Palaeolithic research, being overshadowed by a brilliant, broader “classical” past, was only recently recognized as a self-sustained scientific branch of Archaeology. The Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology-Spelaeology is only two decades old, a time proven unequally effective. The dual character of the Ephorate as a public service and a recearch center (not enacted by law as yet) is both an advantage and a disadvantage: on the one hand we must apppease our collegues in other Ephorates of Antiquities that we are also civil servants and on the other we have to reassure our academic colleagues that we are also scholars. However, if the objective is an organized and effective dealing with a correct approach to the Palaeolithic in Greece, then the open-air sites, being an intergal element, must be supervised by only one institution for their protection, which will be reinforced with instituted competences and will retain, in any case, the right and capability to cooperate with the local Ephorates. The collaboration with foreign and Greek institutions will be fruitful, while the increase of the number of experts in this field is a permanent demand. Needless to say that the research subject in itself dictates the need for interdisciplinary and cooperative procedures on the base of the equality of the various specialities and the evaluation of priorities. As regards the research categories of the Ephorate in progress, they are the following:
– Survey excavations which produced Palaeolithic finds and they were staffed in their cource by specialists in the Palaeolithic.
– Long-planned projects and excavations with research targets on an iterdisciplinary base.
– Cooperative programs with foreign archaeological schools.
– Supervision of foreign schools programs or of other institutions.
Now, that as it seems, the Palaeolithic in Greece has been founded as an itegral branch of the science of Archaeology, we hope to have the chance to prove it also practically in 1997 in a celebration for the 20 years of the Ephorate, which will be focused on its entire work during these years.
