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PART I
The Landscape
Tjeerd H. van Andel
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CHAPTER ONE
The Modern Landscape
PHYSIOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
Franchthi Cave occupies the southwestern tip of a rounded limestone headland north of Kiladha Bay on the southern Argolid peninsula. The headland is part of a series of low mountain ranges that form the transition between the rugged high country of the central Argolid and the low rolling hills of its far southern tip.
The peninsula, scalloped by numerous bays, is barred in the north by a high east-west range of mountains with Megalovouni (1,113 m) in the center as its highest point. The Dhidhima Range in the west consists of limestone with steep but simple slopes, while the Adheres Range in the east is cut into softer sandstones and shales and hence has a more precipitous and highly dissected relief. Embayed in the south slope of these ranges at an elevation of about 200 m are two plateaus. The Dhidhima plateau is semi-enclosed without external drainage and has at least two large sinkholes, whereas the more open Iliokastro plateau at the foot of Megalovouni is drained by several valleys.
Farther south lie other, lower limestone ridges extending from the Franchthi headland to the Iliokastro plateau. They are separated from the border ranges by the Fourni valley and the headwaters of the Ermioni river above the Katafiki gorge (Figure 1). Another range farther south begins with a series of low hills and north-facing scarps south of Kiladha Bay, trending east and rising in height beyond Kranidhi until it ends in the cape upon which the town of Ermioni stands. South of this ridge the peninsula slopes gently seaward, its rolling hills here and there interrupted by dry, steep-sided valleys.
Many streams drain this rugged country, but their valleys are small and have little bottomland, except for those of the Fourni and Ermioni rivers. The streams are generally dry save after heavy rains; only on the Iliokastro plateau do springs provide water to some upper stream courses as late as August and September.
The coasts are generally steep with cliffs ranging in height from a few to a few tens of meters and are fringed with gravel and cobble beaches. Sand beaches are rare. On the west side, deep, sheltered embayments exist at Kiladha and Porto Kheli, each with a small coastal plain covered with alluvium. Along the east shore one finds several open bays with salt marshes, some open, some barred from the sea by sandy beach ridges. Intervening headlands, such as those of Franchthi or Cape Mouzaki, tend to be steep and rugged and drop directly into the sea. Two semi-enclosed lagoons with muddy bottoms and bordering marshes exist at Ververonda on the west shore and at Thermisi in the northeast. Offshore, but connected to the mainland by a shallow shelf, are the large islands of Idhra, Dhokos, and Spetsai.
In spite of its ruggedness, travel across the southern peninsula is not arduous provided one follows the main transverse stream valleys. To go from Franchthi to Dhidhima or Iliokastro by means of the Fourni and upper Ermioni valleys takes but a few hours on foot. One may also pass easily and directly into the Ermioni valley below the Katafiki gorge across the saddle at Loutro, or attain the shore at Ermioni through the valley north of the Kranidhi ridge. Directly towards the south and southeast, travel is less easy because of the many steep stream channels but by no means forbidding.
Figure 1. Relief and place names in the southern Argolid. Contour interval 100 m, contours taken from sheets Idhra and Spetsai of the 1:50,000 scale topographic map of Greece issued by the Geographic Division of the Greek Army. Isobaths at 10 m and 100 m are from the same source with modifications after van Andel and Lianos (1983). Principal streams are shown with dashed lines; coastal plains, defined approximately by the 20 m contour, are stippled. Oblique shading indicates the plateaus of Dhidhima and Iliokastro.
To go north beyond the southern peninsula, that is, to enter the central and northern Argolid, is another matter. A major range must be crossed to reach the north shore on the Saronic Gulf near well-watered Trizin, for example, and along the western shore the way from Franchthi towards Navplion is barred by steep mountains and precipitous gorges such as the Bedheni valley immediately north of the Dhidhima Range. The best northern route passes Dhidhima, thence climbs across a pass west of Megalovouni into the upland valleys of the Epidhavria. It is not surprising that, until the construction of the motor road not very many years ago, travel in and out of the southern Argolid was almost exclusively by boat.
