Tjeer H. Van Andel was Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. His books include Beyond the Acropolis: A Rural Greek Past and Neanderthal and Modern Humans in the European Landscape of the Last Glaciation.Susan B. Sutton is Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology and Associate Dean for International Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis. She is the author of Constructed Menaings: Form and Process in Greek Architecture and A Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy, and Land Use in the Southern Argolid Since 1700.

• Foreword (T.W. Jacobsen)Preface (Tjeerd H. van Andel)Part I. The Landscape (Tjeerd H. van Andel)Chapter One The Modern Landscape/Physiography and Climate/Vegtation/Geological History (C.J. Vitaliano)/Water and Other Resources (Tj. H van Andel and C.J. Vitaliano)Chapter Two Soils and Alluvium/Erosion, Alluviation, and Soil Formation/The Late Quaternary Record/Causes of Soil Erosion and AlluviationChapter Three The Adjacent Sea/Late Quaternary Sea Level History/Pleistocene and Holocene Shores at Franchthi/The Sea Around the ArgolidChapter Four Evolution of the Franchthi Landscape (Tj. H. Van Andel and J.M. Hansen)Part II. The People ( Susan B. Sutton)Chapter Five The Franchthi Region in Modern Times/Conditions in the Early Eighteenth Century/Expansion and Revolution/Shifting Fortunes, Shifting Strategies/Nineteenth Century Adaptations in Maritime Commerce/The Crisis in Greek Shipping and Twentieth Century Adaptations/The Range of Current Economic Activities/Modern Settlement Patterns/Contrasts and Continuities with AntiquityNotesReferences CitedPlates