The fifth field season of the
Central Achaia Phthiotis Survey (CAPS) project ran from July 6th to August 11th
2024. We welcomed back staff and volunteers as well as new field schools
students. Despite the soaring temperatures (up to 40°C!) we had a successful
and fun season!
The CAPS 2024 team. We are unfortunately
missing Sophia Karapanou in the picture.
The project, codirected by Dr.
Margriet Haagsma (University of Alberta) and Sophia Karapanou (Ephorate of
Antiquities in Larissa, Thessaly), is funded by Canadian Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Faculty of Arts of the University
of Alberta. We have the pleasure of working with the support of the Canadian
Institute in Greece (CIG), the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Municipality
of Pharsala, and the town and people of Narthaki. We would like to thank all
the many people involved in our project running so successfully. A special
thanks to the mayor of Pharsala, Makis Eskioglou, who generously supported the
addition of air conditioning units to the school where the students stay and
visited us for dinner. We are fortunate to work with the village proedros, Thanasis Lelentzis, who is always available to help things run
smoothly. Finally, we would like to thank Elias Papadopoulos and his family for
their kindness and hospitality.
The CAPS project is interested in
land use over time and seeks a diachronic understanding of the region: we ask
how people's experience of the landscape has changed and how human actions have
impacted the landscape. These research questions are addressed through a
combination of intensive (broad, systematic survey over a large area) and extensive (long range, targeted recording
of sites of interest) survey methodologies. Since the beginning of the CAPS
project in 2019, we have been able to collect a tremendous amount of data
regarding the past of Achaia Phthiotis, documenting material from the Neolithic
to Early Modern periods.
Beyond ancient changes to the
landscape we are increasingly aware of modern anthropogenic impacts. The solar
panel prjects that were in the planning stages last year are now more
conspicuously under construction with much of our survey area being impacted.
The situation is complex, with many stakeholders including local landowners,
foreign energy companies, and the Greek ephorate. Fortunately, thanks to the
work of the Ephorate based on the results of our previous years of survey,
areas with high densities of archaeological material have been excluded from
the construction.
This season the field survey
teams, consisting of University of Alberta field school students, volunteers,
and staff, focused closer to our home in the village of Narthaki, intensively
surveying agricultural fields. One major area of interest was the vicinity of
the modern village of Platanos. This small village has been a landmark for both
the CAPS project and previous Kastro Kallithea Archaeological Project, passed
by almost every morning on the way to the Kastro at Kallithea or to regions
marked for survey. Beginning in 2023 and continuing this year, we began
investigating the settlement near enough to begin uncovering both its recent
and more distant past.
In the first week of 2024, we
began seeing the first signs of late Ottoman pottery in the region, as well as
ceramic water pipes. Both speak to the longstanding occupation of the site, but
it was not until the second week of the project (and the first week with field
school students!) that we began to appreciate the volume of material. Field
school students were treated to many archaeologists' dreams: a long-term
dumping site. From near the edge of Platanos, huge volumes of broken ceramic,
dating from the modern back to at least the Ottoman period attested to the long
and intense occupation of the settlement. These findings are somewhat unusual
for our survey project, which normally collects highly dispersed material,
rather than a site of occupation. The material we have recovered dates from c.
18th to 19th century CE, speaking to the early modern occupation of the region,
and the likely presence of the Ottoman çiftlik
Tzakerlı.
As we moved further from Platanos,
we once again began to once again recover older material. Moving further from
the modern settlement, we began to encounter fields with large concentrations
of stones, out of context, but possibly hinting at early architecture.
Fragmentary ceramics, from these areas point to the long standing occupation of
this region, with pottery sherds ranging in date from the Archaic, Classical,
Hellenistic, and Roman periods recovered. Less frequently, we also caught a
glimpse of even earlier periods, when stone tools and lithic debitage dating as
far back as the Neolithic period were collected.
Undergraduate students Abraar,
Erin, and Emme showing the archaeological material recovered from a single
tract!
Along with our intensive survey,
we were joined by Dr. Grigoris N. Tsokas (University of Thessaly) and his team
who performed geophysical survey of two sites of interest: Kastraki and
Platanos Magoula. The Platanos Magoula was discovered as part of the CAPS
survey during the 2021 season. Professor Tsokas kindly invited the field school
students to watch the work in the field and gave a lecture on the methods using
case studies drawn from the 400 sites (!) he and his team have surveyed. The
results of this analysis will inform future work in the region.
Field school students, volunteers,
and staff at Dr. Grigoris N. Tsokas’ lecture on geophysical survey.
In addition to our director, Dr.
Margriet Haagsma, and the undergraduate field school students, the team
consisted of a graduate students and volunteers (Dustin Berndt-Setter, Kate
Grabinsky, Anna Hijmans, Amilia Hildahl, Ava Laville, Matt Spinks, and Dana
Stephens) who worked hard to make the field season a success. Ed Middleton
(McMaster University) ran the intensive survey as field director with Ava
Laville. Dr. Magie Aiken (Swedish Museum of Natural History) was responsible
for the GIS of the survey. The apothiki was run by Adam Wiznura (University of
Groningen) who taught students how to classify ceramic material. Dr. Gino
Canlas (University of Western Ontario) supervised the study of the material
from Kastraki, one of the archaeological sites we identified in the survey. We
were joined by Dr. Sandra Garvie-Lok (University of Alberta) who worked with faunal
material from the Kastro Kallithea project and was kind enough to teach a
module on isotope analysis to the students.
Beyond our survey work, the field
school students benefited from field trips to visit archaeological sites,
museums, and other archaeological projects. If you are interested in more
information on our project you can check out our website https://caps.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ or, if you’re interested in the pictures, you can find us on
Instagram (@achaiaphthiotis) and Facebook (Central Achaia Phthiotis Survey).
Magie Aiken, Margriet
Haagsma, Edward Middleton, CAPS
