An Urban Micromorphological Perspective on Neopalatial Environmental Changes at Bronze Age Palaikastro, Crete

Summary

Transitional phases between settlement periods on Bronze Age Crete are often associated with ‘natural’ destructive events. However, it is unclear whether these ‘natural’ destructive events and subsequent shifts in material practices were influenced by anthropogenic or environmental processes. For example, the end of the Neopalatial period on Crete occurred in the LM IB period; some researchers view LM IB destructive fires as indicative of human action during a phase of social and political instability, while others reason that destructive fires followed a massive natural disaster. Micromorphological evidence from archaeological sequences can correspond to occupational and transitional phases and provide information on transformations in the surrounding environment, creating a microecological narrative. These narratives can distill social responses to environmental stresses from the archaeological record. New micromorphological evidence from the 2013–2015 Palace and Landscape at Palaikastro excavations, from the previously unknown neighborhood on the southeast edge of the main Bronze Age town, identifies some of these socio-natural responses. Micromorphological evidence from this neighborhood of three newly-excavated buildings illustrates variations in site formation processes and establishes a local, microecological narrative for the Neopalatial (MM IIIA – LM IB) period and associated transitional periods, which may be connected to larger regional and Mediterranean narratives.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21652