Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Colour Plates
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Problems and Perspectives
- 2 Methods and Data
- 3 A Mediterranean and Island Environment
- 4 Material Worlds
- 5 Landscape Archaeology and Historical Ecology I
- 6 Landscape Archaeology and Historical Ecology II
- 7 Mobility and Investment
- 8 The Eccentric, the Specialist and the Displaced
- 9 Antikythera in Context
- Appendix I Statistical and Computational Methods
- Appendix II Locations by Period
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Mobility and Investment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Colour Plates
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Problems and Perspectives
- 2 Methods and Data
- 3 A Mediterranean and Island Environment
- 4 Material Worlds
- 5 Landscape Archaeology and Historical Ecology I
- 6 Landscape Archaeology and Historical Ecology II
- 7 Mobility and Investment
- 8 The Eccentric, the Specialist and the Displaced
- 9 Antikythera in Context
- Appendix I Statistical and Computational Methods
- Appendix II Locations by Period
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The last two chapters have outlined a settlement and population history of the island over the seven millennia during which there has been evidence of human activity. We are now in a much better position to tackle some important themes in Mediterranean history and human ecology. In particular, the first half of this chapter offers an antidote to the misleadingly static picture often provided by the archaeological record. It focuses on the physical and seasonal affordances that exist for human mobility on and around Antikythera, the cultural context of on- and off-island connectivity and the impact of varying patterns of visibility and communication on wider social life. It also offers an interpretation of how such islands fit into the wider geopolitics of the Mediterranean. The second half then moves on to address the causes and consequences of long-term human investment in the landscape, in the form of features such as field systems, pathways, orchards and larger built structures. We demonstrate via spatial modelling and careful discussion that these features have a profound restructuring effect on island life and act as important attractors to subsequent activity over very long periods of time, and across episodes of island abandonment even when all that remains of them for subsequent discoverers are faintly visible traces.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mediterranean Islands, Fragile Communities and Persistent LandscapesAntikythera in Long-Term Perspective, pp. 158 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013