Prehistoric shell assemblages from Franchthi Cave and evolution of the adjacent coastal zone

Abstract

Franchthi Cave, Greece, virtually continuously occupied from the late Palaeolithic to the Final Neolithic1, is situated at the entrance to Koiladha Bay on the Gulf of Argos, where the sea meets a steep rocky shore just outside the cave entrance (Fig. 1). The deposits of the cave reveal much evidence of man's use of marine resources. For much of the occupational history of the cave, however, the shore was actualiy quite far away due to the glacial lowering of sea level, for example, 6–7 km during the latest Palaeolithic. Perhaps this is why the earliest deposits examined contain little shell material. A second phase has a mixed shell assemblage of short duration (Fig. 2) but a third one from the late Mesolithic has abundant shell remains dominated by a single species. We show here that these shell assemblages reflect environmental changes resulting from the rising postglacial sea level.