Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey, Volume 1: Methodology and Interpretation (Annual of the British School at Athens, Supplementary Volume 26)

Between 1983 and 1988 teams from the Universities of Nottingham and Amsterdam intensively surveyed a territory of just over 70 aq km in central Laconia. The area of the survey extended from the east side of the Eurotas river, close to Sparta itself, up into the foothills of the Parnon range. Over 400 sites were identified, the great majority of them previously unknown, dating from the Neolithic to the Veneto-Turkish period. This new information makes possible a reevaluation of the settlement history and rural economy of Sparta and Laconia. This is presented in Volume 1, in which the ecology and geomorphology of the region sets the scene for period-by-period analysis of the results and implications of the Survey. Volume II assembles the primary data, including a pottery series for each period and separate studies of chipped and ground-stone artefacts, inscriptions, architectural fragments, other finds, and the results of geophysical survey. The site catalogue is complemented by a new gazetteer of archaeological sites in the rest of Laconia.