Stable Places and Changing Perceptions:

Cave Archaeology in Greece

Edited by

Fanis MavridisJesper Tae Jensen

BAR International Series 25582013

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BAR S2558

Stable Places and Changing Perceptions: Cave Archaeology in Greece

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ISBN 978 1 4073 1179 1

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7

Perspectives Of Symbolism And Ritualism For The Late Neolithic Communities

At Sarakenos Cave, Boeotia

Stella Katsarou and Adamantios Sampson

Introduction

The present paper has stemmed from our basic questioning on what the cave of Sarakenos, Boeotia, producing elabo-rate ceramic and figurative artifacts, should be attributed with: domesticity, symbolism or ritualism, or all the three together? Our comparative review of older research on Greek Neolithic cave contexts has shown that those as-pects have frequently been evoked in various combina-tions, though in a self-explanatory, normative and stereo-typed way. Our main goal here is to overcome the dichot-omized modernist assumptions on the Neolithic use of caves, and explore how to move our assessment from the explanatory framework to contextual interpretation and the dynamic terrains of meaningfulness. By intention, cita-tions to old-repeated theoretical works will be minimal in this paper. Subsistence Versus Ritual Norms The use of caves in the Greek Neolithic has been put under the umbrella of the broader cultural and explanatory econ-omy and ideology paradigms and adaptation processes which were formulated for this period. The major schemes of this theoretical trend in Greek archaeology, which were evident in Theocharis’s monumental work (1973), have considerably directed the principles of subsequent scholar-ship. In respect of caves, the application of these para-digms has been mostly strengthened by the Middle-to-Late Neolithic cultural shift, and the wider consumption prac-tices and presumed social conflicts at the time when a marked geographical spread of cave use over the Greek Mainland and the Aegean takes place. The pattern was al-so supported by the rapid increase in the range of the arti-facts transported inside caves from that period onwards, compared to the preceding material culture. Abundant var-iable ceramic containers, large amounts of tools, figurines and other equipment comprising of jewellery and many smaller accessories have constituted the generic idea for the Greek Late Neolithic cave material culture that we all share. The pattern-painted styles in particular have been the fo-cus of attention for their expansion over a wide range of pottery technologies and aesthetics of color, such as the Black and the Grey Burnished, the Matt and the Poly-chrome Painted, the Crusted, and the latest Urfirnis and Red-on-Light wares (Phelps 2004), all of them fully attest-ed in Greek Late Neolithic caves of the southern Mainland and the Aegean. Major sites include the caves Skoteini in Euboea (Sampson 1993, 56), Zas in Naxos (Zachos 1999),

Sarakenos in Boeotia (Sampson 2008, 386), Kouveleiki A (Koumouzelis 1989) and Alepotrypa (Papathanasopoulos 2011) in Lakonia, Franchthi in the Argolid (Vitelli 1993), the Corycian Antron in Boeotia (Touchais 1981), Theopet-ra in Thessaly (Kyparissi-Apostolika 2000), Drakaina in Kephalonia (Stratouli 2007), and Lion’s Cave in Attika (Karali, Mavridis and Kormazopoulou 2006) to mention the most exemplary. In greatest amount painted vessels are bowls with a shallow or broad deep -convex, conical, cari-nated or converging- profile that could be appropriate for cold food-mixing, eating and drinking, and wouldn’t be easily attributed a cooking function on direct fire; only a small number of them belong to deep close-necked transport pots (Phelps 2004, 87; Sampson 1993, 67; 2008, 112). Alongside elaborate vessels, caves host an even broader collection of variable coarsely treated cooking containers and storage jars, together with a copious record of monochrome burnished vessels. The question has been continuously raised among schol-ars: what were all these variable sophisticated and coarse containers for inside the Neolithic caves? For theorists in support of dichotomized cultural “packages”, the answer only depends on the direction the prism has been looked through. Objects found inside caves are considered as re-flecting axiomatic roles and prescribed identities. They are seen as products manufactured in the course of a systemic line that can be diachronically and universally explained. Such explanations for the Neolithic past would only stem from present modernist conventions and preconceptions which are regarding culture as austerely dichotomized to bipolar sides, such as the object versus subject divide and the mind versus body contrast, and conceive material and ideological world throughout a scheme of hierarchies. In the same way functionality and domesticity are put on the opposite side or reduced to a lower level of significance compared to ideology, symbolism, aesthetics, quality, dis-play, and prestige. This is a point that generates epistemo-logical impasses if not adequately comprehended in field-work and lab: actually before any explanatory conclusions are set on paper, our classification methodology has ap-plied these bipolar categorisations on the cave’s material culture already in the laboratory by effectuating detailed hierarchical taxonomies (see monochromes versus paint-ed) and by disassociating certain morphological catego-ries. Functionalists and processualists would therefore stereo-typically explain the abundance of rough and plain ceram-ics in caves as evidence that the places served for satellite or seasonal sites to permanent domestic establishments, and for crucial spots within trading communal networks, as stated by most relevant assessments in collective volumes, monographs and papers (see indicatively papers in Papathanasopoulos 1996; 2011; Zachos 1999; Sampson 1993, 273; 1997, 328-35; Touchais 1981, 171-2; Lambert 1981, 715-6; Koumouzelis 1989, 159; Kaznesi and Katsarou 1999-2001, 33; Kyparissi-Apostolika 2000, 206; Trantalidou et al. 2010, 316). This approach would priori-tize the perspective that caves were necessary for the set-

