University courses

The course is giving undergraduates general acquaintance of Mediterranean prehistory, focusing on the cultures dating from the earliest appearance of Homo in the basin and the adjacent mainlands, down to the end of the Neolithic.

The course first introduces students to general theoretical issues relating to the interpretation of prehistoric societies; it particularly discusses the anthropological, social and cultural parameters incorporated within the geographical term ‘Mediterranean’, as one of those issues.

Subsequently, the course examines specific type-cultures and type-sites of the Mediterranean and discusses convergences or divergences between certain sub-regions through time, with focus on the Aegean, Asia Minor, Near East and Cyprus.

In particular, the course discusses the following issues:

• The of ‘Archaeology’ and ‘Prehistory’, with emphasis on the eventfulness of the past and its dynamics of being contemporary.
• The general axes directing focus of prehistoric research, such as subsistence strategies with emphasis on food-gathering and production, technology, society, and symbolisms.
• The cultural implications of the geographical term ‘Mediterranean’ with emphasis on the differing and often contradicting cultures and the co-existing othernesses.
• The general chronological horizons of Mediterranean prehistory.
• Paleolithic period: earliest humans on the coasts of northern Africa, Erectus colonizations of SW Asia and Europe, evolution of the human species (Erectus, archaic Sapiens, Neanderthal, Sapiens Sapiens), Lower Paleolithic cultures of south France (Atapuerca), Neanderthal culture and caves, early appearance of Sapiens in the Near East, cave art in the Upper Paleolithic of SW Europe.
• Transition to the production stage: role of Natufians to at the end of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithization in the Aegean, Preceramic Neolithic culture (domestication, ritual and burial custom complexity in Upper Euphrates, Jordan), earliest colonization of Cyprus.
• Neolithic Greece and Asia Minor (Çatal Höyük).
• Cyprus (continued): Aceramic cultures (Choirokitia), Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic.
• SPECIAL THEME: Megalithic monuments in western Mediterranean.

The course focuses on the Neolithic period of Greece, Anatolia and Near East. Firstly, it discusses the variations of hybrid cultures (Mesolithic, Preceramic Neolithic) deriving from the merging of hunting-gathering with productive strategies in several subregions of the eastern Mediterranean.

Secondly the course examines the development and process of full productive economy in the Neolithic of Greece, with special reference to technology, society and cultural variations. Examples are drawn from settlements and caves of the Greek mainland and the Aegean.

Thirdly, it presents variations of the Neolithic in neighboring areas, such as Anatolia (Çatal Höyük) and Cyprus.

Students should have to work on a short project and make presentations.

The course discusses the meaning of ‘culture’ and its changes in space and time, and draws examples from pre-Columbian, west Asian, Pacific and Aboriginal empires and cultures to demonstrate phenomena of complexity and variability.

As a final aim the course seeks to challenge reflection on ‘why cultures change’ and put emphasis on the value that contextual meanings of each culture have, contradicting conservative ideologies of linear evolution and comparison of cultures.

The role of colonialism on the formulation of a west-centered concept for culture is also explored.

Students should have to work on a short project and make presentations.

The course has examined theoretical trends within greek prehistoric archaeology through the work of three major personalities of this discipline, Chr. Tsountas, D. Theocharis and G. Hourmouziadis.

By drawing examples from their theories on Neolithic Thessaly and the beginning of the Neolithic in Greece, the course has followed the changes in their explanatory models and priorities in relation to broader trends of western philosophy within the humanities.

In particular, the course has discussed how the overwhelming classical ideal competing to non-greek prehistory has affected their discourse.

The course discussed ideologies (colonialism, classicism) that have influenced the formulation of greek Archaeology as a discipline in the 19th c. and along the 20th century to the present.

It described some historical landmarks, such as the foundation of Archaeological Service, of Archaeological Society, Foreign Institutions, as well as the keypoints of their ideologies.

Great restoration works or excavation projects were undertaken under similar priorities (Acropolis, Mycenae, Epidavros etc).