RAPHAEL ORGEOLET STONY KOUPHOVOUNO: THE EARLY HELLADIC PITS. SOME REMARKS ON THEIR FUNCTION MIPAKTIKA TOY Z’ AIEONOYE EYNEAPIOY TIEAOTIONNHEIAKQN STIOYAQN (Tigyog ~— Paotowvn ~ “Apadudda 11-17 ZercepBgiov 2005) TOMOE A‘ A@HNAL 2006 ANATYIIONRAPHAEL ORGEOLET STONY KOUPHOVOUNO: THE EARLY HELLADIC PITS. SOME REMARKS ON THEIR FUNCTION! The tell of Kouphovouno lays in the Sparta plain, between the modern city and the Taygetos and close to a tiny stream, the Parori (fig. 1). The tell was partially explored during the summer of 1941 by Otto Wilhelm von Vacano, who dug two long and narrow trenches across the eastern slope of the tell, and a few complementary soundings? They were meant as preliminary investigations, but history didn’t allow any further research at that time. Then Kouphovouno entered another 40 years of sleepiness, until J. Renard worked on publishing von Vacano’s work between 1985 and 1989. Excavated Neolithic sites are sparse in the Peloponnese’, and it was all the more important to publish this one, These first investigations had brought up material belonging to different phases of the Neolithic and the Bronze ‘Age, such as graves and stone-filled pits which are the subject of this paper’s discussion. Unfortunately, von Vacano’s excavations had been carried out without any care for the stratigraphic record, and the short amount of time taken to shift a large quantity of soil shows how work on site had not been meticulovs. Because of this, important information was lost and precision in the record was lacking. The above reasons lead to the elaboration of a new project under the direction of W.G. Cavanagh, C.B. Mee and J, Renard, which started in 1999 with a survey campaign‘, followed in 2001 by three 1, Lam grateful to W.G. Cavanagh, C.B. Mee and J, Renard who kindly allowed me to discuss the unpublished materiat described here, and to F. Trifilo for his corrections. 2. Renard 1989. 3. See for instance Perles 2001 and lastly Cavanagh 2004. 4, Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2004,270 Raphaél Orgeolet successive excavation seasons continued in summer 2005 after a break for study in 2004. The new investigations allowed us to confirm von Vacano’s discoveries and to enrich them with new elements and more precise data. On the other hand, the problems raised by the pits, which I shall discuss below, have yet to be solved. The problem until 2001 We are dealing with different types of cavities artificially dug in the tell. With regard to those excavated by von Vacano in 1941, we notice that they are all filled with large amounts of stones. If we examine von Vacano’s Trench A from point 0 until the foot of the tell, as shown in fig. 2, one pit in particular stands out, Its maximum preserved length in the section amounts to ca. 5 m., whereas its depth measures up to ca. 1.20 m. As shown on the drawing and confirmed by the excavator, this irregularly shaped cavity dug in both archaeological and sterile layers has entirely been filled up with river stones of medium size. This is the only pit explored in 1941 for which we have a ground plan (see infra p. §§§). Another bigger pit shows up south- eastwards; its maximum length preserved in the East facing section exceeds 9 m,, and its depth is ca. 1.90 m. The pit also stands out with three burials (G4, G5 and G6, in the East facing section), and especially with a striking feature. ‘As the 1941 drawings show, it seems like this pit might have been altered. The first stage is constituted by the pit’s excavation; the second stage is represented by the process of backfilling the pit with soil and mid sized river stones, When was the pit backfilled? How? Totally or partly? Just after its excavation or later? Were the bodies buried at this time? The pit's backfill appears to have been modified later, unless the two different layers identified by von Vacano were deposited at the same time. In Trench A we can also observe another long and shallow cavity in one of the two recorded sections, and two other different pits that develop in depth rather than in length as the one examined. The German excavations have brought to light unique features: amongst these, numerous pits of different shapes and sizes that share a striking characteristic: they have been filled with stones, sometimes in two separate phases. The lack of precision in Von Vacano's data has made the inter- pretation of these pits impossible. When had the pits been dug? What did they contain? The current project might help answering those questions.Stony Kouphovouno: The early Helladic pits 21 The new data The new excavations (2001-...) at Kouphovouno have produced a rather good quantity of new and finer data, together with different types of pits. The first type, to be just briefly mentioned, consists of two smaller depressions. One, of EH date, has been filled with rubbish, whereas the other one, of unclear function, goes back to the MN. This first type is far too small to be compared to the huge pits excavated by von Vacano. In the summer of 2005, excavation revealed a large MN pit clearly used for refuse: its fill was made up of several layers of black earth mixed with a great amount of animal bones and broken pottery. The different layers (two at least, maybe three) are separated by a thin layer