Prehistoric landscapes: human societies and environment

Course Information
TitleΠροϊστορικά τοπία: ανθρώπινες κοινωνίες και περιβάλλον / Prehistoric landscapes: human societies and environment
CodeΑΠΡ 705
FacultyPhilosophy
SchoolHistory and Archaeology
Cycle / Level2nd / Postgraduate
Teaching PeriodWinter/Spring
CommonNo
StatusActive
Course ID600015922

Programme of Study: PMS stīn Archaiología, Téchnī kai Politismó 2024-2025

Registered students: 0
OrientationAttendance TypeSemesterYearECTS
Proïstorikī ArchaiologíaCompulsory CourseWinter/Spring-15

Class Information
Academic Year2022 – 2023
Class PeriodWinter
Faculty Instructors
Weekly Hours3
Total Hours39
Class ID
600223764
Course Type 2021
Skills Development
Course Type 2016-2020
  • Scientific Area
  • Skills Development
Course Type 2011-2015
Knowledge Deepening / Consolidation
Mode of Delivery
  • Face to face
Digital Course Content
Language of Instruction
  • Greek (Instruction, Examination)
Learning Outcomes
- Specialization of knowledge in matters of documentation, analysis and interpretation of archaeological materials through the systematic use of bibliography. - Acquaintance of postgraduate students with the ways of managing archaeological information. - Familiarization with the formulation of research questions that will help them to choose the topic of their Master thesis.
General Competences
  • Apply knowledge in practice
  • Retrieve, analyse and synthesise data and information, with the use of necessary technologies
  • Make decisions
  • Work autonomously
  • Work in an interdisciplinary team
  • Generate new research ideas
  • Be critical and self-critical
  • Advance free, creative and causative thinking
Course Content (Syllabus)
The seminar will present interdisciplinary research topics that examine the ancient environment in relation to prehistoric societies. Students will familiarize themselves with the questions and methods of Environmental Archaeology. They will examine examples of archaeological sites where such methods have been applied in order to understand and comment on issues of prehistoric research related to early movements of people, different forms of settlement, selection, management and shaping of environments, as well as questions of dating and correlation of cultural phenomena with large-scale past climate events.
Keywords
Palaeoenvironment, climate change, Pleistocene, Holocene, Mesolithic, Neolithic, analytical methods
Educational Material Types
  • Slide presentations
  • Interactive excersises
  • bibliography, laboratory microscope
Use of Information and Communication Technologies
Use of ICT
  • Use of ICT in Course Teaching
  • Use of ICT in Communication with Students
Course Organization
ActivitiesWorkloadECTSIndividualTeamworkErasmus
Lectures45
Seminars39
Laboratory Work46
Fieldwork35
Reading Assigment75
Field trips and participation in conferences / seminars / activities30
Written assigments180
Total450
Student Assessment
Description
The students are asked to study recommended literature and undertake a public presentation of a topic. The students are trained in the laboratory on the microscopic analysis of archaeobotanical materials. In continuation they are asked to accomplish a botanical identification test and submit the results. The students study qualitative and quantitative data processing methods. They are then asked to individually process an assemblage of archaeobotanical data. They present the results in spreadsheets and interpret them using archaeological, palaeoenvironmental and botanical information.
Student Assessment methods
  • Oral Exams (Formative, Summative)
  • Performance / Staging (Formative, Summative)
  • Labortatory Assignment (Formative, Summative)
Bibliography
Additional bibliography for study
Ammerman A., Efstratiou, N., Ntinou M., Pavlopoulos K., Gabrielli P., Thomas K.D., Mannino M.A. 2008. Finding the Early Neolithic in Aegean Thrace: The Use of Cores. Antiquity 82: 139-150. Efstratiou, N., Biagi, P., Elefanti, P., Karkanas, P. and M. Ntinou (2006). The prehistoric exploitation of Grevena highland zones: Hunters and herders along the Pindus chain of Western Macedonia (Greece). World Archaeology. Advances at Altitude, vol. 38 (3):415-35. Farrand, W.R. 2003. Depositional environments and site formation processes during the Mesolithic occupations of Franchthi Cave, Peloponnesos, Greece. In N. Galanidou and C. Pérles (eds) The Greek Mesolithic, problems and perspectives, 69-78. London: British School at Athens Studies 10. Ghilardi, M., Fouache, E., Queyrel, F., Syrides, G., Vouvalidis, K., Kunesch, S., Styllas, M. and Stiros, S. 2008. Human occupation and geomorphological evolution of the Thessaloniki Plain (Greece) since mid Holocene. Journal of Archaeological Science 35, 111-25 Karkanas P. 2013. Cave Sediment Studies In Greece: A Contextual Approach To The Archaeological Record. In: F.Mavridis, J. T. Jensen, Stable Places and Changing Perceptions: Cave Archaeology in Greece, BAR International Series 2558, pp. 73-82 Karkanas P., Pavlopoulos K., Kouli K., Ntinou M., Tsartsidou G., Facorellis Y., Tsourou T. 2011. Palaeoenvironments and Site Formation Processes at the Neolithic Lakeside Settlement of Dispilio, Kastoria, Northern Greece. Geoarchaeology 26, 1, 83-117 Karkanas, P. Efstratiou, N. 2009. Floor sequences in Neolithic Makri, Greece: micromorphology reveals cycles of renovation. Antiquity 83, 955-967. Karkanas P., Koumouzelis M., Kozlowski J.K., Sitlivy V., Sobczyk K., Berna F., Weiner S. 2004. The earliest evidence for clay hearths: Aurignacian features in Klisoura Cave 1, southern Greece. Antiquity 78, 513-525 Karkanas P. 2002. Micromorphological Studies of Greek Prehistoric Sites: New Insights in the Interpretation of the Archaeological Record. Geoarchaeology, 17 (3), 237–259 Krahtopoulou, A. 2000. Holocene alluvial history of northern Pieria, Macedonia, Greece. In P. Halstead and C. Frederick (eds), Landscape and land use in postglacial Greece, 15-27. