Due to the con­struc­tion of the Apose­lemis Dam (2007-2015) in the val­ley of the Apose­lemis river, be­tween the vil­lages of Potamies and Av­dou Pe­di­ados, a great ex­ca­va­tion pro­ject was car­ried out. Ma­jor an­cient sites, rang­ing from the Late Ne­olithic to the Late Ro­man pe­riod, were ex­ca­vated and are be­ing stud­ied.

The an­cient set­tle­ments were es­tab­lished on the routes pass­ing through the val­ley in all di­rec­tions, form­ing cru­cial cross­roads in the val­ley. The main roads were used to con­nect the Apose­lemis val­ley with the Malia dis­trict to the north, the val­ley of Kastelli to the west, the plain of Las­sithi to the south and the area of Gou­ves to the north­east. The ear­li­est date for the road net­work in the val­ley is MM II. A large part of this road was ex­ca­vated in the area of Sou­viani and on the west bor­der of the set­tle­ment in Agios Leon­tios. Dur­ing the MM pe­riod, ex­cept for the set­tle­ments (as in Agios Leon­tios) and the mon­u­men­tal build­ings (as in Ke­fali), “watch­tow­ers” were placed to con­trol the traf­fic, mainly close to the cross­roads, as at the site of Meso­chorio. A dense net­work of paths was in­tended to lead the an­cient wor­ship­pers to the Dic­taean Cave and other rit­ual caves, while a sys­tem of rocky paths led to the Iron Age hill­sites (such as Karphi).

Dur­ing Ro­man times, the road con­nected sparse vil­las on the hill­tops or along the banks of the Apose­lemis river.

In this pa­per the ex­ca­va­tors in­tend to set all the ev­i­dence to­gether and cre­ate a map show­ing the set­tle­ments, the routes, the acme and the de­cline of move­ments, and lastly the po­lit­i­cal and rit­ual sig­nif­i­cance of the fer­tile val­ley among the moun­tain­ous sur­round­ings.