Crisis in Geoarchaeological Context: Reassessing Bronze Age ‘Collapse’ at Palaikastro, Crete, Greece

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research on social change and ‘crisis’ demonstrates that both phenomena require analyses of longer-term processes and discrete local processes that need to be evaluated on site-by-site bases (Vigh, 2008; Visacovsky, 2017). The multi-scalar attention required to study crisis and change at individual Bronze Age settlement sites on Crete, Greece, has been recognized in studies of local and regional factors in collapse scenarios for the end of the Neopalatial period (end of LM IB, ca. 1470/1460 BC) (Driessen, 2018). Nevertheless, various narratives of collapse and crisis situations remain debated for Late Bronze Age Minoan, and broader Mediterranean, societies. This paper presents new geoarchaeological evidence from the archaeological settlement of Palaikastro, Crete, and reassesses the tsunami hypothesis proposed in relation to collapse at Palaikastro (cf. Bruins et al., 2008). Combined with evidence from recent tsunami and storm surge research and considerations of broader crisis situations, the results demonstrate the capability of a geoarchaeological approach to understanding the nuanced nature and chronology of change in this complex coastal environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25724