An important facet of YAPP research has been the development of UAV technology to facilitate ongoing research. While the use of UAVs is more obvious for archaeological research, YAPP is using the multispectral and thermal capabilities of UAVs to locate and identify both material culture and flora of interest to YAPP at a scale and level of efficiency unimaginable only a decade ago. Utilizing the diverse UAV data sets and new approaches like machine learning, a better understanding of the local ecology can be obtained and directly inform YAPP research.

This season, after initial UAV research and development at the YAPP Lab and Horse Island, UAVs were deployed on Mt. Helicon to obtain data that can be parsed and studied over the upcoming year. We were assisted in this endeavor by a local naturalist and our contact, Ms. Kyriaki Manika. The team targeted Helleborus niger as our primary case study. The species was famed in antiquity, but is oddly ignored in the modern day beyond local lore. Like silphium in ancient Libya, hellebore’s resistance to wide-spread and easy cultivation due to necessary growing conditions likely played a role in it fading from modern memory.

The plants are increasingly rare in the region, but the YAPP team successfully uncovered a healthy stand at the peak of Mount Helicon and pockets of sparse distribution on the mountain’s windward side. In 2025, the YAPP team will return to these documented sites accompanied by Patrick Sweeney, collections manager of botany at the Peabody. He will assist in collecting samples for phytochemical and genomic analysis. Those samples will then be compared with residues taken from vessels found at local archaeological sites.

With the help of our local contact, Ms. Kyriaki Manika, YAPP was introduced to local farmers and ecologists like Mr. Thanasis Lakoutsis. Experts in the local flora and cultivators of their own vineyards and fruit groves, these self-taught scholars invited us to view them as trusted and willing resources for learning about the region’s unique ecology.

Another developing research angle is the relationship between hellebore and the Roman Empire. The work will be spearheaded by YAPP team member Dr. Trevor Luke, a specialist in the history of the Late Roman Republic and Early Roman Empire, who is working with Dr. Koh on a study of the Emperor Caligula’s use of hellebore in Antikyra. They will co-present an additional, related study at the January 2025 Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting dealing with the wider use of hellebore across the Roman Empire.

After several attempts at establishing contact with one of the most important herbaria in Greece, the University of Patras Herbarium, we successfully met with Dr. Maria Panitsa, Assistant Professor of Flora and Phytogeography and co-director of the UPA Herbarium. She has happily agreed to collaborate with YAPP and introduced us to collaborators in her lab such as graduate student in botany Alexian Cheminal who is specializing in the medical and aromatic properties of plants endemic to Greece. The program’s relationship with the Herbarium connects the two universities, their collections, experts, and research opportunities.

Dr. Seth Bernard, Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Meg Andrews, Assistant Professor of Classics at Harvard University, hosted the YAPP team at their site of Falerii Novi, just north of Rome, for a tour of their ongoing excavations there. We were also introduced to their co-directors, Dr. Emlyn Dodd of the University of London, and Dr. Stephen Kay of the British School in Rome. YAPP has agreed to begin a pilot ORA study of their flat-bottomed amphora, famed in the Late Roman Period and traded extensively around the Italian peninsula. As a typologically unique and well-known vessel type, it likely held a desirable organic good, making it an ideal initial study in Italy. The plan is to extract initial ORA samples in September at the BSR facilities in Rome.

After many years of planned visits, we finally met with Dr. Dan Diffendale, postdoctoral fellow at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Naples. Diffendale trained with Dr. Koh at the Penn Museum Archaeological Mapping Lab, eventually succeeding him as its manager. He subsequently earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan and is an uncommon archaeologist with extensive field experience both in Greece and Italy. He provided the YAPP team with a thorough tour of both the old city and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. As YAPP expands its research activities into Italy, Dr. Diffendale offers hard-won expertise, a network of other archaeologists working in the region, and a potential local project lead. We could not have asked for a better introduction to the archaeological community there.

Approximately a decade ago, noted Minoanist Dr. Peter Warren recommended a visit with Giorgos Afordakos, a naturalist who founded and runs the Rodanthi Museum in Kritsa, a repository of botanical specimens and knowledge that highlights the incredibly rich and diverse flora of the island. As this relationship develops, we plan to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the Rodanthi Museum, elevating its status in Greece and allowing YAPP to learn more about local flora, especially those suspected to be leveraged heavily by ancient peoples, and obtain ethnobotanical and phytochemical data that can inform ongoing YAPP research. Our ethnographic approach incorporates local knowledge keepers like Mr. Afordakos. These experts—botanists, farmers, and others—can better guide YAPP’s exploration of the region and understanding of the constantly evolving relationship between humans and plants in Greece.

Dr. Athanasia Kanta (president of the Mediterranean Archaeological Society on Crete and former ephor overseeing the sites of Knossos, Phaistos, and Gortyn) is currently the director of one of the most important sites in Greece, Knossos-Anetaki, a sacred religious center for ancient Crete, the “Vatican of the Minoans”. While an ongoing strike within the archaeological service prevented the YAPP team from meeting Kanta in person this season, we have engaged in talks to complete an ongoing ORA study of the so-called Fetish Shrine at Anetaki.

In addition to establishing contact with Afordakos this season, we had the good fortune of meeting Yiannis Markakis and Mary Baritaki, who run the Lychnostatis Open Air Museum in nearby Hersonnisos. Beyond offering up the resources of their museum, which includes an arboretum of local flora, they will put us in touch with the Hellenic Mediterranean University and its herbarium.