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TINA

Maritime Archaeology Periodical

Fig. 6: Ag. petros’un sular altın-
da kalan bölümünde sualtı alan
çalışması devam ederken
Fig. 6: Underwater fieldwork in
progress at the submerged section of
Agios Petros

Fieldwork carried out in the Bay of Ag. Petros led water fieldwork at the depth of 1.5 to 5m: were these
to the painstaking reconstruction of its submarine maritime installations similar to mooring spots for
topography for different areas (Fig. 6). pulling boats out of the sea?
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The underwater work involved a number of sound- More specialized studies that were related to un-
ings at different levels that showed both the form derwater investigations carried out in the 1980’s
of shoreline that existed at the time of the founding have focused on transgression episodes in the Bay
of the site (sometime around 6,000 cal BCE) and of Agios Petros that affected local human ecology
the changes that followed in the next few hundred and the island historical continuum over the long
years. In short, at different depths, the contour haul. It was important to document the rapidity of
demonstrates that Ag. Petros was not an islet, but the sea rise in certain periods of the lifetime of the
instead a spur of high ground projecting towards settlement and to envisage the palaeoenvironmental
the sea with a perfect natural harbor formed in front events that were triggered for the daily life of this is-
of the amphitheatrically built Neolithic settlement land community. The grain-size analysis of underwa-
(Fig. 7). It is also important to mention that its un- ter sediment samples (measuring the retained amount
derwater deposits (in front of the on shore remains) of silt and clay in relation to the sea depth) has
are extremely rich in finds (Fig. 8), indicating that shown a number of slow and rapid sea level events
the submerged part of the site remained well-pro- that, in principal, could have affected the ecological
tected from strong currents and winds until today. stability of the maritime community of Agios Pet-
Test quadrats (1X1m) excavated to the bedrock have ros around 6,000 BCE and over subsequent years.
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provided plentiful ceramics, lithics, obsidian pieces, This, however, is unlikely to be the case. The small
and more than 250 identifiable animal bones, as well maritime community that settled in the Bay of Kyra
as samples of sediments for grain-size analysis (see Panagia seems to have successfully confronted long-
below). Future fieldwork in the underwater section term ecological effects caused by the loss of coastal
of Agios Petros will hopefully offer many insights areas to the sea or caused by forceful exploitation
into some little-known aspects of the everyday life of of resources (i.e. management of water resources,
this early Neolithic Aegean maritime community and overgrazing by domestic goats). One may therefore
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its archaeological evidence lost to the sea. It would suggest that such environmental changes were not
be interesting, for instance, to clarify the function of rapid and that people had the time and adaptability to
the piles of boulders (3 by 2m) found during under- adjust successfully to the new situation. 29

26 FLEMMING 1983, 641.
27 EFSTrATIOU 1985, 164.
28 LEPPArD - PILAAr BIrCH 2016, 47.
29 EFSTrATIOU 2013, 27.
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