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tlers to practice the range of functional activities that would secure their subsistence, protect and increase their livestock and preserve their harvested yield and food sur-plus. Caves have thus been repeatedly determined by these paradigms to serve for home shelters or refuges from natu-ral hardships, for stabling, food-processing and storage, and for this reason they have been normatively evaluated in terms of location, orientation, domination of landscape, access to sea, plateaus, itineraries, and natural resources, as well as interior morphology and space availability. Ac-cording to this approach, all mobile objects unearthed in-side caves, dietary remains and structures, are primarily considered for their value contributing to the adaptation and subsistence strategies and the prosperity of the com-munity, and are principally justified by their own function. The paradigm has accounted for the improvement, sys-tematisation, and intensification of the expanded herding and farming strategies and the demographic increase that signals the beginning of the Late Neolithic: communities now have more products, more food, need more ceramic vessels, so they expand their dietary and food/drink con-sumption/storage habits to a range of new ceramic shapes as well as to new locations and landscapes to support their main homesteads. But they also use their surplus to produce or trade more wealth. While one pole of the theoretical line calls coarse pottery as domestic and humble and assigns lithics with a functional role by definition, on the other pole peculiar pots are thought as non-functional containers, and elabo-rate painted vessels are perceived as “expensive” and time-consuming products that would not be wisely manu-factured to any functional expense. These sophisticated categories again serve the logic of functionality from the other side, as non-usable and non-practical containers con-stituting the society’s exchange potential (Perlès 1992; Perlès and Vitelli 1999). It is within this perception of divides that increasing cultic attributions for Greek Late Neolithic caves have been add-ed to the normative models for subsistence, adaptation and functionality, as their alternatives or parallel possibilities of use. We observe though that these ceremonial attribu-tions are borne from generic principles of ritualism applied by western philosophies on the “cave people” rather than recurring to the contingent association of the specific con-textual data of each Greek Neolithic cave’s deposits. These automatic preconceptions derive from present estab-lished assumptions that caves are sacred mystic places (see papers in Moyes 2012), and from the impressive worship of mythological gods and deities they hosted in the Greek and Roman Antiquity. It is because of these preconceptions that prehistoric figu-rines and figurative items lie at the peak of modernist hier-archies as art and sacred objects that reflect or represent (this two words are crucial for the systemic paradigm) ide-ological modalities and prescribed religious beliefs, set within the range of desirable fruitfulness, protection and

