Cesses of the up per Palaeo Lithic and Later Se Quence in Klissoura Cave 1

Ab stract Klissoura Cave 1 is lo cated in the north east ern edge of the Argive Plain, Peloponnese, at the en trance of the Berbadiotis river gorge. The cave com prises a col lapsed cave cham ber and a rockshelter area. The strati graphic anal y sis and micromorphological study of the sed i ments elu ci dated the main pro cesses in volved in the for ma tion of the site and its depositional his tory. The be gin ning of the Up per Palaeo lithic se quence is char ac ter ized by the ap pear ance of mi nor and ma jor hi a tuses. The Mid dle Palaeo lithic layer VII is erosionally trun cated by the Aurig na cian layer IV, at the back of the rockshelter. In the mid dle area, layer V, char ac ter ized by an Early Up per Palaeo lithic tech nol ogy is also trun cated by the Aurig na cian lay ers. The sed i men tary con tent of layer V is more sim i lar to the over ly ing Aurig na cian se quence and, in this re spect the trun ca tion can be con sid ered as a mi nor hi a tus. The un der ly ing layer VI is the re sult of post-depositional mix ture at the con tact of the Up per and Mid dle Palaeo lithic se quence. The de pos its of the Aurig na cian lay ers are mainly the re sult of anthropogenic pro cesses in clud ing con structed clay hearths and dumped, raked-out and tram pled ash re mains. Geogenic pro cesses in the form of shal low rain sheet wash and wall break down were more im por tant in the be gin ning of the Up per Palaeo lithic. The se quence that over lies the Aurig na cian has an over all dis crete ashy ap pear ance in the field, but the con tacts be tween the dif fer ent lay ers are rather dif fuse. The up per most lay ers of this se quence are af fected by geogenic pro cesses. The Epigravettian and Mesolithic lay ers are dis turbed by mod ern ac tiv i ties and pres ent fre quent trun ca tions and dif fused in ter faces.