The Minnesota Messenia Expedition (MME) was the first major multidisciplinary archaeological expedition in Greece. Its focus was the Bronze Age and involved surface survey, large-scale excavation, with many integrated studies focusing on paleoenvironmental reconstruction, archaeological science, cultural history, and social anthropology (McDonald and Rapp 1972; Rapp and Aschenbrenner 1978; McDonald et al. 1983; McDonald and Wilkie 1992). Although this project was not organized formally until 1962, survey work began in 1958 after Carl Blegen had suggested to William McDonald the critical need for such a survey. Regular surface survey initially was conducted by McDonald and Richard Hope Simpson. During the 1960s, McDonald realized the need for associated scientific studies and engaged H. E. Wright, Jr. (paleoecology), William Loy (geography), Jesse Fant (civil engineering), and others to conduct them. This culminated in 1966 with the addition of geoarchaeologist George (Rip) Rapp being...
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Bibliography
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Rapp, G.R. (2022). Minnesota Messenia Expedition. In: Gilbert, A.S., Goldberg, P., Mandel, R.D., Aldeias, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44600-0_95-1
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