Geoarchaeological &; Microartifact Analysis of Archaeological Sediments : A Case Study from a Neolithic Tell Site in Greece

Geoarchaeology is the field of study that applies the concepts and methods of the geosciences to archaeological research. Geoarchaeological studies are important to archaeology because they can significantly enhance the archaeological interpretation. This book presents a geoarchaeological investigation of the processes involved in the formation of the Neolithic site at Paliambela in the Northern Pieria region of Central Macedonia, Northern Greece which unusually comprises both a tell and flat/extended component. Evidence (i.e., pits) of the Byzantine-Ottoman period was also detected on the tell part of the Neolithic site. The book presents and interprets the results of geoarchaeological analysis of core-data and of selected deposits (pits and ditches of the Neolithic period and pits of the Byzantine-Ottoman period, for comparative purposes) within the site. It also explores the spatial organisation of these deposits in more detail applying non-linear and linear methods of statistical analysis on the smallest cultural indicators (i.e., microartIfacts) detected on these archaeological deposits. The overall outcome of this analysis is the recognition that the formation of the archaeological deposits from both parts of the site, both temporally and spatially, was largely the result of differences in human activities and probably in the organisation of human activities that seem to preserve the two components of the Neolithic site as spatially distinct over time while differences between the Neolithic and the Byzantine-Ottoman contexts broadly indicate differences in the living environment between the prehistoric and the historic settlement.