Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (414 page)

Marinatos , Spyridon Nikolaou
(1901–74)
[Bi].

Greek archaeologist well known for his excavations at Akrotiri on the island of Thera. Born at Lixouri on the island of Cephalonia, he studied archaeology and philology at Athens, Berlin, and Halle universities. His archaeological career began when he was made caretaker of antiquities on Crete, eventually spending twenty years there and becoming Director of the Archaeological Museum of Herakleion. In 1937 he became Director of the Archaeology Division of the Education Ministry, and in 1939 he was given the Chair of Archaeology at the University of Athens. In the same year he proposed the idea that the collapse of Minoan civilization in the Aegean was caused by the eruption of Thera in
c.
1500 bc. Later, in 1966, he discovered the buried Bronze Age port city at Akrotiri on Thera and spent most of the later part of his life excavating it. Marinatos also discovered the site of the battle of Thermopylae (480 bc) and the burial ground associated with the battle of Marathon (490 bc). Amongst his many publications is
Crete and Mycenae
(1959, London: Thames and Hudson). In 1955 he was elected a member of the Athens Academy. When the military junta seized power in Greece in 1967 he was appointed Inspector-General of the Archaeological Services, duties he was relieved of after the second military coup. Marinatos was killed in an accident during the excavations at Akrotiri and is buried in the site.
[Obit.:
The Times
, 3 October 1974]

 
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A subdiscipline of archaeology that focuses on the scientific investigation of the relics of past ships and seafaring. Although some of the evidence on which this is based comes from dry-land sites, the majority is below water within the intertidal zone and beyond.

 
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Archaic Stage hunter-gatherer communities occupying the northeastern Atlantic seaboard of North America, especially New England and the maritime provinces of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador from about 7000 bc down to historic times. The subsistence base of these communities was seasonal and combined the exploitation of caribou, elk, moose, and other land resources in the winter with sea mammals and fish in the summer. At the site of Port aux Choix, Newfoundland, over 100 graves were excavated. The burials were found to have been covered in red ochre and variously interred with elaborate barbed bone points, harpoons, and bone, antler, or ivory daggers. Their skin clothes were adorned with shell beads. After 4000 bc the Maritime Archaic declines as
PRE–DORSET
and
DORSET TRADITION
groups move southwards.

 
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Late Neolithic communities of the eastern Balkans in the period
c.
4000–3700 bc. Characterized by their distinctive dark-coloured ceramics with incised decoration which is filled with a white filler after the pot has been fired. Contemporary with Level V at
KARANOVO
and broadly contemporary with
VIN
A
C.

 
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In
ROCK ART
studies, any drawing, painting, engraving, or other modification of nature which is the product of some human action.

 
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