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Department of Archaeology

 

Despite a long history of intensive landscape-oriented archaeological research in the Aegean, most primary fieldwork has been concentrated in mainland Greece and a few Aegean islands. By contrast, the eastern side of the Aegean has received far less attention, with local methods and research questions restricted to traditional site-oriented studies.

The Project Panormos Survey aims to transform our understanding of human-environment interaction in a pivotal transition zone between Aegean and Anatolian cultural and geographical spheres, namely, the Milesian peninsula. Today situated in western Turkey, Milesia was an important region from the 3rd millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD, as it commanded a controlling position on the largest riverine corridor from the Aegean into the Anatolian interior (and hence onward trade connections to the east). The city of Miletos became a major entrepot producing textiles, metals, ships and furniture for distribution across the Mediterranean by the classical era.

The research undertaken as part of Project Panormos aims to shed light on: 1. changing settlement density, and population aggregation and disaggregation (e.g. from surface find distributions); and 2. changing economic practices and landscape dependency (e.g. evidence for exploitation of local land and sea resources). 

From 2015 to 2019, the project has applied intensive fieldwalking, remote landscape characterisation and feature identification (using analysis multispectral satellite imagery and drone orthophotography), and specialist find study. The team has also piloted a novel Open Science approach including early Open Data publication (see Strupler and Wilkinson 2018; http://www.panormos.de/pp/open-science-pilot/ ).

The work has been undertaken with the support of several funding bodies and institutions: the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, the Wainwright Fund, the McDonald Institute, the German Archaeological Institute and the British Institute at Ankara; permissions were granted by the Turkish Ministry of Culture.

Project Lead:

  • Toby C. Wilkinson
  • Anja Slawisch (Edinburgh)

Team Members:

 

  • Néhémie Strupler (Cambridge/IFEA)
  • Michael Loy (BSA)
  • Full list including non-Cambridge-based team members here.
Funder

The Institute for Aegean Prehistory

The Wainwright Fund

The McDonald Institute

The German Archaeological Institute

The British Institute at Ankara; permissions were granted by the Turkish Ministry of Culture

Project Tags

Themes: 
Environment, Landscapes and Settlement
Rethinking Complexity
Periods of interest: 
Classical - Roman
Copper/Bronze Age
Iron Age
Medieval
Neolithic
Geographical areas: 
Mediterranean
Research Expertise / Fields of study: 
Artefact Analysis & Technology
Computational and Quantitative Archaeology
Field Methods
Environmental Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, and Landscape studies
Subjects: 
Archaeology
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