of greenish clay, probably used to prevent the spread of bad odours. This second type is rather clear: it dates to the MN period and its function is obvious, Eventually, we found a third type matching the pits excavated and described by von Vacano, The excavation revealed several pits of good size filled with stones, similar to those uncovered in 1941. We now know they date to the EH period. Among a number of examples, we can single out Pit 1641 in Area G, partly excavated in the summers of 2003 and 2005 (fig. 3), and Pit 0004 in Area A, excavated in summer 2001, for a more detailed discussion. Pit 0004: what was its purpose? ‘This pit is located in trench A, explored during summer 2001 on the southern slope of the tell where a stone platform appeared immediately below the modern ploughed levels. The platform (fig. 4), measured roughly 3.40 m. from North to South and 3.60 m, East West. It was dug in a homogenous bed ‘of yellowish clay containing only a few tiny stones, which seemed to be decayed building clay, probably of MN date. A skeleton was found by its eastern limit, lying in a grave lined with stones on its eastern side. A pair of copper alloy tweezers was deposited with the body. The stone-platform was dug in quadrants, so as to obtain median sections facing East, West, North and South. The backfill was made of a loose mix of pebbles, soil, animal bones, stone and bone tools, and a great amount of potsherds. All this material had been thrown as refuse in a large pit dug in earlier archaeological jayers, The pit was rather deep (up to 1 m.), and excavation showed how more than 7 m? of material had been put in it. The pottery was essentially of EH date, with a few Neolithic sherds; Other finds were less important, withmn Raphatl Orgeolet the exception, of course, of the stones, found in large quantities in the pit’s deposits. Nothing in this material helps us to infer a clear function. All these large pits go back to EH, a period for which, at Kouphovouno, we lack architectural features, despite having good examples for the Middle and Late Neolithic. If they did exist, we must assume they have been truncated by erosion or human activity. The only EH features we have are the pits dug in the Neolithic levels. As the pits themselves show, activity at Kouphovouno in the EH is undeniable, and it is tempting to see them as the only remains of that period's settlement. This is what von Vacano did, interpreting the pit he called “Haus Zwei” as a dwelling. This feature is rather similar to Pit 0004 in trench A. This kind of feature is called “radier” in French, what we can roughly and only partly translate in English as “pebble/cobble bed”. As Aurenche writes, a radier is “une aire de cailloutis couvrant l'ensemble d'une surface a batir et jouant a loccasion le réle de fondations”s Its purpose is both to isolate and for drainage. Such features are not common in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age architecture in Greece, in comparison to the number of uncovered structures. We must for instance mention the stone bed lying under the Neolithic hut excavated by Alessandro Della Stea and Doro Levi in the 1920's on the southern slope of the Acropolis in Athens.’ Recent work at the Markopoulo race track in Attica allowed the discovery of a Neolithic dwelling showing similar characteristics*. As reported by the excavator, the dwelling consists of a pit-house that would have been reasted in a second stage by the filling of the pit, providing a stone-platform suitable for the building of a new dwelling. Could this hypothesis be true for Pit 0004 and other similar ones at Kouphovouno? First, we should note that our attic examples were both supporting built structures, including walls. At Markopoulo, the excavator reports that she hasn't managed to detect the remains of mud bricks, but suggests, nonetheless, their use. The published images show clearly on the left of the dwelling the presence of a stone foundation wall. There is nothing like this at Kouphovouno, and the existence of built structures lying over the 5. Pit n°t as described at the beginning of this paper, see p. 2. 6, Aurenche 1977, p. 149 7. Levi 1930-31 8. Kakavoyanni 2004, p. 20.Stony Kouphovouno: The early Helladic pits 23 Stone-platforms has to be considered today only as a hypothesis. This assertion goes against von Vacano’s statement on “Havs Zwei”, but nothing reinforces his theory except the feature’s plan. Von Vacano’s drawing (fig. 5) shows a stone platform with three rather straight edges and another of apsidal shape. On the basis of the excavator’s notes, reports and personal communications, J. Renard published this structure as an apsidal building.” She compared the shape of the “Haus Zwei” to other well known examples of this type in the Early and Middle Helladic periods, and supposed the presence of an entrance on the opposite side to the apse. Furthermore, she reported the presence of a partition-wall splitting the “house” into two rooms, with the entrance opening on the main one. There is no record of architectural remains, such as mud brick debris, beaten earth floor, etc., except what has been regarded as wail remains. These lie in the western corner of the structure, close to the apse, and consist of stones set in a curved