Dr. Christopher Nuttall

Dr. Christopher Nuttall

Archaeologist specializing in landscape archaeology, GIS, prehistoric ceramics, and the Bronze Age Aegean.

Populating the Coastal Landscapes of Greece

Populating the Coastal Landscapes of Greece

Principal Investigator (2023-2025)

The Swedish Research Council-funded project Populating the Coastal Landscapes of Greece aimed to understand the nature and significance of human engagement with coastal landscapes (“coastscapes”) in later Greek prehistory (7000–1100 BCE). It employed a multidisciplinary approach combining spatial analysis, GIS methodologies, and archaeological data from extensive published fieldwalking surveys. The research specifically introduced novel spatial analytical frameworks such as “coastal proximity analysis” and the “coastal engagement index” to quantify and visualise coastal habitation patterns, spatial connectedness to the sea, and intensity of human activity over time.

By systematically analysing settlement data from over 110 surveys in central and southern Greece, the project sought to identify periods and regions of intensified or diminished coastal engagement and to clarify whether habitation near the coast was driven primarily by access to marine resources, trade networks, or other socio-economic factors. The outcomes include the development of methodologies broadly applicable beyond Greece, providing new insights into how prehistoric communities structured their lives around the opportunities and risks presented by coastal environments.

workshop

This research has so far supported four pieces of peer-reviewed work, as well as one workshop. In 2025, the datasets that supported the analysis will be uploaded project-by-project to GitHub.

  • Nuttall, C. 2024. “Review of The Wider Island of Pelops. Studies on Prehistoric Aegean Pottery in Honour of Professor Christopher Mee.” Opuscula, Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome 17, 261–263. DOI

  • Nuttall, C. 2024. “In the Shadows of a Giant? A Spatial Analytical Method for Assessing Coastal Proximity using R: a Case-Study from the Bronze Age Saronic Gulf (Greece).” Virtual Archaeology Review 31, 16–36. DOI

  • Nuttall, C. 2024. “A GIS Analysis of Coastal Proximity with a Prehistoric Greek Case Study.” Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 7(1), 170–184. DOI

  • Nuttall, C. & Zikidi, Ch. 2023. “Necrogeography in Southwest Peloponnese. A GIS-based study of the spatial distribution of Bronze Age tumulus and tholos tombs in Messenia.” AURA, University of Athens Review 6, 69–97. DOI

  • Nuttall, C. and Kovačević, J. 2025 (pre-print available). “Mycenaean Roads in the Peloponnese, Greece: Least-Cost Path Modelling Using R and Movecost”. Available at SSRN: URL DOI
  • Nuttall, C (ed.). Spatial Approaches to ancient Greek and Cypriot landscapes. Swedish Institute of Athens and Rome (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Athen, 8˚).