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Geoarchaeology is the field of study that applies the concepts and methods of the geosciences to archaeological research. Geoarchaeological studies are important to archaeology because they can significantly enhance the archaeological interpretation. This thesis presents a geoarchaeological investigation of the processes involved in the formation of the Neolithic site at Paliambela in the Northern Pieria region of Central Macedonia, Northern Greece which unusually comprises both a tell and flat/extended componet. Chapter 1 presents an overview of geoarchaeology and its potentiality to unravel site formation processes. As geoarchaeology is an indispensable part of modem archaeological research can be used in concert with other archaeological subdisciplines such as archaeometry, to sharpen the interpretation of archaeological data and allow us to understand prehistory more fully. In this respect, Chapter 2 sets out the methods utilized ./ for the purposes of this study which were: particle-size analysis, microartifact analysis, magnetic susceptibility measurements, and organic carbon determination. Combinations of these methods can provide information critical to an understanding of the dynamics of the site's stratigraphy and ofthe formation of the deposits. ~hapter 3 presents and interprets the results of geoarchaeological analysis of core-data and of selected deposits (pits and ditches of the Neolithic period and pits of the Byzantine-Ottoman period) within the site while Chapter 4 explores the spatial organization of these deposits in more detail. The overall outcome of this analysis (Chapter 5) is the recognition that the formation of the archaeological deposits from both parts of the site, both temporally and spatially, was largely the result of differences in human activities and probably in the organization of human activities that seem to preserve to two components of the Neolithic site as spatially distinct over time while differences between the Neolithic and Byzantine-Ottoman contexts broadly indicate differences in the living environment between the prehistoric and historic settlement. |
