• August 28, 2026 | 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM
  • 430

52 - Connecting Cave Archaeologies: Shared Practices and Challenges across the Mediterranean

Regular session
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Caves and rock shelters across Greece and the Mediterranean constitute unique cultural archives, preserving millennia of human activity, and reflecting every dimension of human culture, from daily subsistence to ritual expression. Exploring and interpreting the complex nature of human—cave interaction has been an ongoing process of methodological development shaped by the challenges of subterranean research, from physical constraints of cave environments to stratigraphic/taphonomic ambiguities and uneven fieldwork opportunities among sites.
In Greece, work conducted by the Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology-Speleology of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture—the state authority for cave archaeology—illustrates these disparities: only a few sites can be systematically investigated, while most caves remain known only from exploratory visits or have been lost to erosion, looting, or modern development.
This session aims to provide a forum for cave archaeologists from across the Mediterranean—working in state services, research institutions, universities and more—to share their experiences, fieldwork practices, methodological and interpretive trajectories in cave archaeology. We welcome contributions that address not only the practical and methodological challenges of subterranean work but also the interpretive dimensions that arise from them. These include understanding caves as dynamic contexts of human evolution, mortuary performance, shrine establishment, refuge use, agropastoral activities, and beyond.
Possible topics of discussion include, but are not limited to:
• Location and exploration challenges of new caves
• Diachronicity, thick stratigraphies and the ‘longue durée’ of cave sites
• Contextual and taphonomic puzzles of human-cave interaction
• Densities and metrics of caves at different scales
• Landscape perspectives of cave sites
• Research potential of brief investigations, non-invasive surveys, minor, damaged or neglected caves
• New investigations and current projects across the Mediterranean
• From material evidence to interpretation and underground narratives

Main Organizer(s)

F
Fotis Georgiadis

Co-organisers, invited speakers and discussants

K
Konstantinos Trimmis
S
Stella Katsarou

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EAA Annual Meeting 2026

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