increase of the community’s wealth which were usually at-tributed to prehistoric people (Theocharis 1973, 46; Orphanidis and Sampson 1993, 214; Talalay 1993, 46-7; see reassessment by Nanoglou 2009). To state some attributions, a ritual use is assigned to the painted vessels from the Cave of Alepotrypa in Laconia, by considering their location in the darkness as secure in-dication for non-functionality and for their particular use as offerings to the dead, an assumption that was further associated with the Classical mythological legend placing the entrance to the Hades at this certain location of the Peloponnese (Papathanassopoulos 2011). In the Skoteini Cave in central Euboea, where thick Late Neolithic deposits were related to intensive storage, some specific features of the pottery and stone tools have been disassociated to get a cultic value. In particular the rare re-lief on the surface of a pithos depicting an ithyphallic man next to a woman with a well marked pubis (Fig. 7.1) (Or-phanidis and Sampson 1993, 206, fig. 202, 211, no 27) has been connected to generic fertility paradigms that were thought to direct certain ritual practices inside the cave (Orphanidis and Sampson 1993, 214-6). Similar specula-tions were also formulated for the considerable collection of scoops from the same cave, i.e. the black asymmetrical containers carrying a high vertical cylindrical handle on the back, and decoration by incised and dotted white-pasted patterns on the body (Fig. 7.2). In literature this pot has been attributed with the classicist term “rhyton” (see review in Sampson 1993; Phelps 2004, 103), and was as-sociated with rituals solely because of its unusual shape. The choice for this specific term is a perfect example for the cross-cultural and cross-temporal normativisms run by traditional scholarship. The Zas Cave in Naxos is also attributed with cultic prac-tices that were supposedly occurring alongside the domes-tic functions, and were evoked in reference to the spouted ceramic vessels and the outstanding gold artifact (Zachos 1999). In Euripides Cave, Salamina, Saronic Gulf, the oc-currence of the copious distinctive Neolithic pattern-painted and crusted pottery, of beads and silver jewellery has been explained as a hint that “some kind of standard-ized ritual acts and magic/religious performances” would take place at the site (Mari 2001, 184). At Drakaina Cave, Kephallonia, it is the repetitive reconstruction of the floors which was ascribed a ceremonial performance (Stratouli 2007). In Crete, Tomkins has recently strongly advocated for the ritual as opposed to the domestic use that he con-siders that is “by default” ascribed to the Neolithic caves on the island, and draws his arguments from their inacces-sible location, uncomfortable interior space and rarity of, what he distinguishes as, “domestic” finds (Tomkins 2009). Several ritualistic assumptions are attributed also to Mid-dle Neolithic contexts. Fruitstands and decorated contain-ers from the Franchthi Cave have been assigned with “specific functions”, i.e. the burning of incense, aromatic

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gums and narcotic herbs “for special public occasions, i.e. ceremonies” (Vitelli 1993, 217), but without argumenta-tion on their specific contextual evidence. At the Cave of Cyclops on the rocky island of Youra, North Sporades, the exceptional level of technical expertise and inspiration in regards with fine-patterned-painted pottery from the early 6th millennium (Fig. 7.3), and its location in the darkness, have motivated a narrative on travelling pilgrims from the open settlement of Hagios Petros, on the island of Kyra-Panagia, three miles across Youra, to practice ceremonial visits inside this specific cave chamber (Katsarou-Tzeveleki 2008). Indeed, it was already in the Middle Neolithic that the em-phatic attributions for cultic practices in Neolithic settle-ments were constructed by Gimbutas (1989, 203-11). In Achilleion, Thessaly, she has developed an emblematic rhetoric about “libation” and “ceremonial” “sacrificial ta-bles and vases” as part of her paradigm on the SE Europe-an Mother Goddess religion (see latest comments in Lesure 2011), which was another version of the construct-ed imaginary of modernist philosophy applied to prehisto-ry. Summarizing, all above speculations have been seeking support on values deriving from our modern axioms on what the elaborate, idiosyncratic shape, complex pattern-ing, time-invested manufacture, precious material and fig-urative morphologies are considered in comparison to plain objects. In the sense of this bipolar paradigm, we, scholars easily launch our explanations choosing from a handy and sketchy corpus between the two, the domestic or the ritual. Ritual vessels as mentioned in the above sites would not be regarded as domestic/functional at the same time, and presumed ceremonial performances would take place separately from any practical ordinary activity. Above explanatory categories are thought as independent clusters that exist as blocks within the cave’s cultures. With the use of such terms as ceremonial, cultic or ritual for the Neolithic, we directly associate sites, features or movable finds with the formal, patterned, and stereotyped public worship that we have in mind from later cultures, and would not in fact thoroughly explore the specific con-textual contingency of deposition within each cave, and even within each certain deposit. As caves carry a heavy bias for the sacred and cult, most assessments for their rit-ualism in the Neolithic have also resulted out of this stere-otyped universalism rather than the cave’s and the arti-facts’ contextual associations themselves. What is indeed the content of this ceremonial paradigm that we unconsciously and automatically apply to Neolith-ic caves? Rituals point to codified and organized perfor-mances in the sense of biopolitics that would serve the manipulation of social dynamics, and the regulation of so-cial conflicts. Rituals in the Bronze Age for example in-volve embodiment and mnemonic acts, and are created through standardized performances by upper social hierar-chies who want to secure their dominant status (Hamilakis

