Landscape Archaeology, Watermills and Hydrotechnology on a Greek Island

Summary

A striking feature of the Greek island of Andros's human landscape is the extremely large number of watermills that operated on the island in the recent past. By one estimate, there were on the island, whose territory is only 380 sq km, more than 270 watermills in operation during the last century. Today there are none and not a single ravine on the island has sufficient water flow to power even a single mill. To reconstruct the social, economic, and environmental history of mills on the island, we studied one ravine, Fousiai. First, we conducted an intensive pedestrian survey of the ravine and identified 29 water mills. Next, we selected three for more detailed examination, including selective excavation. During the survey we discovered that an elaborate system of rock-cut channels had been incised into the walls of the ravine in order to channel water to the various mills. Using detailed satellite imaging, we reconstruct the hydrotechnological system in the ravine. The last two sections of the paper focus on, first, the question of climate change and when the island ceased to receive sufficient water to power the mills and, second, the economic history of the mills.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage