Archaeolog

Satellite Image over Alps, Spring

How do altitude and its attendant climatic results affect archaeology? Since 1994 we have an annual active learning experience about this relationship in the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project.

Some general data about Alpine climate is apropos. Not only is the European Alpine high altitude above 2200 meters a cold biome but above the larch (Laryx sp. ) treeline between 1900-2600 meters summer temperatures range on average between -6 degrees Celsius to around 14 degrees Celsius. The average minimum precipitation in the Pennine Alps at 2200-2400 meters in the Grand-St-Bernard Pass is around 30 meters per year, at least 60% of which occurs as snow. Some years the precipitation exceeds 45 meters. The typical growing season above 2200 meters for shrubby plants (including mountain azalea and scrub juniper) is around 160 days. At night even summer temperatures often drop below freezing at elevations above 2200 meters. When warmer air masses from the Mediterranean in Italy meet the colder air masses of Northern Europe in Switzerland, a heavy fog often occurs around between 2200-2500 meters elevation with a thick cold air blanket in the passes between the continental divide where we work on the general border of the two countries. Within a few meters of each other in our site area, snow melt will flow either into the Mediterranean from the Po watershed or the Rhone watershed.

Great Eleusis Frieze, Eleusis Museum, Greece, late 5th c. BCE

What was the role of Triptolemos in the Eleusinian Mysteries? This question is still unanswered - and may never be answered - despite considerable attention and voluminous studies spanning many centuries. Even the earliest Patristic commentators like Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Macrobius and others have done more to confuse than resolve issues regarding well-kept secrets of the Mysteries. As Mylonas said in now-famous words, "We know details of the ritual but not its meaning. The ancients kept their secret well. And Eleusis still lies under its heavy mantle of mystery." Of all the questions about Eleusis and Triptolemos - whose iconography is fairly well-known - the actual importance of Triptolemos is also mostly unknown other than as apostole of grain, spreading grain cultivation to the world. (1) Triptolemos may be more important than previously held; while speculative, this paper attempts to explore his role in the Mysteries.

Fig. 1 Bourg-St-Pierre with Churchyard in town center, 9th.c CE and later

Fig. 2 Map of Bourg-St-Pierre with Church (toward south end of town, marked by cross east-west)

Spoliation of Roman material is common wherever there is continuity between Roman and medieval communities, even when a considerable time has ensued between abandonment and reuse and/or when significant demographic change occurs. In the Grand St Bernard Pass region, the Parish Church of Bourg-St-Pierre and its vicinity in the alpine town of the same name (Figs 1-2) at around 1632 meters (5354 ft.) elevation in the Val d’Entremont of the Valais has many documented spolia on the route of the Grand-St-Bernard where the Roman route of Via Poenina (as seen in the Peutinger Map) was succeeded by the medieval route of Via Montis Jovis.(1) The Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project has been studying and reconstructing Roman life in the upper montane Grand-St-Bernard pass, especially above 1600 meters elevation since 1995; reuse of Roman material in the region is especially significant in the monastery Hospice du Grand-St-Bernard from the 11th c. onward. (2)