2008). Feasting in particular may be one kind of such ritu-al practice when the commensality discourse and the shar-ing of food are part of organized acts. However, commu-nal Neolithic feasting such as that identified at Makrygi-alos for example or other Greek Mainland sites (Papa et. al. 2004; Souvatzi 2008, 233) would not be automatically ascribed with a ceremonial value (Souvatzi 2008, 151) in the sense of a repetitive performative sharing of food or drink (Hayden 2001, 28, 31; Dietler 2001, 69; see papers in Kyriakidis 2007). The sequence of alternating contexts of fire and food consumption in Neolithic caves is not an adequate argument for ritualism. Is this enquiry though of any use actually? To prevent holistic models from creating a false sense of their autonomy, we need to reconsider old axioms by ad-vising the influential post-modernist theories put forward since the ‘80s by great pioneers whose inspiring works we all know and would not need to cite here again. Any vessel form alone, as much as is currently preserved, cannot evi-dence to the entire sphere of meanings and choices that has directed its function, ceremonial or not. When artifacts are treated as decontextualized pieces, however unusual, complex or admirable they may be, and however stylisti-cally reminiscent of testified ceremonial pieces from later periods, as are figurines for example, they cannot them-selves establish the evidence to their ceremonial attribu-tion. As materiality and technology are absolutely depend-ing on instant conditions of meaningfulness rather than prescribed laws of form (Dobres and Hoffman 1999), or-dinary ceramic morphologies are equally suitable to serve social complexity and ritual performances. Scoops from the Skoteini Cave or fruitstands from Franchthi Cave for example do not prove by shape their supposed ritual role. Neither would all Neolithic hearths in caves necessarily imply a ritual meaning. Painted vessels are not by rule ceremonial, but in fact they could serve rit-ualism as much as any ordinary container, if the human ac-tor who applies the meanings, would choose for this ordi-nary container rather than for any idiosyncratic equipment. Older dichotomous thinking between functional versus rit-ual, polychrome versus monochrome, symbolic versus domestic, patterned versus plain, and subject versus object are indeed unable to show the wide spectrum of meanings that one single thing may have acquired along its biog-raphy within the different possible contexts of use. As already remarked, similar questions equally arise in re-spect of figurative artifacts. The figurines and the pithos relief from the Skoteini Cave for example do not prove by their shape and presence alone any systematically orga-nized cult practice if the specific context of all related arti-facts is not to be assessed. Figurines indeed are not onto-logically cult objects as Nanoglou has discussed for the Greek Neolithic contexts (2009). Their function as reli-gious equipments, or as dolls, images of certain individu-als (Orphanidis and Sampson 1993, 214; Talalay 1993, 48-50), or any other eventual use is each time indispensably directed by their context and situated material choices.