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Krahtopoulou A., Veropoulidou R. 2014. Linking inland and coastal records: landscape and human histories in Pieria, Macedonia, Greece. In Touchais G, Laffineur R., Rougemont F. (eds) Physis. L’ environment naturel et la relation homme-milieu dans le monde égéen protohistorique, Aegeum 37, 153-160 Lespez L., Tsirtsoni Z., Darcque P., Koukouli-Chryssanthaki H., Malamidou D., Treuil R, Davidson R., Kourtessi-Philippakis G., Oberlin Ch. The lowest levels at Dikili Tash, northern Greece: a missing link in the Early Neolithic of Europe. Antiquity 87 (2013): 30–45 Tourloukis V., Karkanas P. 2012. Geoarchaeology in Greece: A Review. In: E. Skourtsos and G. S. Lister (Eds.), The Geology of Greece, 2012. Journal of the Virtual Explorer, Electronic Edition, ISSN 1441-8142, volume 42, paper 4 Van Andel, T.H. and Shackleton, J.C. 1982. Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic coastlines of Greece and the Aegean. Journal of Field Archaeology 9 (4), 445-54 Asouti E, Austin P. 2005. Reconstructing woodland vegetation and its exploitation by past societies, based on the analysis and interpretation of archaeological wood charcoal macro-remains. Environmental Archaeology, 10(1):1–15. Asouti E, Ntinou M, Kabukcu C (2018) The impact of environmental change on Palaeolithic and Mesolithic plant use and the transition to agriculture at Franchthi Cave, Greece. PLoS ONE 13(11): e0207805. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207805 Badal, E., Ntinou M. 2013. Chapter VI. Wood-Charcoal Analysis from Neolithic Knossos: The Local Vegetation. In Efstratiou N., A. Karetsou, M. Ntinou and E. Banou (eds), The Neolithic Settlement of Knossos in Crete: New Evidence for the Early Occupation of Crete and the Aegean Islands. Prehistory Monographs 42, INSTAP Academic Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 95-118. Chabal, L., L. Fabre, J.-F. Terral & I. Thery-Parisot 1999. ‘L’Anthracology’. In La Botanique, C. Bourquin-Mignot, J.-E. Brochier, L. Chabal, S. Crozat, L. Fabre, F. Guibal, P. Marinval, H. Richard, J.-F. Terral & I. Rhery, Editions Errance, Paris, pp. 43–104. Fiorentino, G., Caracuta, V., Calcagnile, L., D'Elia, M., Matthiae, P., Mavelli, F., Quarta, G. (2008). Third millennium BC climate change in Syria highlighted by Carbon stable isotope analysis of 14C-AMS dated plant remains from Ebla. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeogeography 266: 51-58 Marinova E., Ntinou M. 2018. Neolithic woodland management and land-use in south-eastern Europe: the anthracological evidence from Northern Greece and Bulgaria. Quaternary International 496: 51-67, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.04.004 Picornell Gelabert Ll, Eleni Asouti E, Allue Marti E. 2011. The ethnoarchaeology of firewood management in the Fang villages of Equatorial Guinea, central Africa: Implications for the interpretation of wood fuel remains from archaeological sites. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30 (2011) 375–384 Henry A., Zavadskaya E., Alix C., Kurovskaya E., Beyries S. 2018. Ethnoarchaeology of Fuel Use in Northern Forests: Towards a Better Characterization of Prehistoric Fire Related Activities, Ethnoarchaeology, DOI:10.1080/19442890.2018.1510601, https://doi.org/10.1080/19442890.2018.1510601 Marguerie D, Hunot J-Y. 2007. Charcoal analysis and dendrology: data from archaeological sites in north-western France. Journal of Archaeological Science 34, 1417-1433 Ntinou M. 2013. Wood charcoal: vegetation and the use of timber at Dhaskalio. In Renfrew, C., O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas, M.J. Boyd (eds). The settlement at Dhaskalio (The sanctuary on Keros and the origins of Aegean ritual practice: the excavations of 2006 -2008. Volume I). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, McDonald Institute Monographs, Oxford/Oakville, 417-428 Ntinou M, Kyparissi-Apostolika N. Local vegetation dynamics and human habitation from the last interglacial to the early Holocene at Theopetra cave, central Greece: the evidence from wood charcoal analysis. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 25:191–206 Halstead, P. 1996. The development of agriculture and pastoralism in Greece: when, how, who and what? D.R. Harris (ed.) 1996. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. London, University College Press. 297-309.
Last Update
13-12-2023