Franchthi Cave

Excavation History

Professor T.W. Jacobsen, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Classical Studies at Indiana University, began excavations at Franchthi Cave in 1967. The dig was only intended to temporarily occupy Jacobsen, and his fellow researcher, M.H. Jameson, for one short season, while they waited for land use issues to be resolved at a nearby site. But it soon became clear that Franchthi cave was more important than they had anticipated. The excavation, overseen by Jacobsen, would continue for nearly a decade, ending in 1976. Since then numerous scholars have examined the extensive finds.

Paleolithic

During much of its history Franchthi was significantly further from the coastline than it is today, due to lower sea levels that have since risen around 400 ft. Thus, its inhabitants looked out on a coastal plain that was slowly submerged over the course of their occupation.

During the Upper Paleolithic Franchthi Cave was seasonally occupied by a small group (or groups), probably in the range of 25 - 30 people, who mainly hunted wild ass and red deer, carrying a stone tool kit of flint bladelets and scrapers. Its use as a campsite increased considerably after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), with occasional hiatus in the sequence of occupation. Obsidian from the island of Melos appears at Franchthi as early as 15,000 years ago (13,000 BCE), offering the earliest evidence of seafaring and navigational skills by anatomically modern humans in Greece. (There is evidence that suggests ancient mariners - such as Homo Erectus or Homo Heidelbergensis - may have reached Crete at least 130,000 years ago.)

Mesolithic

An apparent break in the occupation of Franchthi cave occurred during the Younger Dryas climate cooling event, after which a Mesolithic culture appeared as the world settled into the warm Holocene climate that continues today. The Mesolithic is represented by only a few sites in Greece, and, like Franchthi, nearly all of them are close to the coast. They did not rely as heavily on big game as their predecessors, probably due to the changing climate and environment; instead they broadened their resource base to include a variety of small game, wild plants, fish and mollusks. The evidence of increased fish bones and increased use of obsidian from Melos at Franchthi during this period shows they were accomplished seafarers. There is a notable stretch spanning several hundred years (circa 7,900 – 7,500 BCE) when tuna became a major part of the diet at Franchthi cave, implying deep sea fishing. It has also been suggested that the tuna could have been caught by placing nets near the shore. A few graves have been found buried in the cave during the Mesolithic that suggest care for the dead.

Neolithic

The cave also contains some of the earliest evidence for agriculture in Greece. Around 7,000 BCE the remains of domesticated plants and animals are found among the usual wild plant and animal species hunted and gathered during the Mesolithic, suggesting that either the inhabitants of Franchthi had begun to practice agriculture or were trading for seeds and meat with the Neolithic people who had recently arrived from the Near East. There has been some debate about whether agriculture developed locally in Greece, or was introduced by colonists. It is now generally believed that emigrants from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cultures of the Near East arrived by boat at the beginning of the seventh millennium BCE to settle Greece(c.6,900 BCE), introducing agriculture. For some time the evidence from Franchthi was used as an example in support of locally developed agriculture, but more detailed study of the remains has demonstrated that the evidence supports the foreign introduction of domesticated plants and animals. The Mesolithic hunter gatherers of Greece rapidly adopted the methods introduced to them by Neolithic colonists, including at Franchthi Cave. During the Neolithic main occupancy of the cave shifted to an area outside the entrance, called the Paralia (the seaside), where terracing walls for growing crops were built. It is believed the inhabitants also occupied a village below the Paralia, which is now submerged beneath the sea. Several anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines have been recovered at Franchthi from the Neolithic era, and it has been suggested that the site may have served as a workshop for making cockle-shell beads to trade with inland communities during the Early Neolithic. The cave and the Paralia were abandoned around 3,000 BCE.