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It is true that the absence of architecture from caves and the occasionally disturbed stratigraphy compared to better preservation of built environment in settlements have con-tributed to additionally eliminate this contextual evidence for us today. On the other hand the better preservation of finds and especially of ceramics in cave contexts in com-parison to the eroded fragments from the open settlements, has possibly favored the significance of caves as particular and non-functional places and increased biases for sacred practices and cult. Indeed, universalism and empirical approaches to ritualism has been the secure and stable base for older explanations, but interpretative questioning has now severely reconsid-ered their autonomy as arbitrary. The point here is that we have to take the first step in order to realize the false con-fidence of the large-scale paradigms on rituals and suspect that objects carry a hidden canvas of meaningful relations, reflections, responses and interactions between them-selves, humans, and the landscape. This influential dis-course that post-modernist archaeologies have conducted for prehistoric cultures by looking through the lens of in-terpretation, relativism, biography and agency, has not so far been put within the perspective of the Greek Neolithic cave studies. We hope to develop this discourse later here below by placing a new epistemological framework that will challenge established non-interpretative views in the first place, independently of its competence to answer its own questions in the end. Symbolism Symbolism is another popular term to pursue in our epis-temological discussions on the Neolithic in Greek caves. While ritualism denotes the arena for special practices, symbolism would point to the more generic codified schema that pervades Neolithic cave people’s material identity. To speak simple and general beyond bibliograph-ic citations, symbols are understood as the necessary sys-temic conceptualisations of any society, and would find expression by the means of material and corporeal repre-sentations indicating its roots in the past and tracing the origins of its traditions. In a broad sense however, the symbolic regime that is apt to ritualistic societies would not be competing to, but would rather be encompassing ritualism which is supposed to determine the aspect of the formalized embodied praxes. In that solidified sense ritu-als would not be indispensably linked to every symbolic manifestation, as for example to that expressed through the pottery or architecture craftsmanship. Judging from our long knowledge with Neolithic scholar-ship, the symbolic aspect usually refers to the semantic representation of distinguished Neolithic objects, land-scapes or performances, as prescribed within systemic ideologies of culture and monolithic traditions that are supposedly established as solid blocks. The word is favor-able for its mythological connotations that derive from the imaginaries of early archaeology’s discourses, so frequent-

ly enough it is implemented as verbalism that is alternative to ceremonialism to raise some emphasis on a vaguely non-functional aspect of Neolithic culture, rather than used as a fully comprehended term. In normative approaches such as those adopted by the still leading Greek Neolithic historic-cultural perspective, symbols would not imply short-scale individual or social revisions or objections cre-ated at meaningful situational contexts that occur inside the big non-negotiated ideological framework, and con-veying instant interactions between humans and things. This last note is not a step to ignore, but could be indeed the first step for Greek Neolithic scholarship to move from the large-scale to the small-scale, by denying neither and accepting both. Drawing from established current theoreti-cal trends, we suggest here that local scholarship should reconsider the systemic and dichotomized paradigm to be able to open the view to the meaningful and eventful side of the Neolithic world. Plain Neolithic wares or stone tools for example would be considered far from any symbolic value, as opposed to figurines, sophisticated ceramic ves-sels, and of course caves which are burdened with the uni-versal principle of sacredness. The term is now called to transcend older simplifying dichotomies to become multi-sided and integrative on the same body and mind, material and idea, technology and style; to be inherent inside any economic, technological and functional value of things in-stead of lying on a separated area of people’s lives. Any rough plain pot therefore, although without any pattern, still carries some symbolic significance that derives from long-term aesthetic and technological traditions, but at the same time is launching a reconsideration of this principle in the short-term. Every morphological feature such as color, profile or surface treatment is selected out of vari-ous material choices available to establish or deny a solid link to basic symbolic metaphors through one’s personal mediation. Turning this conceptual holism for thingness on the Greek Neolithic cave studies, we should also transcend the large and the small divide for Neolithic symbolism for caves, in the sense that its axiomatic substance is placed under in-cessant reconsiderations and reassessments in the context of the everyday. This aspect is co-residing with the mean-ingfulness in the occasional and contingent context of the Neolithic cave, where the long-lived beliefs meet personal views, behaviors and situations which can have a dynamic impact on their reproduction. Greek Neolithic cave ar-chaeology would therefore probably need to review the mechanistic implementation of symbolism and its implica-tion within the austere monolithic dogmas to include situa-tional properties next to the traditional conventions. Repositioning Symbolism And Ritualism Speculations have above explored the two fields separately with the aim to transcend the limits of both. The Neolithic cave is more than a functional locale for its natural ad-vantages, or a ritual place for its darkness and fearful loca-tion, or a symbolic terrain for its metaphorical connotation

