The Sphakia Survey, South West Crete: I. Methods

First part of a two-part documentary about the Sphakia Survey in south-west Crete, presenting (1) Methods and (2) Results. Produced in 1995 by the Educational Technology Resources Centre at the University of Oxford. This first section talks about the principles on which we (and most field surveys) work: the aim of reconstructing the interactions of people and the landscape over long periods of time (settlement patterns, land usage and so on); the importance of understanding the geology; the need to integrate documents and material evidence; and the ways of interpreting pottery (the main source of evidence for field surveys), including the evidence of a contemporary potter in Khania who has studied Venetian and Turkish pottery production We also discuss the question of how archaeologists find archaeological material without excavating, and how they can be sure that what they do find is significant. This is where film really come into its own. Books or articles can present principles; slide lectures can show landscapes; but only moving images can present properly the processes of field survey, of people walking through landscapes and actually finding ancient artefacts.