Sarakenos 2000 Overview

THE NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE OCCUPATION
OF SARAKENOS CAVE IN BOEOTIA (GREECE):
Cave settlement patterns and populations movements
in Central and Southern Greece
Adamantios Sampson

The cave of Sarakenos is situated in Boeotia, overlooking the Kopais basin which in the past was a lake. This is the biggest and most important cave of the area, which is known for the abundance of caves and rock shelters. The cave had been improvisedly investigated in the beginning of the ‘70s by T. Spyropoulos, then ephor of Antiquities in the Thebes Museum, but most of the material was unstratified and has never been published.

Between 1991-1994 we undertook a systematic excavation in the SE part of the cave, which revealed in four trenches undisturbed levels of occupation from the Upper Palaeolithic to Middle Helladic (1600 BC). The palaeolithic layer in trench B is thin and only covers the bedrock, belonging to the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian period). A sterile layer above it contains only a microfauna showing a long period of abandonment of the site. The earliest phase of neolithic occupation should be roughly put in the second half of the 7th millennium BC (Early Neolithic). From this phase comes a fine painted ware with red on white patterns reminding us of a similar pattern from Youra and Agios Petros in the Northern Sporades (Sampson 1995, 1998) with geometric motifs on a canvas-like background. The stratum of MN revealed a large amount of pottery, especially the red on white variety. There is a normal sequence to the next phase, called Late Neolithic I (5300- 4800 BC) characterized by a dark and gray monochrome pottery of very high quality. This pottery is very similar to the Tsangli - Larissa ware which shows an advanced ceramic technology, mainly in the firing technique. The next phase (Late Neolithic I b, 4800-4200 BC) indicates an intense occupation in the cave as well as in other caves, such as Thanounia in Euboea, Kastria in Kalavryta, Agia Triada in Karystos, the Cave of the Cyclops at Youra etc. The pottery bears similarities to other wares of Central Greece, Euboea and the Aegean. From this horizon comes an amount of clay and marble figurines, which have parallels in LN of Euboea and the Cyclades (Ftelia on Mykonos). The last neolithic phase (Late Neolithic Il , 4200-3300 BC) is well represented in Sarakenos, especially its late part which is not frequent in caves. A grave of this period with intact vases comes from the vicinity of the cave and means that a permanent settlement existed at the site.

A number of many intact vases was found in the stratum of Early Helladic 2, which shows a short interval of occupation. Two different phases of Middle Helladicoccupation have been discovered with intense storing activities in pithoid vases and in pits covered with clay, dug into the Early Helladic and Neolithic strata.

From the Early Neolithic to the end of the period the occupation in the cave seems to be uninterrupted. All this long neolithic sequence was explored mainly in trenches A and B. Living-floors and hearths succeed each other in layers full of pottery fragments and other finds. From all the strata comes a great number of animal bones, shells and fish bones, carbonized seeds, a material which is under study by specialists. Anthracological samples and pollen have been collected from all the layers and are going to provide us with a better understanding of the environment. The huge lithic material (obsidian and flint) is going to be studied by a specialist.