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in the local traditions. It is a source of interaction where all individual axioms and social traditions are present and at the same time activated and re-signified on the influence of instant thoughts and situational parameters which may indeed prove stronger than the cave’s long-lived meta-phors. Normativism tends to forget how variable and un-predictable human choices can become on eventual time. It is true that the role of the Neolithic cavescape as a point of meeting, household, place of activities for small or big groups of people and individuals, exchange, manufacture, refuge, pen for the domesticates, storage place, or burial ground, is sourceful for long-standing metaphors on the social grounds. But interaction between Neolithic individ-uals and the cave multiplies, disseminates, enriches, and transforms these symbolic connotations to create new sto-ries, memories and identities. These personal appropriations of the cavescape are primar-ily embodied experiences that are generated through sen-sual and corporeal contacts with the place, whether these consist of a simple view to the cave from afar or a sensed feeling of the cave from inside. The embodied aspect of culture, partly originated in Bourdieu’s habitus, has indeed gained a special epistemological focus within mainstream culture theories today, and has been called to play a major role in the various beyond-divide discourses. Fear for ex-ample, admiration, pain, dare, dream, excitement, imagi-nation, personal moments lived in the cave, consist strong human presences that would take the cave’s significance far beyond the old typical questions on the domesticity, symbolism or ritualism of the site. Traditional disambigua-tion of its metaphors and representations which arrive at recognizing only the long-term status of the cave, are missing the broad range of individual contingencies that may occur in its very contexts: the entirety of all aspects in one’s moment of life. In this sense the “ritualism” question is absolutely outdat-ed and urgently calls for a fresh look in transcendence of the modernist binarisms: beyond the standardized religious beliefs, secular life is already rich of ceremonies. In this concept the cave should need to include the perspective for stories of personal tribute, particular personal appropria-tions, strong feelings for the place (Hamilakis 2011), all of them present within any burial, domestic, storage or stock-keeping practice on the site. Storage for example would not be treated as a mechanistic physical praxis or an activi-ty linked to religious fertility beliefs, but would instead be pertinent to the man’s feelings and behaviors involving sentimental liaisons with the very place. Seasonal or per-manent keeping of the livestock inside the cave should not be considered as a flat functional activity either, but would also probably involve personal devotion to the place in the sense of a personal appropriation. Putting hearths in the cave is also not just a matter of somebody’s functional need for light, heat or cooking, independently of any feast-ing it may involve, but is first someone’s performance of feared or excited presence inside the place that can happen once or pursued continuously. All those experiences in-volve depositional and exhibition practices, repetitive or

unique, secular or religious, and generate small human sto-ries and evocative perceptions of the cave in the mnemon-ic record of the individual and the community. Any visit to the cave is performative and re-enacting. The argument here is to support that reposition of the domestic, ritual or symbolic enquiry beyond the choice for one or the other term is absolutely necessary; each time the cave is lived in its entirety rather than as a unilateral perception. Repositioning Symbolism And Ritualism For Sara-kenos Cave Sarakenos Cave has been recently emphasized as a Neo-lithic ritual site (Sampson and Mastrogiannopoulou 2013). The cave is located on the rocky cliffs bordering the Kopais basin –a former lake–, Boeotia, central Mainland, from the east, at a height of about 80 m from the surface of the basin (Sampson 2008). The opening dominates the landscape to Parnassos Mountains. The entrance is leaving abundant sunlight inside the single but spacious chamber filled with thick deposits forming a huge plateau. Big as-semblages of Late Neolithic painted pottery from serving and eating/drinking tableware have been discovered throughout the entire area, suggesting wide production, circulation, distribution and consumption of ceramic ves-sels on site (Fig. 7.4); the variability of painted ornaments on the ceramic containers is further strengthening the as-pect of symbolic complexity for the site. Besides other ar-tifacts and tools, our particular attention has been attracted by the large number (more than 1,000 pieces) and style variability of figurines (Orphanidis 2008). The cave was long before distinguished for its figurines. Compared to other Greek Neolithic caves, such as Skoteini (Orphanidis and Sampson 1993, 202-14), Theopetra (Ky-parissi-Apostolika 2000, 198-200), Corycian Antron (Touchais 1981, 154-8) and Franchthi (Talalay 1993), the material from Sarakenos has so far included new types of figurines, particularly representing seated males, and even some large-scale statuettes as deduced by sizeable head fragments (Fig. 7.5). Most figurines though belong to standardized types. Stratigraphic records show that most of them are found in or next to hearth and ash contexts or on floors, and were deposited together with abundant coarse and decorated pottery and animal bones, sometimes including also scoop vessels and deer antlers. As automatic generalizations from ostensible forms to rit-ual norms and generic symbolisms are here severely ques-tioned, we want to reset the framework to go beyond the principles and explore more site-, material- and context-specific meanings for the Sarakenos Cave. Our primary tools to start with are taxonomic and stratigraphic in terms of hearths, burnings, and figurines, painted pottery, unusu-al containers, and animal offerings. Here below we cite se-lected contextual data from the Sarakenos Cave (Sampson 2008), in order to demonstrate an example of the rich con-texts, and explore the perspectives of reassessing the di-chotomic conclusion.

