Seascape Dialogues : Human-sea interaction in the Aegean from Late Neolithic to Late Bronze Age

Abstract: This thesis examines human-sea interaction based on embodied and embedded action in the littoral and island regions of the Aegean from Late Neolithic (4800 BCE) to the end of Late Bronze Age I (1600 BCE). Fundamental to this approach is the concept of seascapes, defined here as a place or agent created by a human mind set. To facilitate the investigation, analysis focuses on embodied action, divided between spatial analysis, the consumption of seafood, the utilisation of marine faunal remains in material culture and the iconographic rendering of marine and maritime matters. Through GIS analysis it is determined that ‘coastality’ – the spatial relationship between locales and the coast – was temporally variable and related to network interaction. Coastality appears to have been a fundamental prerequisite for the formation of seascapes, though the formation of seascapes was not an inevitable outcome of coastality. Uneven recovery practices in excavations impacted the marine faunal record, though higher marine consumption wasrecognised on Crete from the end of the prepalatial period onwards, due in part to the greater recovery of ecofactual data on the island. Marine shell found a wide utility in the prehistoric Aegean, but cluster in the LN-EB III periods. Exceptions include the production of murex dye in the southern Aegean in MBA-LBA and the use of triton shells in cult places in MBA–LBA Crete. Iconographic representation of the sea was geographically restricted – almost entirely absent from the Greek mainland – and had particular chronological and thematic focuses. These included seafaring in the Cyclades and Saronic Gulf, as well as marine fauna scenes onwards from mid-EBA Cyclades and Crete. Such representations were metarepresentations of the sea, prompted by sustained, long-term interaction with the sea. This is particularly evident in the case of Crete, where marine themes became enmeshed in an archaeologically visible syntax of cult paraphernalia and practices. Seascapes were created under specific conditions according to local circumstances and choices. They were not expressed in a uniform manner through time and space and were not an inevitable outcome of living in an area with relative ease of access to the sea.