Lesson 1: Narrative

The Southern Greek Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Sequence at Franchthi

The Site
Franchthi Cave is unique in Greece in having an essentially unbroken series of deposits spanning the period from ca. 20,000 B.C. (and probably even earlier) down to ca. 3000 B.C. This is by far the longest recorded continuous occupational sequence from any one site in Greece. The site itself is located in and immediately outside of a large cave in the southeastern Argolid, across a small bay from the modern Greek village of Koilada. Excavation at the site began in 1967 and ended in 1976. The deepest sounding in the cave is in Trench F/A (over 11 meters of stratified living debris); the earliest homogeneous cultural deposits yet found (of the Upper Paleolithic period) come from Trench H/H1 at a depth of 9 meters.

Dates
The dates for the various phases of occupation in the cave are derived from radiocarbon (C-14) analysis of a total of over fifty samples, the largest number of radiocarbon samples from any prehistoric site in Greece. The earliest radiocarbon date is ca. 20,000 b.c. for the Upper Paleolithic, the latest near 3000 b.c. for the Final Neolithic. [All dates cited in this summary are uncalibrated radiocarbon dates (years "{b.c.}") rather than calibrated or calendrical dates (years "{B.C. }").] But the earliest artefactual material is unmistakably Middle Paleolithic, although such material is rare, and the earliest strata to have been excavated in the cave probably date from between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Paleolithic (ca. 20,000 8300 b.c.) Mesolithic (ca. 8300 6000b.c.) Early Neolithic (ca. 6000 5000 b.c.) Middle Neolithic (ca. 5000 4500 b.c.) Late Neolithic (ca. 4500 400 b.c.) Final Neolithic (ca. 4000 3000 b.c.) Paleolithic and Mesolithic elsewhere in Greece

Paleolithic (ca. 20,000 8300 b.c.)

[most of Renfrew's Era of Hunting and Gathering]

The period is divided into three phases on the basis of major shifts in the relative frequencies of the various animal families (genera) attested among the faunal remains (animal bones): 70% equid (probably wild ass), ca. 30% red deer; also pig, hare, tortoise, birds.

40% equid, 25% red deer, 25% large bovid (i.e. cow), 10% large caprine (wild goat?); also a few small fish; fox and mole at the top of this level. 70% red deer, 20% or less equid, ca. 10% pig, no large bovid, sporadic caprine at 10% or less; voles appear. Inhabitants of the cave were probably seasonal hunter-gatherers. No certain gathering of plant foods is attested before ca. 11,000 b.c., although large numbers of seeds of the Boraginaceae family may come from plants gathered to furnish soft bedding or for the dye which their roots may have supplied. First appearing at ca. 11,000 b.c. are lentils, vetch, pistachios, and almonds. Then ca. 10,500 b.c. and still well within the Upper Paleolithic period appear a few very rare seeds of wild oats and wild barley. Neither wild oats nor wild barley become at all common until ca. 7000 b.c., after which they become a regular and typical feature of the Upper Mesolithic botanical assemblage. At present, there is no evidence for inhabitation of the cave during the winter. The chipped stone industry consists of flint and chert for the most part, although a small amount of obsidian from Melos appears well before the end of the Paleolithic period (ca. 10,900 b.c.); the typical tool is the backed bladelet, a tiny multi-purpose cutting tool, but small end-scrapers (for removing the flesh from hides) are also common. There is no pottery or architecture. No burials have been found.

Mesolithic (ca. 8300 6000b.c.)

[end of Renfrew's Era of Hunting and Gathering] This period is divided into two phases on the basis of shifting frequencies among the animal families (genera) represented by the faunal remains: (D1) ca. 70% or more red deer, ca. 30% or less pig, no equid or caprine, large bovid scarce; also much fox, hare, and birds; hedgehog appears, mole rat disappears; some small fish bones. (D2) as for D1, but fish bones increase in number to ca. 20-40% of the total bone assemblage, and these fish are mainly large. The plant remains are much the same as those of the preceding Paleolithic period, with the exceptions that wild pears and a few peas begin to appear ca. 7300 b.c. and that wild oats and barley become common after 7000 b.c. The disappearance of the equid and caprine bones from the faunal assemblage and of seeds of the Boraginaceae family from the botanical assemblage, as well as an increase in the number of pistachios, all taking place ca. 8000 b.c., suggest a change of environment to open forests. There is also the possibility, however, that the change in the animal bones represents a change in the hunting preferences or practices of the caves inhabitants. The overall economic picture of the early (or Lower) Mesolithic (D1) is much the same as that of the latest Paleolithic, although there appears to be a hiatus in occupation of some 300-600 years between the latest Palaeolithic deposits in the cave and the earliest Mesolithic materials.

