late 1990s (Cherry 2003:139; Alcock & Cherry 2004: Figure 1.1). The increase was particularly marked in Greece with an almost fivefold growth in projects reported annually in Archaeological Reports published by the British School at Athens from the early 1980s until 1998 (Alcock & Cherry 2004: Figure 1.2). These projects have addressed topics ranging from the Lower Palaeolithic to post Bronze Age on the mainland and the islands, expanding our knowledge of Greek archaeology at the local and regional scales. This knowledge has, however, been accumulated without the benefit of a central register of field surveys or findspots and sites, and the wide variety of approaches makes comparison between them difficult. As argued by Alcock and Cherry, the point has been reached when we could rightly ask, what is to be done with it all? (Alcock & Cherry: 3).

Figure 1.

Google Earth^TM display of 193 findspots and sites returned for a query of those with chipped stone in the Peloponnese.

The SOG database and website

It was against this background that the Prehistoric Stones of Greece (SOG) project began in 2005. Our main focus was chipped stone dated to the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, but the project required us to collate for the first time in a standardised way, all the archaeological field surveys undertaken in Greece and the findspots and sites located. Published and unpublished sources were assembled, the latter including a variety of materials supplied by survey directors such as project daily record sheets, annotated maps and notebooks. The whole database is now publically available online (for access details, see below).

All available information on chipped stone was recorded in detail, as were fauna. Pottery, structures and other objects were grouped into broad categories. In the case of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic material, we included all findspots and sites discovered through field survey as well as those that were previously known. The Neolithic was treated slightly differently in that we only included those sites located through field survey; the number previously known being too great to include for this project. However, the database also contains many entries for material later than the Neolithic, reflecting the significant number of multi-period findspots and sites recorded.

The database currently includes 142 field surveys and 678 findspots and sites where chipped stone and other artefacts have been recovered. The information for field surveys includes details of who, when, what and how they were undertaken, while for findspots and sites their chronology, the artefacts recovered, significant features and any fauna present are tabulated. The material recorded from the 678 findspots and sites ranged from Lower Palaeolithic handaxes to Neolithic pottery. The total artefact count stands at 135 731 pieces along with an additional 1140 entries where only presence is noted. Chipped stones make up the majority of the artefacts (121 904), followed by pottery (12 551) and smaller quantities of ground stone, building materials, structures, burials and other objects. A total of 101 findspots and sites produced 151 000 specimens of bone, teeth or shell, with information ranging from simply noting their presence to detailed counts of the number of elements of a particular species.

The website allows a variety of spatial, temporal and material queries to be set up for both field surveys and sites. The information recorded for each can be viewed and the locations displayed using the automatic Google Earth^TM links. The basic query requires the name of the field survey, findspot or site, or part thereof. For example, entering 'kli' will return the site of Klithi rockshelter in Epirus. The advanced query allows additional criteria to be selected such as location, the investigators or in the case of findspots and sites, specific artefacts, features or fauna. The results of a query are displayed as an alphabetic list from which individual records can be selected. These can also be mapped by selecting the links which automatically launch Google Earth^TM, allowing users to 'fly' to the location. Figure 1 illustrates the 193 findspots and sites returned for an advanced query for chipped stone artefacts from the Peloponnese. These came from 11 field surveys and included 42 caves and rock shelters, 60 open settlements, 15 special purpose localities and 76 unspecified locations.

Figure 2.

Mesolithic shelter sites visible in Google Earth^TM in the Kandia region of the eastern Peloponnese (survey data from Runnels et al. 2005).

Field surveys, findspots and sites were located by overlaying the published or unpublished distribution maps or by matching the descriptions given in the literature with those on hard copy maps or visible in Google Earth^TM. This allowed us to sidestep the difficult process of converting the variety of co-ordinate systems that have been used over the years in Greece. Since its appearance in 2005 Google Earth^TM has become the mapping platform of choice for archaeologists. Its resolution and coverage for Greece improved significantly over the life of the Prehistoric Stones of Greece project so that some larger sites can now be seen. Figure 2 illustrates a query for Mesolithic sites in the eastern Peloponnese in which a series of shelters were returned (after Runnels et al. 2005), the entrances of which are visible in Google Earth^TM.

Conclusion

The Stones of Greece is available for a range of users from professionals involved in heritage management to those interested in the earliest pre-Classical history of Greece. It provides a unique countrywide view of the coverage of field survey and the distribution of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic findspots and sites. By incorporating published and grey literature sources, SOG aims to facilitate regional synthesis and provide a model for the development of similar resources in other areas.