Asea Valley Survey
An Arcadian Mountain Valley from the
Palaeolithic Period Until Modern Times
Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in 4°, LI

By Jeannette Forsen & Bjorn Forsen
December 2003
Paul Astroms Forlag
ISBN: 91-7916-047-6
378 pages, Illustrated, 8 ½" x 12"
$247.50 Hardcover

---

This volume presents the finds of the Asea Valley Survey (AVS) carried out 1994-1996 in a mountain valley of Arcadia with the acropolis of Asea, the Paleokastro, as its focal point. During three seasons of archaeological surface survey 18.7 square kilometers of the valley were searched intensively on foot. Artifacts spanning from the Middle Palaeolithic period to the early 19th century were systematically collected and documented.

Concurrently a geological team gathered data concerning the ever-changing landscape of the valley. By combining new archaeological and geological data with ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman and Venetian written sources the diachronic history of the Asea valley was reconstructed. Through the discovery of a Middle-Upper Palaeolithic site the regional history has been pushed back to about 50,000 BP.

Furthermore, a handful of Early-Middle Neolithic lakeslide sites, which produced nothing but chipped stone, may be interpreted as evidence of a gradual Neolithisation of the valley. A rather static settlement pattern, based on three villages, has been documented throughout the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. From the Neolithic period onwards people of the valley clearly interacted with other regions of the Aegean, possibly in the form of "peer-polity interaction."

Archaeology

Return to Coronet Books main page