Finding Sites in Mediterranean Survey

Abstract

As survey methods around the Mediterranean matured from extensive to more intensive modes of discovery, a form of ‘siteless’ survey emerged, characterized by high-intensity field walking with a correlated trend towards reduced areal coverage. The resulting practice evoked external criticism: ‘Mediterranean myopia’ precluded true regional-scale investigation. Our discipline can benefit from a reckoning with this criticism, together with a frank acknowledgement of the methodological challenges inherent in field survey and the resulting difficulty in comparing artifact-level data from different surveys. This paper recounts some of the main methodological difficulties and the degree to which these have or have not been fully addressed by Mediterranean survey practitioners. I argue that siteless survey methods produce data that - although necessary for analysis within a project - do not provide correct external deliverables. I also argue that the notion ‘site’ (i.e., places made by and interpretable as human activity) continues to be of fundamental importance to archaeology. The paper concludes that our methods can benefit from an integrated approach combining extensive and intensive methods, characterized by predictive modeling, quality assurance programs and carefully calibrated intensity, with site definition and discovery at its core.

Myopic Misunderstandings?

“…Kowalewski (2008: 229, 249-50) similarly criticised Mediterranean 'micro-methodologists' for their focus on small sample areas; in his view, regional studies should aim for full-coverage survey of more sizeable regions that represent 'a meaningful set of communities that form a system'. Meyer's (2022) recent contribution can be read in part as a firm restatement of the critique developed by Fentress, Blanton and Kowalewski. Meyer presents a critical assessment of the state of our field and suggests how, in light of that critique, it should develop.…”