The climate of the southern Argolid, one of the driest in Greece, is typically Mediterranean with its hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters. This climate is the result of seasonal latitudinal shifts of the zone of global westerlies across central Europe and its interaction with a subtropical high pressure zone lying over northern Africa (Tollner 1976; Perry 1981; Wigley and Farmer 1982). Locally, this regime is altered by orographic factors and by the various basins of the Mediterranean which act as heat reservoirs and sources of moisture.
In winter, the Siberian high-pressure zone reaches southwestward into the Balkans, thus pushing the mid-latitude westerlies southward, only to withdraw in summer when the subtropical high-pressure zone dominates the Mediterranean (Figure 2). The polar jet, close to Greece in the winter, episodically varies its course from zonal to meridional. Zonal flow in the winter brings dry, relatively warm weather, whereas a southerly meridional flow is accompanied by mild, wet storms originating mainly at various points within the Mediterranean itself. A northerly meridional flow brings cooler, moist weather. In the summer, the subtropical high prevents the formation of Mediterranean storms and blocks access for those that originate in the Atlantic. As a result, only occasional summer thunderstorms bring rain during that season.
Because of the large influence of marine and orographic factors, local climatic variations are large. In addition, the climate tends to vary over relatively short periods of time. Large shifts of the northern boundary of the Mediterranean climatic zone have occurred over the past several decades. Between 1940 and 1960, rainfall decreased significantly over the southeastern Peloponnese and increased in central and northern Greece as a result of a southwestward shift of this boundary (Wigley and Farmer 1982). Large annual temperature fluctuations are common.
Climate data for the southern Argolid itself are sparse and must be supplemented with the long record from Navplion at the head of the Gulf of Argos (Philippson 1948; NID 1944). There, the temperature averages 10°C in January and 27°C in July (Figure 3), values which H. A. Forbes (1982) regards as reasonable for the southern Argolid also. The year does not really turn hot until late in June, and in September the nights already begin to cool. Frost is uncommon at low elevations even at night (Gavrielides 1976a).
For the period from September, 1971, to September, 1972, judged to be a normal season, Gavrielides (1976a) cites a rainfall of 520 mm in the Fourni valley (Figure 3). The rain fell on 32 separate days. These observations are in good accord with averages at Navplion of 70 mm for January, 5 mm in July, and 495 mm for the entire year.
There are few reports of snow at low elevations in the southern Argolid, although it seems probable that it does occasionally snow above 300 m. On the northern boundary ranges, above 600 m, snow falls several times each winter but does not stay long on the ground.
Figure 2. Winter and summer atmospheric circulation and cyclone generation in the Mediterranean. Shaded are areas where rain storms are generated in winter which subsequently travel east and northeast. Modified from Wigley and Farmer (1982:Figs. 1.3 and 1.7).
Figure 3. Monthly average temperature and precipitation in the Argolid. Top: mean monthly precipitation (left) and temperature (right) at Navplion on the northern Gulf of Argos (NID 1944:Vol. I). Bottom: days and daily amount of rain during the period September, 1971, to September, 1972, at Fourni in the southern Argolid (after Gavrielides 1976a).
In winter, the wind blows mainly from the west or northwest and gales are not uncommon, of which the shores of the Franchthi embayment bear the full brunt. The east side of the peninsula is well protected in that season. The summer brings a daily regime of daytime sea breezes and a nightly landwind, but in late July and August strong “etesian” winds blow from the north or northeast for days on end, often seriously impeding marine traffic.
VEGETATION
The Franchthi region is at present a patchwork of cultivated fields, some temporarily abandoned, interspersed with natural vegetation, and set off by a backdrop of steep mountain slopes covered with maquis or pine woods. The word “natural” is not to be taken literally here; the plant communities of the region are the product of millennia of intense human activity, and the original climax associations of the undisturbed landscape cannot be traced with confidence (Sheehan 1979; Sheehan and Sheehan 1982).
