Παλαιοντολογική-ιζηματολογική ανασκαφική έρευνα 2004 και χρονολογικές μελέτες σπηλαίου A' Λουτρακιού Αριδαίας
Part of : Το Αρχαιολογικό Έργο στη Μακεδονία και στη Θράκη ; Vol.18, No.1, 2004, pages 573-589
Issue:
Pages:
573-589
Parallel Title:
The cave A' in the Aridaia - Loutraki area
Abstract:
Since some decades, a group of large and medium-sized caves are known in the Aridaia-Loutraki area (Central Macedonia in northern Greece). Among them the cave A', locally known as «Agiasma», stands as the most important due to its paleontological, paleo-ecological and archaeological significance. In the last thirteen years, the cave becomes subject of intensive excavational and other interdisciplinary investigation, conducted by the Ephorate of Speleology and Paleoanthropology, in collaboration with the University of Thessaloniki and the Research Center «Demokritos». The evaluation of the results of the study carried out during the 2004 season, provided definite clarification on some significant, long-standing issues such as the Upper Quaternary morphological evolution of the cave, and the periods during which the prehistoric «cave bear» (Ursus spelaeus, today extinct) and man occupied the cave.Our sedimentological study fairly shows that the clastic deposits comprise the main components of the cave fillings. Their stratigraphic sequence was investigated by a number of excavated trenches and further examined by appropriate shallow cave drilling/coring. The data indicate that prior to the depositional period, an Upper Pleistocene tectonic action caused intense falling of rock-mass from the cave’s ceiling. Voluminous fallen angular boulders, some of them partly covered by the consecutive cave fillings, are now lying in several areas of the floor.Two distinct depositional phases appear in the investigated sequences of sediments; the earlier, contemporaneous or somewhat later than the above tectonic event is of fluvial origin and consists mostly of coarse deposits. Rolled river pebbles also participate in the deeper levels of that sequence. The later phase, of late Quaternary - early Holocene age, consists of fine sediments and is attributed to a flood depositional environment. This later flooding phase includes also the bones-hosting stratum. The corresponding skeletal parts show low degree of fossilization and belong mainly to Ursus spelaeus. An almost complete cranium of the same species, the biggest in the cave, was found during the 2004 excavational session.Grain-size and chemical analyses as well as ESR-dating of calcitic formations inter-layering the cave fillings below and above the bones-hosting stratum, allowed an alignment of the entire chrono- stratigraphic sequence, revealed in the excavated grids. Thus, a documentary assessment of the origin, development and depositional drift of the clastic sediments was feasible. Based on this, we may recognize the old entrance of the cave located at its southern edge, from which the prehistoric bear and the fluvial sediments entered the cave. The flooding period of the cave indicates clearly that the cave-bear does not live anymore there and the existing (since the previous «fluvial» phase) bones are deposited in the above-mentioned layer, along with other «flooding» sedimentary formations.Calcitic layers, characteristic of the common chemical speleothem precipitation in most caves, prevail in the upper and the top strata of all excavated grids. They often crowned by gurs and correspond to the final, post-flooding Holocene period of the cave that started during the Neolithic. Since that period man occupies the cave and uses it temporarily as rocksheiter, as it is derived from various hearths, charcoal (C-14 dated as Late Neolithic), contemporaneous sherds and Bronze Age finds, most of them found in the floor or in shallow depths, covered by the top calcitic flowstones. Access of man into the cave was accomplished through the modern entrance, which is partly artificial, and its opening took place in the Late Neolithic.The data available so far (tectonic, sedimentological, dating etc) indicate a vertical cutting and evolution of the nearby gorge extremely rapid in global scale
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Subject (LC):
Keywords:
σπήλαια, παλαιοντολογία, αρχαιολογική χρονολόγηση, Πέλλα, συνέδρια
Notes:
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