Abstract Recent archaeological discoveries from the Greek islands of Crete and Naxos point to the presence of hominins in the Aegean Basin beginning at least in the Middle Pleistocene (∼200 ka), indicating that the region may have been an important dispersal route for hominins (including humans) entering southeastern Europe. Currently, archaeologists lack a clear understanding about where Palaeolithic sites should exist throughout the region. Consequently, archaeologists are hindered in their ability to construct the chronostratigraphic frameworks necessary to place the Aegean Palaeolithic into broader narratives of human biogeography until more buried and scientifically dated sites are found. Addressing this issue, we review one successful survey strategy that has proven effective in increasing the likelihood of discovering archaeological sites of Pleistocene age – namely, systematic geoarchaeologically informed research frameworks centered on targeting Pleistocene geologic deposits (soils and sediments). Such an approach has worked well on mainland Greece (and elsewhere) but has yet to be operationalized for application in the Greek islands. Here we review the approach and suggest that deposit-centered surveys can function in four phases of varying degrees of complexity and scale and can be implemented either independently or in tandem with traditional archaeological pedestrian surveys. We also review Quaternary deposits and their associated geomorphic settings that are likely to contain Palaeolithic artifacts to aid future deposit-centered surveys in the Greek islands. We conclude that future archaeologists should implement the approach to target depositional settings in near-shore coastal areas (e.g., alluvial fans with stratified Pleistocene-aged paleosols), sometimes identified by paleo-sea-level-indicators (sea notches, marine terraces, and aeolianites), such as those seen on, Anti-Paros, Kythera, Crete (northern and southern coasts), Karpathos, and Rhodes. Further, we argue that non-coastal geomorphic settings like internally-drained basins on Crete and Rhodes, similar to those on the mainland, should be systematically searched for Palaeolithic sites. The deposit-centered survey strategies reviewed here provide a means for archaeologists working in the Aegean Basin to predict high probability locations for Palaeolithic archaeological sites. This geoarchaeological approach can be used in similar geomorphic settings around the world and therefore has implications for filling geographic gaps in our understanding of hominin dispersals in the Pleistocene.

中文翻译：

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以矿床为中心的考古调查与爱琴海旧石器时代的探索：地质考古学视角

摘要 希腊克里特岛和纳克索斯岛最近的考古发现表明，爱琴海盆地至少在中更新世（~200 ka）开始存在古人类，表明该地区可能是古人类（包括人类）进入东南欧。目前，考古学家对整个地区的旧石器时代遗址应该存在于何处缺乏明确的认识。因此，考古学家在构建将爱琴海旧石器时代纳入更广泛的人类生物地理学叙事中所必需的年代地层框架的能力受到阻碍，直到发现更多的掩埋和科学年代确定的遗址。针对这个问题，我们回顾了一种成功的调查策略，该策略已被证明可有效增加发现更新世时代考古遗址的可能性——即以更新世地质沉积物（土壤和沉积物）为中心的系统的地质考古学研究框架。这种方法在希腊大陆（和其他地方）运作良好，但尚未在希腊岛屿上实施。在这里，我们回顾了该方法，并建议以沉积物为中心的调查可以在不同复杂程度和规模的四个阶段中发挥作用，并且可以独立实施或与传统的考古步行调查一起实施。我们还回顾了第四纪矿床及其相关的可能包含旧石器时代文物的地貌环境，以帮助未来在希腊岛屿进行以矿床为中心的调查。我们得出的结论是，未来的考古学家应该采用这种方法来瞄准近岸沿海地区的沉积环境（例如，具有分层更新世时代古土壤的冲积扇），有时可以通过古海平面指标（海槽、海洋阶地和风成岩），例如在安提帕罗斯岛、基西拉岛、克里特岛（北部和南部海岸）、卡尔帕索斯岛和罗得岛看到的那些。此外，我们认为应该系统地搜索与大陆相似的非沿海地貌环境，如克里特岛和罗得岛的内排水盆地，以寻找旧石器时代遗址。此处审查的以矿床为中心的调查策略为在爱琴海盆地工作的考古学家提供了一种方法，可以预测旧石器时代考古遗址的高概率位置。这种地质考古方法可用于世界各地类似的地貌环境，因此对填补我们对更新世人类散布的理解的地理空白具有重要意义。