Mesolithic mortuary ritual at Franchthi Cave, Greece

Antiquity, June, 1995 by Tracey Cullen

History of research at Franchthi Cave

The site of Franchthi Cave occupies a rocky limestone headland on the southern coast of the Argive peninsula [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. A horizontal cavern some 150 m long offering secure shelter from predators and the extremes of climate, it has been used intermittently from the Upper Palaeolithic to the present. The most intensive occupation of the cave dates from c. 30,000(?) to 5000 b.p., the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods, producing a long sequence punctuated by several hiatuses. Massive rockfalls from the roof and brow have sent a cascade of boulders into the cave interior, opening two windows to the sky and limiting the area of excavation [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. The area outside the present cave entrance(2) and along the modern shore (Paralia) has yielded only Neolithic and later material. Formal burials and extensive human bone scatter have been found in all parts of the site (Jacobsen & Cullen 1981), but the Mesolithic sample is limited to soundings within the cave.

Excavations at Franchthi were directed by Thomas W. Jacobsen of Indiana University, over eight field seasons between 1967 and 1979. The exceptional standards of the Franchthi fieldwork have come to serve as a model for prehistoric excavation in Greece. Virtually all of the artefactual remains were saved, and close attention was given to cultural and environmental classes of material alike.(3) A rigorous system of water-sieving was implemented in 1971, whereby sediment from four trenches in the cave, FAN, FAS, H1A, and H1B, and selected samples from Paralia were water-sieved (Diamant 1979). Field recording methods improved with each season at Franchthi. Trench G1, located beside the cave wall near the present entrance and excavated early on (1968), suffered particularly from excavators' inexperience. Strata were cross-cut, and none of the sediment was water-sieved, although it was passed through horizontal screens of graduated size. In the early seasons, Greek workmen did 'most of the excavating, sieving and heavy labor', and kerosene lamps were replaced in the deep trenches by electric lights only in 1969 (Jacobsen 1969: 350, n. 14; 1973a: 57, n. 28).

These details of evolving field methodology are of more than academic interest when one considers the nature of the funerary sample from Franchthi. The Mesolithic burials were located in Trench G1, and, unfortunately, only one was recognized during excavation. As problems associated with the excavation of G1 have discouraged the project's specialists (for lithics, shell, etc.) from incorporating the G1 material in their studies, the immediate context of the Mesolithic burials is not well defined.

The late J. Lawrence Angel of the Smithsonian Institution was initially responsible for studying and publishing the human remains from Franchthi (Angel 1969; 1973). As was customary during the 1960s and '70s, he visited the project occasionally, when a sample had been accumulated to study. Thus, although several graduate students on the project had some training in physical anthropology, a professional human osteologist was rarely present during excavation. The impact of this procedure on the resulting sample was considerable.

After Angel's death in 1986, Jacobsen invited me to complete the publication of the mortuary remains from the site, and Della Collins Cook of Indiana University agreed to work with me. Cook and I spent parts of three summers studying the sample of human bone recognized during excavation, which had been initially described by Angel and Sara Bisel (Angel & Bisel 1986). Given the difficulties in distinguishing human from animal bone in the trench, particularly for non-specialists, we then turned to the faunal sample, looking specifically for human remains that might have been misidentified. As a consequence, the sample of human remains (from all periods) was more than doubled, and important new evidence for Mesolithic cremation was discovered.(4)

The Mesolithic at Franchthi Cave

The Mesolithic period is defined at Franchthi by 18 radiocarbon dates, indicating a span of c. 9500-9000 b.p. for the Lower Mesolithic, and 9000-8000 b.p. for the Upper and Final Mesolithic (Perles 1990: 28, figure 2, 47, 85; Jacobsen & Farrand 1987: plate 71). Hiatuses of a few hundred years separate the Mesolithic deposits in the cave from those of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic (Farrand 1988: 314-15; 1993: 94). The arid, cold conditions of the Palaeolithic steppe or forest-steppe were gradually replaced in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene by a warmer, wetter climate that fostered the spread of deciduous forest throughout the eastern Mediterranean (van Zeist & Bottema 1982: 292). The southern Argolid appears to have been covered with an open oak woodland, interspersed with other trees and shrubs such as juniper, pistachio, wild pear, and almond (Hansen 1991: 18; van Andel & Hansen 1987: 58).

The Mesolithic inhabitants of the cave based their livelihood on a wide spectrum of resources, hunting red deer, pigs, and a range of smaller prey, fishing, and collecting nuts, land-snails, shellfish, fruits, legumes, and, for the first time, cereals. Hansen (1991: 119) reports 'a dramatic increase in the quantity and variety' of recovered plant remains at this time. An enormous leap in the number of seeds recovered from Franchthi - from 697 seeds representing 19 species at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic to almost 28,000 seeds from 27 species in the Lower Mesolithic - suggests not only a diverse subsistence base but also considerable activity during this phase of use of the cave.