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Recording Santorini’s subterranean landscapes: A noninvasive approach to the investigation of cave use strategies in insular environments

Abstract This paper investigates cave use strategies in insular environments, focusing on a case study from Santorini (Thera) island in Greece. The paper has a two-fold aim to propose and test a methodological framework for noninvasive archaeological evaluation of cave sites and to explore the ways that people, not only on Santorini, but also on similar small islands, have engaged with caves through time. Santorini is famous today as a holiday destination; however, a large part of the island’s historic landscape has disappeared. This is due to the Bronze Age volcanic eruption that covered the majority of the island with a thick layer of tuff and pumice, as well as intensive building and agricultural activity in the second half of the twentieth century, all of which have dramatically transformed the island’s natural environment. Today, our accounts of the island’s prehistory come from the extraordinary preservation of the Akrotiri site, and considerable knowledge gained from other locations, about the role that the island played diachronically in the history of the Aegean. We are, however, still missing valuable information about the relationship between the island’s inhabitants and their environment.