Pollen data (see Chapter Four) indicate that the Middle Holocene plant cover consisted in part of a relatively rich, though probably open deciduous oak wood or parkland. Today, phrygana (garrigue) and maquis are the dominant communities, often regarded as the end products of a progressive degradation of the deciduous oak woods under human influence, mainly by grazing and fuel collecting. They have formed the backdrop of human activity in the area for some 5,000 years or more (Sheehan 1979). Rackham (1983) has argued that, left to themselves, the fallow fields evolve to phrygana and then to maquis, and the maquis to woods dominated by Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera) and a variety of other species. Examples of this succession can be seen in the Valley of the Muses in Boeotia and on the island of Samothrace.
Marius (1976; see also Verheye and Lootens-de Muynck 1974; Gavrielides 1976b) has mapped plant communities in the Fourni valley and on the Dhidhima plateau in some detail (Figure 4). Sheehan and Sheehan (1982) have furnished a list of the major woody species of pine woods, maquis, and wood edges in the southern Argolid (Table 1). Unfortunately, the southern peninsula and the plant communities of the shore zone have received little or no detailed attention.
The natural vegetation, found on mountain slopes with shallow soil, along stream banks, on long-fallow fields, and along the seashore, is invariably strongly influenced by grazing. The gathering of herbs, greens, fruit and nuts (M. C. Forbes 1976b), and brush cutting for fuel and fodder exert further pressure, but data on their impact are lacking. The pine woods yield resin for wine, and thickets of wild olives are sometimes converted into olive groves.
Pine woodland (Plate 1a) dominated by Pinus halepensis is common in the area, although probably less so than in the recent past (Gavrielides 1976b). It covers many a ridge or hilltop, but it prefers soils derived from the ophiolite complex (see below) or young marls. A mature stand may be up to 8 m high, and its crown cover is complete so that pine seedlings cannot survive. Death from old age or by fire is the only means of regeneration for these woods (Rackham 1983). The undergrowth, usually much browsed, consists of Kermes oak, junipers, and thyme (Coridothymus sp.). A few pine woods appear to have been planted, and occasionally one sees pine seedlings taking hold in abandoned fields. It is uncertain whether pine woods are an original component of the natural plant cover in the area, or whether they are solely a product of human influence (M. C. Sheehan, personal communication). Pollen evidence indicates the presence of pine species since at least the Bronze Age (Sheehan 1979).
Figure 4. Vegetation in the Dhidhima and Fourni areas, southern Argolid (after Marius 1976).
TABLE 1
ASPECT-FORMING SPECIES OF THE NATURAL VEGETATION OF THE SOUTHERN ARGOLID
(After Marius (1976) and Sheehan and Sheehan (1982), with additions by van Andel)
Marius (1976) noted the occurrence of a “forest” of wild olive (Olea europaea) on the slopes of the border ranges; patches of it can also be seen in the gorges of the upper Fourni valley. This is a special facies of the maquis, but little is known about its composition and habitat.
Maquis (Plate 2), the dominant natural vegetation type in the area, occurs in many forms, open or closed, tall or low, on limestones or on a siliceous substrate. Junipers tend to be the dominant species, with Erica arborea (heather) and Arbutus spp. (strawberry bush) on siliceous soils. Browsing limits the diversity of the maquis almost everywhere, and even Quercus coccifera (Kermes oak) and Phillyrea media (mock privet) can be suppressed. The wild olive is, as noted, locally common, and so is the carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua), but the latter may well have been derived from nearby trees cultivated mainly for fodder.
Phrygana (Plate 3a) is a community of low shrubs, resplendent with flowers in the spring. It is found on abandoned fields, stony slopes, and in patches within the maquis. Its low, dense, often roundish small shrubs are mainly thyme (Coridothymus capitatus), rock rose (Cistus sp.), and various kinds of broom (Calycotome villosa, Genista acanthoclados). The phrygana, though often regarded as an ultimate degradation stage, can also be a first step in a regeneration process towards maquis (Marius 1976; Shay and Shay 1978), and thence to oak woodland (Rackham 1983). Once the regeneration has reached medium height and dense cover, pine cannot take over.
Dense hedgerows dominated by small trees of pistachio (Pistacia lentiscus), wild pear (Pyrus amygdaliformis), and wild olive, as well as species of broom (e.g., Spartium junceum) form an almost impenetrable barrier along the edges of many agric...
