Geoff Bailey (1948)

English prehistorian. He took part in the excavation of Kastritsa, Epirus, in 1967, with E. S. Higgs, before reading Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, where he graduated in 1975 (Doctoral Thesis: “The Role of Shell Middens in Prehistoric Economies”). He was appointed lecturer of Archaeology at Cambridge University in 1976 and professor of Archaeology at the University of Newcastle in 1996. Geoff Bailey returned to Epirus in 1979, together with P. Carter, H. Higgs and C. Gamble. While there, he undertook to reappraise the material from Kastritsa and Asprochaliko and initiated a new search on the site. He discovered Klithi with P. Carter and collected new dating material from Asprochaliko, with John Cowlett, in 1981. Excavations at Klithi began in 1983. The initial team was joined by C. Roubet ,Institut de Paleontologie Humaine, Paris (stone implements) and D. Sturdy (palaeogeography). The team was later enlarged by the presence of G. King, Institut de Physique du Globe, Paris (neotectonics), C. Turner, Open University, Milton Keynes (palynology), M. Macklin, Leeds University and J, Lewin, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (river geomorphology), E. Moss, Harvard Unisversity (usage traces), N. Winder , Cambridge University (statistics) and S. Green, University of Manchester (ethnography). The team which worked at Klithi included students, who subsequently initiated their own independent research later: E. Adam, N. Galanidou, E, Kotzabopoulou, V. Papakonstantinou, A. Sinclair, F. Wenban-Smith, K. Willis and J. Woodward. Geoff Bailey has began field research in Australia. He is interested in the domestication of the horse in Kazakstan and the role of water resources in the development of civilisations around the Nile.

He is the author of many books, such as: Economic Archaeology, Oxford 1981, Hunter-gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European Perspective, Cambridge 1983, Stone Age Prehistory: Studies in Memory of Charles McBurney, Cambridge 1986, Publication of the research results in Epirus is expected at the end of 1996, under the title Klithi: Archaeology of a Late Glacial Landscape in Epirus, Northwest Greece, Cambridge.

Henri Breuil (1877-1961)

French clergyman and prehistorian. He was attracted from an early age to Natural History, Geology and Palaeontology. From 1905 to 1906 he taught Prehistory at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland and in 1910 he was appointed professor at the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in Paris. From 1929 until 1947 he held the chair of Prehistory at the College de France. He was awarded honorary doctorates by many European universities, such as Cambridge, Oxford and Lisbon. Thanks to his reexamination of the stromatography of many sites in France and his study of sets of stone implements, H. Breuil established the cultural continuity of the Late Palaeolithic period, which enjoys general acceptance to this day. At the same time, he studied and made graphic reproductions of a large number of works of art and contributed to the acceptance of antiquity and the authenticity of Palaeolothic art. Breuil travelled extensively and worked tirelessly in many European countries, in North Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Near East and China. We owe him a considerable number of publications, some of which are: The Cave of Altamira, Madrid 1935 (with H. Obermaier), Les subdivisions du Paleoiithique superieur et leur signification, Paris 1937. and 400 siecles d’ art parietal, Montignac 1952.

Jean Chavaillon (1925)

French prehistorian. He studied Ethnology and Natural Sciences in Paris, and in 1964 he submitted his doctoral thesis: “The Quartenary’s Deposits in the Northwest of the Sahara”. Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques, since 1989, he participated in the Arcy-sur-Cure excavations, in France, and led many scientific expenditions in the Sahara, in Spain, Turkey, Lebanon, and, since 1965, in Ethiopia, where he excavated well-known sites of the Early Palaeolithic period, Melka Kontoure among them, At the Paris-I University, Chavaillon set up and conducted the seminar on “Prehistory and Archaeology of Africa”. In Greece, in collaboration with his wife Nicole Chavaillon, he worked on the surface research of the region of Eleia, from 1962 till 1964. Among his writings we note his recent work L’Age d’Or de I’Humanite, Paris 1996.

Francis Hours (1921-1987).

French Jesuit clergyman and prehistorian. He made his debut during the Arcy-sur-Cure excavations, as a close associate of A. Leroi-Gourhan. In the mid-fifties he established himself in Lebanon, where he and his collaborators, L. Copeland, J. Besanson, P. Sanlaville, O.Aurenche, J. and M.-C. Cauvin, dedicated themselves οn Prehistoric research. After 1976 he settled in Lyon, where he carried out pioneering work in many fields. In the field of Methodology, Hours elaborated and presented a list of types for the study of Middle East sets of implements. He applied computer technology for the statistical analysis of his material, as well as for stromatographic research. In the field of Chronology, he emphasised the role of absolute dating for the establishment of a strict chronological framework. His third field of interest touched on Theoretical Archaeology: Hours contributed substantially to the New Archaeology’s propagation in France. He collaborated with J. Chavaillon in surface surveys in Eleia, NW Peloponnese, but also in the Melka Kontoure’s excavations in Ethiopia, and was among the first to put forward the hypothesis that Homo erectus moved from Africa to Near East and from there onto Europe. Together with professor 0. Bar-Yosef, of Harvard University, he was the only prehistorian who was so well versed in the Prehistory of the Near East, from the Early Palaeolithic to the Neolithic Age. He is the author of many publications and the organiser of the Symposia for the Prehistory of the Near East.