The second phase of the Mesolithic (Upper; D2) is characterized by two new developments: (1) the appearance of large quantities of fish bones, particularly those of large fish; (2) the appearance of substantially larger quantities of obsidian from Melos as a material in the local chipped stone industry. These two developments were initially considered to be closely related and to show that the inhabitants of Franchthi Cave not only sailed to Melos (150 kms. away) for obsidian but also fished in deep water for the first time. However, more detailed analysis of the fish bones has shown that the actual number of large fish (probably tuna, for the most part) represented is relatively small; the fish in question might well have been herded into shallow water and clubbed or speared, so their bones need not imply deep-sea fishing. As for the obsidian, its appearance at the cave in small quantities as early as the Upper Paleolithic shows that there need have been no particularly novel developments in the later Mesolithic to explain its presence on the site. The chipped stone industry is now characterized by small, geometrically shaped tools ({microlith}s). There is still no pottery or architecture. A novel feature in ground stone during both phases of the Mesolithic is the appearance of millstones made of andesite, imported almost certainly by sea from the Saronic Gulf to the north. The earliest burial found at Franchthi is of Lower Mesolithic date: a 25-yearold male buried in a contracted position in a shallow pit near the mouth of the cave. The pit was covered with fist-sized stones; there were no burial goods; the young man had died from blows to the forehead, but he seems to have already been suffering severely from malaria. Further examination in 1989 of the human bone found throughout the cave resulted in the realization that this Mesolithic male burial lay at the top of a deposit of several other, disturbed Mesolithic burials (five inhumations and two cremations) plus fragments of another two to five individuals that are not necessarily the remains of burials. Analysis of the human bone from elsewhere in the cave produced evidence for at least one other Mesolithic burial, this of the Upper Mesolithic phase, in another location, in addition to fragments of another 6 to 25 individuals sprinkled throughout Mesolithic strata within the cave. These bones represent individuals of all age groups (adults, adolescents, infants, neonates) and hence would appear to make the conclusion inescapable that the human groups that occupied the cave during the Mesolithic did so on a permanent basis. Otherwise, the existence of what amounts to a genuine cemetery here, one which accommodated the full spectrum of the social group occupying the cave, is difficult to explain. In his 1995 review of the evidence for the Mesolithic throughout Greece, Runnels argues that the foraging culture of this earliest stage of the Holocene exhibits a number of commonalities wherever it is represented in continental Greece or on the island of Corfu: first, it appears to be unconnected with the preceding Upper Palaeolithic; second, it is manifested at coastal, or near coastal (Kleisoura Gorge in the Argolid), locations only, and is surprisingly absent in some large areas where both preceding Palaeolithic and ensuing Early Neolithic remains are abundantly attested (e.g. eastern Thessaly); third, it exhibits an unusual focus on marine resources and long-distance maritime acquisition networks involving such raw materials as obsidianand andesite, as well as such food resources as tuna; and fourth, it is the first human culture attested in Greece to manifest any concern for the ritualized disposal of its dead. Runnels sees in these various facets of Mesolithic

culture grounds for identifying the bearers of Mesolithic culture as an intrusive group approaching the Greek Mainland by water rather than overland and spreading from east (e.g. Franchthi Cave) to west (the open-air site of Sidari on Corfu) during the course of the period. This Mesolithic colonization of Greece thus represents for him an episode of demic diffusion from the east that precedes a second such episode about 1500 years later that inaugurates the Neolithic era.

Early Neolithic (ca. 6000 5000 b.c.)

[Renfrew's Introduction of Simple Village Farming] The beginning of the Neolithic period at Franchthi Cave is characterized by three new features: (1) the appearance of domesticated forms of sheep and goat; (2) the appearance of domesticated forms of wheat, barley, and lentil; (3) the appearance of polished stone tools (e.g. celts, with which to fell trees and thus clear land) and a significant increase in the number of grinding stones (for grinding grain) and sickle elements (flint and obsidian flakes and bladelets with a distinctive {silica gloss} along one or more edges from having been used to cut plants). On present evidence, there seems to be a brief period at the beginning of Early Neolithic when pottery was not yet made (in other words, an {Aceramic}Neolithic phase), but this is of short duration. Thus another major feature of Early Neolithic culture which sets it apart from the preceding Era of Hunting and Gathering (i.e. Paleolithic and Mesolithic) is the appearance of pottery. Also during the Early Neolithic period, occupation at Franchthi for the first time extended beyond the confines of the cave into the so-called Paralia (= Beach) area where there is, for the first time at the site, evidence for some kind of rough architecture in the form of stretches of rubble walls. It is likely that these were rough retaining walls on the uphill side of a fairly extensive open-air settlement outside the cave which, as cores drilled in the bay below the site have revealed, is now just about totally submerged. The shed milk teeth of sheep from the cave show that this area of the site served at least occasionally as a sheepfold in Neolithic times. Early Neolithic pottery is mostly (70%) dark monochrome burnished ware in the form of hole-mouthed jars and deep hemispherical bowls fired at relatively low temperatures (<650C) in small batches. A variety of painted ware with patterns in red or red-brown paint appears after the beginning of the Early Neolithic but never exceeds 5% of the total pottery. The relative rarity of pottery in EN levels at Franchthi has led Vitelli to estimate production at a very low level, perhaps only some 10-13 vessels per year. The function of these vessels, to judge from their shape, size, decoration, and signs of wear and repair was neither storage nor cooking (which one might perhaps have expected from human groups in the initial stages of a sedentary existence) but rather display; that is, the initial function of pottery may have been as some sort of prestige artifact. Among the chipped stone, the percentage of obsidian has risen from 10% in the Upper Mesolithic (D2) to 40% in EN and blades become more popular. In the category of worked bone, fish-hooks appear for the first time. Of eight EN burials, two are of children and six of infants younger than one year; an adult (17-year-old) female burial dates to the transition from Early to Middle Neolithic. All except one are simple inhumations in shallow pits without any grave goods. The exception is an infant only a few weeks old who was buried with a small footed vessel made of marble and about half of a clay vase. The reason for the extraordinary richness of this grave is unknown, but such wealth in the grave of an infant suggests that status may have been hereditary in this society. The clay vase deposited in it may have been ceremonially killed, thus accounting for the fact that almost exactly one half of it, but no more, is preserved.

