Between 1987 and 1992, the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville conducted investigations in pedology and geomorphology in cooperation with the Kavousi Project under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece. Project members included representatives of the Classics and Anthropology Departments from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK), Wabash College, and the University of Minnesota. The Late Minoan IIIC and Subminoan sites of Vronda and Kastro, near the village of Kavousi in eastern Crete, were the focal points of these investigations.

These archaeological sites are known as “refuge” sites because of...

Taken together, the Late Minoan IIIC period and subsequent Subminoan period (approximately 1200–1000 b.c.) represents the final phase of the peoples and civilization of Minoan Crete. The previous cultural periods were represented by the Minoan palace phases, which constituted one of the most prosperous civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean. The following period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, was one of decline in both population and culture. It has been speculated that this decline was compounded by a number of factors. Such wide-ranging theories as a Dorian invasion (Kagan, 1969), the volcanic eruption of Thera (Ninkovich and Heezen, 1965),...

The Karphi archaeological site in eastern Crete represents a human settlement which was inhabited for a relatively short period of time (circa 1200–900 b.c.) and was permanently abandoned. This archaeological site allowed this investigation the opportunity to observe short-term human impact on a soil system some 3,000 years ago. An effort was made to concentrate on depositional basins which existed around and topographically below the present site of Karphi. These depositional basins, including dolines and an alluvial fan, have a tendency to preserve within their sedimentary matrices the depositional history of the area. The interpretation of this depositional history...

Soil studies conducted in eastern Crete by the Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, focused on the attempt to locate, describe, and characterize depositional basins in order to understand the dynamics of landscape development over time. One such depositional basin was found in the northern coastal hills northwest of the present village of Kavousi. This landform was a rather large sinkhole with an alluvial fill of considerable depth. Two distinct artifact lines were located in a borrow pit which had been placed in the sinkhole prior to the investigation. It was believed that these artifact assemblages...

The Late Minoan IIIC archaeological sites of Vronda and Kastro were the focus of the Kavousi Expedition near the village of Kavousi. The expedition enlisted the services of soil scientists from the University of Tennessee to understand the natural environment of the area. These soil investigations were conducted in the framework of an interdisciplinary effort to study the interaction of the lifeways of the Minoan period peoples who inhabited the area and the natural setting of that period. It was hoped that cultural and enviromental dynamics could be understood in the context of the past.

The focus of this soil...