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In Trench A, Level 6, sq. 2, the lower parts of a female and an animal figurine with tail were deposited together with plethora of Late Neolithic pottery, stone implements, spindle whorls, beads and pendants, in a plain earth con-text. In Level 7, a clay human figurine was lying next to a scoop vessel fragment and amidst pieces of matt-painted pottery. In Level 8, sq. 3, more fragments from scoop ves-sels which were decorated with incised lines and dotted filling were placed in plain earth; in sq. 8, the head of a clay figurine with indication of earings was located inside stone debris containing some pieces of charcoal, together with Late Neolithic II pattern burnished ware and one part of a scoop vessel with incised zigzag bands and dotted fill-ing; in sq. 9, a part of a similar scoop was found together with monochrome pottery, rolled rims, pattern burnished and bichrome red/black-on-light ware inside the same stone debris deposit; in sq. 15, a clay human figurine leg, and two fragments of animal figurines were deposited in a plain earth. In Level 9, sq. 4, the head of a Late Neolithic II animal figurine was found arranged together with bo-vine bones on a gravel floor; in sq. 5, a fragmented head from a human clay figurine was lying inside the ashes of a thick hearth that was possibly associated with a stone structure; in sq. 11, a long-necked human clay figurine was found. In Level 10, sq. 11, a marble standing female, a fragmented clay head with indication of hairdo, and a long-necked figurine were deposited within a thick and large hearth and ash layer together with Late Neolithic I painted ceramic fragments. In Level 11, sq. 14, a stylized clay figurine has been found in burnings from a large hearth. In Trench C, Level 10, sq. 3, the upper part of a long-necked figurine was collected from damp soil with stones. In Level 12, sqs 1-2, a clay female figurine in a standing posture and another clay long-necked fragment of a head were found in the context of a hearth. In Layer 14, sq. 1, part of a long-necked human figurine was collected to-gether with bone implements and large quantity of pottery from another hearth. In Layer 15, sq. 1, the head and torso of a Late Neolithic female clay figurine featuring hairdo and clothing indications have again been placed in a hearth context. In Trench D, east and north at 0.60 m. of depth, a concen-tration of about 300 figurines of different types, some con-siderably sizeable, was found in association with deer ant-lers together with red polished monochromes of Late Neo-lithic II. The context extends over a clay floor mixed with ash, which lies in the wider area of two clay pits filled with stones, ash and more fragments of figurines (Fig. 7.6). In Trench E, Level 10, sqs. 10, 15, a scoop vessel was found intact next to two fragments of figurines and a headless marble figurine; in sqs. 17-18 and 23-24, many fragments of figurines occurred with Late Neolithic I painted pottery on a floor which comprised of hearth and stones; in sqs. 28-29, one painted head fragment from a clay figurine comes from a hearth, and another one from a bigger clay statuette was found in sq. 32. In Trench Z, sqs.

