M. Á. Cau Ontiveros, C. Mas Florit, Change & Resilience. The Occupation of Mediterranean Islands in Late Antiquity

Mediterranean islands and their adjacent coastlands have long been the subject of a wide range of disciplines and discourses; from prehistory to late antiquity and beyond, the processes of imperial expansion, economic interconnectedness and cultural change have had a deep impact on their history. In recent decades the conceptual apparatus through which we study those processes has started to shift significantly. Earlier approaches influenced by nationalism and colonialism tended to adopt totalizing, top-down, and centre–periphery perspectives. The three volumes examined in this review are evidence that things are changing radically; but they also demonstrate the need for particular disciplines and subdisciplines to pay attention to each other. Though all three volumes focus on, or give major attention to, archaeological evidence, it is quite evident that prehistoric, classical, and late antique scholars follow distinctive scholarly traditions that could all benefit from more cross-fertilization.

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Port and Harbour Networks in Crete during Late Antiquity (4th – mid-7th c. AD): A Modern Approach

JOURNAL OF GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY ◽

10.32028/9781789698886-14 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. 328-357

Author(s):

Konstantinos Roussos

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Communication Networks ◽

Late Antiquity ◽

Cultural Landscape ◽

Eastern Mediterranean ◽

Multiple Roles ◽

Mediterranean Islands ◽

Modern Approach ◽

Wide Range ◽

Key Topics

Ports and harbours were of paramount importance for past human societies, since they played multiple roles in many different historical periods. In recent decades, port and harbour studies in archaeology have moved towards a social and economic approach, focusing on the localized meanings of these infrastructures as well as on various key topics including human-environmental interaction, material culture, settlement systems, human behavior and action, identity, ideology, communication networks and trade, war and peace, and technological evolution, etc.1 Especially in the context of the Mediterranean islands, ports and harbours have played vital roles in wider social, economic, and political networks. Crete, which was diachronically a diverse and interactive insular world within the Eastern Mediterranean, offers a fertile ground for investigating meticulously a wide range of key topics related to ports and harbours in Late Antiquity (the 4th – mid-7th centuries AD). During Late Antiquity Crete benefitted from its localized environmental advantages, the island’s strategic location and the favourable historical circumstances, achieving considerable prosperity.2Archaeological investigations have shown that a large number of sites developed both in the interior and along the coastline of the island. Regarding the maritime and coastal cultural landscape, however, important aspects of this situation have not been studied in detail, while a synthetic and comparative work focusing on the entire island is lacking. The multiple roles played by the Cretan ports and harbours, as well as the challenges faced by ancient mariners in moving around the island have not been fully understood.

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