Developing new surveying techniques under the Greek sun

by GIAP team
in Aegean Archaeology, Landscape archaeology, Palaeoenvironment, Remote Sensing
on 31 August 2021

^{The team’s morning march to the survey area.}

Our work in Greece this summer involves two distinct archaeological projects: surveying in Abdera (Thrace) and surveying and excavating in Grevena (Western Macedonia), with additional geomorphological and geoarchaeological prospection in both areas.

These projects will provide a new paradigm of techniques available for archaeological surveys, with a stronger involvement of remote sensing, which includes new workflows for remotely identifying and quantifying small pieces of material culture on surface.

An overview of the landscape around the city of ancient Abdera

One of the well-preserved tumuli located within the extensive cemeteries to the north of the ancient city of Abdera

After finishing the fieldwork and studying the available material, Abdera will be one of the main stages of the development of a rather ambitious program of geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental multi-proxy analysis (of the sediments we obtained last year), which will help us not only reconstruct past cultural landscapes related to the colony, but also human-environment interactions since the Neolithic.

From left to right: Simos Trasanis, Konstantina, Merkouris and Giannis on their way to survey.

Sunflower cultuvations, within the survey area.

On the other hand, in Grevena it will be a first exploration, which will help to contextualize the area and the excavated sites and to detect the potential for geoarchaeological and multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental studies in the area.

These first steps will be to set up the basis for an intensive survey program that will be carried on the following years.