Sotiris Dakaris (1916)

Greek archaeologist and academic. He studied at the University of Athens and did postgraduate work at the University of Tubingen. In 1965 he was elected as full professor at the University of loannina. He was among the fist to contribute to the establishment and promotion of this newly founded university, where he taught both Classical and Prehistoric Archaeology. From 1968 to 1974 he worked for the Athens Oekistics Centre (Town-Planning) and engaged himself to excavating and writing. In 1976-1977 he was appointed Rector of the University of loannina. Author of almost 50 works, most of which concern the Archaeology and History of Epirus, he has been honoured by the German Archaeological Institute of Berlin, the Town Council of Clermont-Ferrand in France and the Panepirotic Union of Greece. Dakaris’ first active period as an academic teacher coincided with the research carried out by the British under E.S. Higgs in Epirus, which he warmly and effectively assisted in more ways than one.

Thomas W. Jacobsen (1935)

American archaeologist, professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Indiana in the USA. He headed the “Argolid Exploration Project”, which had been organised by professor M. Jameson, of the University of Pennsylvania, to whom we owe the first Palaeolithic finding in the Argolid. Jacobsen set up and directed an international interdisciplinary team, which undertook the excavation of the Frangthi cave in the Argolid, between 1967 and 1979. For the coordination of the research and the ensuing publications, he also organised two Symposia in Bloomington, in 1978 and 1982. The team which worked at Frangti consisted of scientists from various disciplines, a fact which ensured that all aspects of the excavational research at a Prehistoric site were covered. We note the presence of the following: W. R. Ferrand (excavation issues), University of Michigan, Τ. Η. Van Andel (palaeoenvironment), University of Stanford, C. Perles (stone implements), University of Paris X, C. Runnels (surface survey), University of Boston, J. C Shacleton (molluscs), Cambridge University, J. M. Hansen (palaeoethnobotany), University of Boston, S, Payne (fauna), and others. Janusz K. Kozlowski (1936)

Polish prehistorian and academic. Professor of Prehistory at the Jagellon University of Krakow, since 1974. His interests center around the Late Palaeolithic and the Neolithic periods. He has headed many excavations and scientific expeditions in Europe, as in Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, former Yugoslavia, but also in Greece, the Near East, Egypt, Turkey, Central America and the Greater Antilles. His research target is to provide solutions to three major problems of world Prehistory, namely the process from the Middle to the Late Palaeolithic period and the origins of modern man in Europe (Temnata, Bulgaria), the effects of the glaciers’ expansion on Central European habitation, according to Gravettia (Moravany, Slovakia and Krakow-Spadzista, Poland), and the beginnings of the Neolithic period in the Balkans and the Danube area. Janusz Kozlowski holds a honorary doctorate from the University of Bordeaux I, he is a member of the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut and of the Istituto .liano de Preistoria e Protostoria, a honorary member of the British Prehistoric Society, a member of the executive committee of the Union Internationale des Sciences Prehistoriques et Protohistoriques (UISPP) and, since 1980, president of the Committee VIII (Late Palaeolithic). He has been awarded the British Europa Prize.

He is the author of many synthetic works, such as: Il Paleolitico: Uomo, ambiente e culture, Milano 1987, Hommes et climats a l’ Age du mammouth, Paris 1988. L’Art de la Prehistoire en Europe orientale, Paris 1992, Atlas du Neolithique europeen, vol. I, Liege 1993, Preistoria, Milano 1993.

Frangois Lenormant (1837-1883)

French archaeologist, historian and numismatist, son of the well-known Charles Lenormant another famous archaeologist and numismatist who followed Champollion in Egypt and died in Athens in 1859. F. Lenormant was one of the founders of the journal La Gazette Archeologique. Together with his numismatic work, he was interested in ancient history and the civilisations of the Near East. He published the following works: Manuel d’Histoire Ancienne de I’Orient jusqu aux Guerres Mediques, 1968, Lettres assyriologiques sur I’ histoire et les antiquites de l’Asie, 1871, as well as the three volume work: La monnaie dans l’ Antiquite, 1873-1879. His work, Origines de I’histoire d’apres la Bible et les traditions des peuples orientaux, 1880-1882, appeared shortly before his death.

Andre Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986)

French academic, prehistorian and ethnologist. At the age of 25 he was awarded a doctorate in Human and Natural Sciences and degrees in Chinese and Russian from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, In 1936 he headed an ethnological expedition of the Musee de l’ Homme, in the Far East. In 1945 he was appointed professor in Lyon. In 1956 he was appointed to the chair of Prehistoric Ethnology at the Sorbonne and taught at the College de France from 1970 up to his death. He excavated intensively at two of the greatest Palaeolithic sites in France, the caves of Arcy-sur-Cure and the open-air site of Pincevent; there he was the first to apply the method of horizontal strata revelation, which permitted the horizontal distribution of finds to be studied, thus opening up a new vista for Prehistoric research. He also applied himself to the study of art and proposed a new interpretation, based on the symbolism of sexuality. He was the author of many works, some of which are: Evolution et techniques, Paris 1943-1946, Les fouilles prehistoriques: techniques et methodes, Paris 1950, Le geste et la parole, Paris 1964, Prehistoire de I’art occidental, Paris 1965. He was also the editor of the journal Gallia Prehistoire. The surface survey in Eleia, NW Peloponnese, was not followed up by an excavation, and so Leroi-Gourhan was unable to put his techniques and excavation methods for Palaeolithic sites into practice. Had been able to apply his methods in the field, the course of Prehistoric research might have been different.