The Cave of Pan, Marathon, Greece--AMS Dating of the Neolithic Phase and Calculation of the Regional Marine Reservoir Effect

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Method Development

INTRODUCTION

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan was god of the wild nature, resident of mountains, forests and caves, protector of shepherds, and companion of the Nymphs with whom he was often worshipped. According to legend, he was born in Arcadia, but he was worshipped in Athens as well from the 5th century BC on, because according to the ancient written sources Pan helped the Athenians win against the Persians during the battle of Marathon in 490 BC (Herodotus VI: 105) by instilling in them fear and panic.

After that, several Attic caves became sacred to him: a small cave on the northwest side of the Acropolis of Athens, another one near the Ilissos river, "Lychnospilia" on Mount Parnes, the cave at Oinoe--Marathon, the "Cave of the Nympholept" or "Cave of Archedamos" at Vari on Mount Hymettos, a cave at Daphni on Mount Aigaleo, a cave on Eleusis' west hill (destroyed in 1955), and one more at Megara (Wickens 1986).

The purpose of this study is twofold: the accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS¹⁴C) dating of the Neolithic phase of the Cave of Pan anthropogenic deposits, which is located on the N/NE slope of the hill of Oinoe at Marathon (38°09'31.60''N, 23°55'48.60''E), as well as the calculation of the regional marine reservoir effect in the estuarine Marathon Bay region (Figure 1) during the Neolithic period. The latter is part of a large-scale project aiming to calculate the marine reservoir effect in various regions of the Aegean Sea, as it was found that this fluctuates considerably through time (Facorellis and Vardala-Theodorou 2015).

Figure 1

Google Earth map showing the location of the Cave of Pan at Marathon (white bullet) in southern Greece.

[Figure Omitted; See PDF]

HISTORY

The acropolis of Oinoe is a low height expanse of a roughly triangular shape, spreading west of modern Marathon and south of the river named Oinoes or Charadros. It is called the "Hill of Pan" or "Tamburi Gura." The first name is owed to the ancient traveler Pausanias, who describes a cave of special attraction, located beyond the plain of Marathon, upon the hill of Pan (Pausanias, I: 32, 7). The second name is noted...