Franchthi Cave overlooks what is now a small inlet off the Aegean Sea in the southeastern Argolid region of Greece. The cave is the epitome of every archaeologist's dream--a site constantly occupied for thousands of years, with wonderful preservation of bones and seeds throughout. First occupied during the Upper Paleolithic sometime between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago, Franchthi Cave was the site of human occupation, pretty much consistently up until about the final Neolithic Period about 3000 BC.
There are many reasons why Franchthi Cave is an important site; three of them are the length and period of occupation, the quality of preservation of the seed and bone assemblages, and the fact that it was excavated in modern times.
- Length and period of occupation. The site was occupied, more or less continuously, for about 25,000 years, during which time came the invention of agriculture and pastoralism. What that means is that changes that were wrought by these phenomenal leaps in human understanding can be traced at one place, by examining differences between different layers.
- Quality of preservation. In most of the layers excavated at Franchthi cave, remnants of animals and plants in the form of bone, shell, seed, and pollen were preserved. These kinds of artifacts have provided researchers with a wealth of information concerning diet and the course of domestication.
- Modern excavation techniques. Franchthi cave was excavated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, by the Universities of Indiana and Pennsylvania and the American School in Classical Studies at Athens. These researchers paid attention to stratigraphic layers, and kept much of the faunal and floral materials that would have been ignored or thrown away in earlier times.
Sources
Jacobsen, T. 1981 Franchthi Cave and the beginnings of settled village life in Greece. Hesperia 50:1-16.
Shackleton, Judith C. and Tj. H. van Andel 1986 Prehistoric shore environments, shellfish availability, and shellfish gathering at Franchthi, Greece. Geoarchaeology 1(2):127-143.
There are several terrific resources on Franchthi Cave on the Internet. Two of the best are the scientifically-oriented page from Dartmouth's Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean Page and a page more suited toward the non-academic from the Foundation of the Hellenic World