line, But this area has been disturbed at least by the grave G3", partly set in the “house's” foundations. In addition, the whole area of the apse seems to have suffered from another disturbance, since the plan clearly shows two different deposits inside the apse, whereas the stones forming the rows interpreted as apse- and partition-wall seem to shape a single and different oval structure, earlier than “Haus Zwei” and cut by it. The hypothesys of linking those walls directly to the “house” appears very doubtful, but we must acknowledge that they would have been so close to the surface that any superstructure would have been taken away by ploughing. Pits 0004 and 1641 are consistent with this picture and contain nothing assignable to any kind of dwelling remains (burnt pieces of daub, mud brick or floors, foundation walls, post holes, etc.). Another element standing against the foundation hypothesis is that in both Area A and Area G, the depth of the stone-fili ranges up to more than | m. and is-largely oversized compared to other examples of radiers."" Why dig such deep pits? Why construct such thick platforms? Furthermore, why stone-piatforms? At Kouphonouno, the MN houses we exposed on the top of the tell were not built upon such features, and it is far from certain that hydrologic conditions on site required the use of these as drains in dwelling construction. Was this maybe more necessary down the slopes where water drainage was less easy? 9. Renard 1989 p. 35. 10. Renard 1989 p. 38 II, For instance, the radier of the Acropolis’ hut is only 30 cm thick. MIPAKTIKA Z’ SIEGNOYE EYNEAPIOY TEAOMONNHZIAKQN ZTIOYAQN t. A 18274 Raphael Orgeolet This suggestion, though, can be rejected too, as we have found one of these pits close to the highest point of the site, Still, we can’t exclude that these stone-platforms served as foundations for structures made of light and perishable material that haven’t left any trace, this view being supported by the relative horizontality of the stone-platforms, which probably show the EH ground level. We could, for example, imagine wooden features like granaries,” The most natural explanation is that of the rubbish pit. As a matter of fact, all the material recovered in the pits are discarded (among the lithic material, we found a broken quern in Pit 0004), and there are plenty of archaeological parallels for such a function. Today, there is a kind of rubbish trés 4 Ja mode, the one consisting of feasting remains. In recent literature, we might mention the instance of LN Makriyalos (Geek Macedonia) where the excavators report on having exposed massive pits (one represents a volume of several hundreds of cubic meters) in which the refuse material from collective feasts would have been dumped", At Kouphovouno, the study undertaken by A. Gardeisen'* does not support this hypothesis", The estimated 7 m? of backfill in Pit 0004 revealed only 437 faunal remains (bones and teeth), corresponding to a MNI of 14, which is rather poor. Besides, A. Gardeisen emphasizes the action of rodents and carnivores on faunal remains and their extreme fragmentation as well as the lack of coherent sets. This leads her towards rejecting the hypothesis of an immediate and simultaneous inhumation of carcasses from a single feasting, The feasting hypothesis is no longer valid, either. As already pointed out, the most striking characteristic of these pits is the large amount of stones they are filled with. One can wonder about the reasons for the excavation of large rubbish pits later filled up with stones. Is the a priory association with rubbish compulsory, unless there was a demonstrable need, during the Early Helladic period at Kouphovouno, to get rid of great amounts of stones? With regard to these stones, the first problem 12. This idea has been suggested to me by J. Renard. 13. Pappa et al. 2004 14, Fauna specialist, CNRS Montpellier, France. 15. A. Gardeisen, personal communication and internal pre-publication reportsStony Kouphovouno: The early Helladie pits 275 to solve is their origin and to ensure whether their presence on the site is natural or the result of human activity, At ca. S$ km south of Kouphovouno, in the vicinity of the village of Kalivia Sochas, olive fields are literally covered by stones comparable in size and nature'® to those from our site. Nevertheless, the situation is quite different at Kalivia Sochas, since the place stands right at the base of alluvial cones rushing down the Taygetos fault scrap, whereas the gentle hill of Kouphovouno is located closer to the middle of the Sparta basin, further away from the mountain. In addition, the tell of Kouphovouno takes advantage of a slight elevation above the valley floor, preventing stones from covering it by dispersal. Finally, these stones, showing up as early as the surface level, seem only to belong to the higher strata: P.A. James and M. Kousoulakou carried out the drilling of a high number of cores between 1999 and 2001 and concluded that the upper levels, ie. the archaeological ones, were much more stony than the underlying natural soil.!” Indeed, the new excavations have shown that these stones were largely used in dwelling construction during the Middle and Late Neolithic periods, especially to set the foundation walls. One