Geoarchaeology of the Palaeolithic in the Aegean Basin, Greece: a deposit-centered approach and its implications for the study of hominin biogeography in the Pleistocene

This dissertation consists of three articles that develop and implement geoarchaeological approaches to the study of hominin biogeography in the Greek islands, a region that may have played a key role during the initial peopling of southeastern Europe in the Middle to Late Pleistocene (770 – 13 ka). The first article addresses the need to find Palaeolithic sites in the Greek islands by reviewing geoarchaeologically informed archaeological surveys that prioritize deposits – Pleistocene sediments and soils – on mainland Greece. I operationalize and implement a four-phase approach for future deposit-centered surveys in the islands. I conclude that future surveys should target geomorphic settings conducive to paleosol preservation, such as in near-shore coastal areas (e.g., uplifted hillslopes and actively eroding alluvial fans) marked by paleo-sea-level-indicators (sea notches, marine terraces, and aeolianites), as well as sediment depo-centers (e.g., internally drained basins) in non-coastal geomorphic settings. The second article develops and employs a multiscalar geoarchaeological approach for investigating and interpreting complex hillslope formation processes at the newly excavated Palaeolithic site of Stelida, located on the island of Naxos, Greece. Here, I integrate traditional geoarchaeological methods (lithostratigraphy, pedostratigraphy, allostratigraphy) with microarchaeological techniques, such as thin-section soil micromorphology and portable x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (pXRF) to separate sediments and soils aiding in the construction of a stratigraphic framework for Stelida.The third article further develops the method of integrating pXRF and soil micromorphology applied at the site-specific scale. In this article, I developed an Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) method for visualizing geochemistry-facies relationships through the application of pXRF to a resin-impregnated block sample preserving an Archaic (seventh century BCE) ash midden (eschara) from the site of Kalopodi, Greece.This dissertation addresses a primary research effort in Greece’s Aegean Basin (Greek islands): the search for and study of Palaeolithic archaeology dating to Middle and Late Pleistocene. Geoarchaeologically informed research designs, such as deposit-centered surveys in open-air environments, can increase Palaeolithic site inventories for the region by focusing on finding geomorphic settings conducive to paleosol preservation. Moreover, the multi-scalar geoarchaeological approaches here, which integrate sedimentology, pedology, micromorphology, and geochemistry, provide an effective approach for the identification and compositional (mineralogic and geochemical) study of paleosols within those settings