7-8, depth 0.80 m, several fragments of figurines were de-posited on the floor underlying an ash hearth. More figu-rines come from sqs. 13-16, deposited together with a small intact clay vessel. The above records testify to several concrete episodes of human activity inside the Sarakenos Cave throughout the Late Neolithic I and II, where figurines have been deposit-ed together with containers, deer antlers, small artifacts and food remains. Most figurines occur within hearths, on floors or next to pits. Some episodes in Late Neolithic II at Sarakenos also involve deposition of large, could be even very large, assemblages of figurines mixed with faunal remains. The events of hearths and figurine-plus-painted-pottery deposition occur repeatedly and extendedly in the cave, synchronously for some groups inside its spacious chamber, and in subsequent episodes, but along a chrono-logical period that extends throughout the entire 5th mil-lennium B.C.. On the above accounts Sarakenos Cave is admittedly a very special site, also an advantageous cave in the sense that it would enable us create verbalistic narratives on im-pressive rituals that Neolithic people were supposed to hold inside the cave adequately accompanied with stories on the deposition of worship statuettes. The Neolithic myth is so easy to construct, as was shown by the world-wide publicity that Alepotrypa Cave, South Peloponnese, for example has acquired as soon as it was claimed to have inspired the ancient legend of the Hade’s Underworld on the account of its content of Neolithic burials and sophisti-cated artifacts. As we have however retained the ritual aspect away from the terrain of religious belief and deity worship, and the symbolic aspect from the regime of systemic representa-tion, we open here the perspective of a rich rather than a sterile ordinary life, a life that is performed as a whole of ideals, senses, thoughtfulness and praxes. We do not need to devise some specific ritual and religious setting, feast-ing event or some particular worship for the Sarakenos dwellers. Their ordinary acts would have equally involved deposition and manipulation of figurines and other imple-ments with food-and-drink-sharing around a bonfire, why not in the course of their daily domestic, cooking, produc-tion and consumption activities. We would probably never find out what the figurines from Sarakenos stand for, how fire, animals, raw materials, crafts and products relate to them. This is a task that is de-pending on insurmountable restraints for preliterary socie-ties, and more than that, it is actually of no use. Symbol-ism however of these objects should not be evoked as rep-resentational to align with present preconceived categories of deity cult. Instead these materialities may be regarded as carrying situational symbols, as being pervasive and in-teracting to stand one for the other and for many others, including even their absence for their presence. We should be ready to suspect that figurines, pots and all other mate-rial stuff in the Sarakenos Cave may be remediated with

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different meanings by different people in every new con-text. Even though they derive from a long-tern tradition of performances at this certain locale, which congregate the mnemonic volume, history and heritage of the site for the subsequent communities, all significances are subject to fluidity, and interactions are present in every event to gen-erate new meanings in people’s minds. This meaningful perspective should be placed within commonplace moments in the cave, moments of everyday life, worries, fears, pains, sentiments, alliances and rival-ries, moments of light and darkness, of smells, of animals and humans, moments where all the ontologies are signi-fied in memory, create history, and exist as experience and situational presences for the others. The ritual/ceremonial myth is lying just there, inside the every mundane moment of the cave, and should not be sought within any special context. In a methodological perspective, we need to practise thor-ough cross-evaluation of the depositional data to trace long-term historic axioms of the site and situational devia-tions. The superficial description of the statigraphic se-

quence is not adequate to see the stories beyond date, and explore the extent, depth and density of interactions that lie beyond these descriptive morphologies that are easily explained as “ceremonial” by the old definition. Our en-quiry should therefore assume Neolithic life at the cave for its wholeness rather as fragmentary in pieces of ritualism and pieces of secularism. It is to this target that deposi-tional change, events of feasting, the complexity of mor-phologies, gender, skill, crafts, exchange and subsistence should be addressed. It is as a solid unit that the cave is enacted in the social and individual memory of its resi-dents, and that new identities are produced throughout subsequent generations as a response to dynamic agencies. It is in the context of any moment of the day that an evoca-tive personal re-enactment of the surrounding material stuff occurs while some identities and meanings are not performed, not represented, not practiced, not chosen. To return to the initial question set at the start of this paper: finally the Sarakenos Cave is not a ritual neither a domes-tic place of the Neolithic, it is a fully sensed locale, a host of full life stories.

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Figure 7.1. Late Neolithic pithos relief showing a male

and a female figure; Skoteini Cave, Euboea.

Figure 7.2. Late Neolithic scoop; Skoteini Cave, Euboea.

Figure 7.3. Middle Neolithic red-on-white painted vase

with canvas pattern; Cyclops Cave, Gioura, North Spo-

rades.

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Figure 7.4. Various Middle and Late Neolithic painted ceramic fragments; Sarakenos Cave, Boeotia.

Figure 7.5. Late Neolithic figurine fragments; Sarakenos Cave, Boeotia.

 

Figure7.6. Assemblage of LN II figurines found together with deer antlers at Trench D; Sarakenos Cave, Boeotia.