can imagine that during the Early Helladic Period people needed to remove them from the tell, because of practical (agriculture) or symbolic reasons (related to the use of the site as a cemetery, for instance). On the other hand, the need to hide them in deep cavities remains unexplained. If we consider the practical hypothesis, namely the need of free space for agriculture, we must keep in mind both the large number of those pits and the great amount of work involved. In modern times, removing several cubic meters to obtain a rubbish pit wouldn’t be unthinkable, but when one uses prehistoric tools such as tiny polished stone adzes or wooden picks, everything is different. There is the possibility that the pits had been dug \ong before they were backfilled, and that this backfill was intended to level the slopes of the tell. The last excavation seasons didn’t reveal any deposit layer between the cutting and the filling which immediately lies upon the bottom of the pit. This new element obliges one to reconsider the rubbish hypothesis: Pit 0004 in trench A contained at least 7 m* of material, which means that a same volume has been removed from it when dug. How was it used and for what 16. This remark is made on the basis of simple eye examination, 17. P.A. James and M, Kousoulakou in Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2004, p. 63.276 Raphaél Orgeolet purpose? First I supposed this earth to be suitable for construction, but some of the pits are dug in deep burned Neolithic layers, where the clay has lost its properties under the action of fire. It is then difficult to consider them as clay quarries, as were for instance the shallow depressions in the bedrock at Neolithic Lemna, excavated by Caskey." Concluding remarks These pits raise the problem of the Early Helladic period at Kouphovouno. Balks of EH pottery —though in smaller amounts than Neolithic pottery— have been recovered on the site during the survey in 1999", but the following four excavation seasons did not allow us to uncover any structures of this date except our pits, Should we assume that the EH levels have been taken away? As stressed by the excavators, the slopes of the tell are not steep enough to generate adequate erosion that would carry along stone features.” The only valid alternative explanation is anthropogenic dismantling (ploughing and raw materials collection). Still, the complete lack of elements like floors or remains of foundation walls remains striking. Finding a solution should maybe require investigating new possibilities. A multi-disciplinary research program in Clermont-Ferrand (France) involving archaeologists, historians and geomorphologists from the Universté Blaise Pascal and from the CNRS?!, has begun in 2005. Micromorphology analyses are being carried out under this programme by Christelle Ballut especially to determine whether our large cavities had a specific relationship to water. REFERENCES Aurenche ©. 1977, Dictionnaire de I’architecture du Proche-Orient ancien, Lyon Caskey J.L. 1958, “Excavations at Lerna 1957", Hesperia 27, p. 125-144, Cavanagh W. 2004, “WYSIWG: Settlement and Territoriality in Southern Greece during the Early and Middle Neolithic Periods”, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 17-2, p. 165-189. Cavanagh W., C. Mee & J. Renard 2004, ‘Sparta before Sparta: Kouphovouno 1999- 2000: Report on the Intensive Survey’, Annual of the British School at Athens 99, p. 49-128. 18. Caskey 1958, p. 138, 19, See Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2004, p. 91 & 93 fig, 22. 20. P.A, James & M. Kousoulakou in Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2004, p. B.Stony Kouphovouno: The early Helladic pits 277 Kakavoyanni 2004, Archaeological investigations at Merends, Markopoulo: at the new Race-course and Olympic Equestrian Centre, Athens, Levi D. 1930-31, “Abitazione preistoriche sulle pendici meridionali dell’Acropoli”, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene 13-14, p. 411-498. Pappa M, P. Halstead, K, Kotsakis & D, Urem-Kotsou 2004, “Evidence for @ Large- scale Feasting at Late Neolithic Maksiyalos, N Greece”, in P, Halstead & J.C. Barrett, Food, Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece, Sheffield, p. 16-44 Perlés C. 2001, The Early Neolithic in Greece, Cambridge. Renard J. 1989, Le site néolithique et helladique ancien de Kouphovouno (Laconie), Aegaeum 4, Liege. TLEPIAHWIzZ Raphaél Orgeolet, Koupopowvo: Of Adxxor tig Moding “Enoyiig to} Xaadxod "H Bevis Kovgofovvo (Aaxwvia) xatonaiOnxe xara tiv SiégxeLa Tis NeohtOrxiis meQuddou xai tag "Enoxfig tod Xanod. Ol Goxatohoyixic Egev- veg Mod SreEHOnoav 16 1941 Epegav ord PHS HeydoUS hiaxous Tov dnolwv A xoMOLS xai 1 YeovOAsynoLs dév Ftav SuvatoV va SievxQLVLOTH To véo dvaonapixd nedygapua, od Eexlvace tH 1999, améberge Sut ol Adaxxor adroi. YovoAoyovraL OThy Med “Exoyh ToD Xadnov. “H XOA- Gls TOUS Guws RaQapEver dxdpLa &yvworn. “H xagotoa avorotvwors wa- Qovorste. Td00 tig Stapoperinéc amdyelg ya THY xOHON TOV éxnwv adtdv boo xai 16 AESBANKA toY orQWHATwY Tag Todyns “Enoxiig tod Xoknod ot Koupdpovvo.278 Raphaél Orgeolet . APHYSSOU ‘MISTRAS Kouphououno) A. IANNIS ° Fig. 1Stony Kouphovouno: The early Helladic pits Fig. 2 279Raphaé! 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