83-93

The end of mound settlements from the standpoint of an excavator

• Hänsel, Bernhard

There have recently been repeated references to the causes and regularly of abandonment of the toumba as a habitation site during various periods in SE Europe, particularly in the area extending from Thessaly up to Rumania and Hungary (e.g. Gimbutas, Parzinger, Todorova, Chapman, Stefanovic, Tringham, Likn et al). Their identical or close chronologies have been used as a basis for interpretative (hermeneutic) models, which led inter alia to the creation of historically confirmed events. Simple and interconnected interpretations distinguished, at the end of the stage of toumba habitation, indications of migrations, or more generally found arguments for various models of spreading and recherché theories of destruction. Climactic factors and environmental changes have been dealt with in a positive way as catalysts for the end of elevated settlements. The subject has become more one for discussions of a theoretical content, and these have filled many pages. In the more process- oriented (“prozessual”) manner of thinking, socioeconomic parameters play an important role. But “post-process” (“postprozessual”) orientations also provided motives - e.g. religious - for their use and abandonment.This lively discussion is exclusively oriented towards the interpretation of the phenomenon of the appearance, use, and primarily the end of toumba- settlements. As one would expect from a theoretically-oriented discussion, a critical handling of sources, i.e. the careful interpretation of archaeological finds, is often overlooked. As will be shown in this article through the use of a number of examples, determining the end of these settlements on the basis of the architectural remains is not such an easy matter.The goal of this contribution is to express a number of reservations about hasty determinations of the end of a mound settlement and the consequent interpretations put forward. On the basis of excavations at two mounds in Macedonia (Kastana on the Axios River and Agios Mamas at Nea Olynthos in the Chalcidice), we will endeavor to make it clear that the abandonment of a toumba is not necessarily to be identified with its uppermost habitation level. The processing-interpretation of the uppermost architectural remains found during the excavation of a toumba is a very complex undertaking, requiring the inclusion of many factors and observations. More specifically, it requires consideration of all those factors that disturb, shape, erode and alter the final settlement.We will emphasize that the picture of the more recent, or final settlement of a toumba - apart from a very few fortunate exceptions - can as a rule no longer be perceived, and even less recreated. This discovery is of decisive importance in the effort to interpret interrupted habitation on mounds.From the time they were abandoned in the prehistoric period onward, all the mounds have been subjected to powerful erosion by water and air as well as farming or herding use, and their shapes have been so altered that practically no remains of the final settlement are preserved, and these not in situ. In accordance with climactic conditions in Macedonia, we may conclude that the mounds shrank on all sides, particularly their upper sections. Since their entire surface has fallen victim to erosion, one might consider that today the only thing remaining to us is their “skeleton.” More precisely, we will comment on “levels” 1-3 at Kastanas, with particular mention of the older excavations of L. Rey. We will then make reference to the toumba of Agios Mamas, the prehistoric settlement of Olynthos. Both will be dealt with in conjunction with the special conditions of erosion of their surroundings. In order that knowledge gained here in Greece may benefit a wider area, we will briefly refer to sites in Hungary and Serbia.In short, the goal of this study is to highlight basic phenomena that alter the picture of the higher residential levels in mounds, in order to avoid hasty conclusions about the end of such settlements. If we do not take the basic observations of the excavator into account, there is a real danger of drawing incorrect conclusions, as it is a fact that at the outset of every hermeneutic model one requires a full understanding of the architectural remains employed.In addition, we attempt to document a connection between the prehistoric settlement on the toumba and ancient Olynthos, and discuss the possibility that the former comprised prehistoric Olynthos.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

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