The shift in the nature of the botanical material is both sudden and dramatic. The wild oats, barley, lentils, pears, and peas disappear; emmer wheat and cultivated/domesticated forms of barley and lentil occur for the first time. At present, it is uncertain whether all of the cultivated forms were introduced from elsewhere or whether some of the domesticated species could have developed locally from wild forms. This dramatic change in the plant remains is paralleled in the faunal material by the equally sudden appearance in quantity of domesticated sheep and goat.

Middle Neolithic (ca. 5000 4500 b.c.)

[beginning of Renfrew's Diversification of Village Farming Pattern] This period is distinguished from the preceding EN and the subsequent Late Neolithic on the basis of minor changes in the pottery. The relative frequencies of animal bone (exclusive of fish) in the MN period are: ca. 70-75% sheep/goat, 10% pig, 15% red deer, and 5% cow. Fish (including large ones) constitute ca. 10% of the total bone assemblage. There is a smooth transition from EN to MN pottery. Basically, early MN pottery is made of a finer fabric, is harder, and is more uniform and lighter in both surface and fracture color than that of the preceding EN period. Potters had clearly learned to purify their clay more thoroughly and to fire their products at higher temperatures (ca. 800C), in significantly larger batches which required the stacking of vessels during the firing process, and under more carefully controlled conditions. Another characteristic of early MN pottery is the application to it of a reddish slip or wash, either as a solid coating or in the form of simple linear patterns. This early MN slipped ware gradually develops into the pottery characteristic of mature MN, so-called {Middle Neolithic Urfirnis} (a German term meaning, literally, old glaze). This latter wares slip(often called a paint by Aegean prehistorians) is characterized by being finer and more lustrous than the early MN slip. By mature MN, the range of shapes has increased dramatically over the relatively simple repertoire of EN. Urfirnis occurs in three varieties: (a) solidly painted, plain; (b) pattern-painted; (c) solidly painted, pattern-burnished. The plain solidly painted variety remains roughly constant at 50-65% of the total pottery; the {patternpainted} variety (= dark-on-light patterns created by the application of Urfirnis paint/slip to the pale-firing ground of the clay body) begins from zero, rises to a maximum of 20%, and then declines in popularity in favor of the {pattern-burnished} variety (= vases coated solidly with Urfirnis paint/slip and then selectively burnished to create highly lustrous [= burnished] patterns against the less lustrous [= unburnished] background). For the first time, truly coarse clay pastes are used to produce pots fired at lower temperatures than the finer wares and having less carefully finished surfaces. These first examples of coarse wares, to judge from the evidence in the form of localized surface discolorations for repeated secondary burning, functioned as cooking vessels. In chipped stone, the percentage of obsidian has risen again, now to 75% of the total. MN levels are characterized by two types of arrowheads, transverse (which come from deposits of the EN/MN transition, of MN, and occasionally of the MN/LN transition, but never from later deposits) and shouldered. Two adult burials belong to women whose ages at death are estimated to have been 33 and 39. The older woman was buried with a whole pot, some bone tools, and some obsidian blades. Her bones were packed so tightly into the pit in which they were found that the excavators assume the burial to have been a secondary one, a mode of burial which does in fact appear to begin in southern Greece during the MN period to judge from finds at other sites. The grave goods found with this middle-aged woman are strongly suggestive of personal possessions and may indicate that the dead woman had some special status as a craftswoman. Just before the end of the MN period appears the first einkorn wheat.

Late Neolithic (ca. 4500 400 b.c.)

[continuation of Renfrew's Diversification of Village Farming Pattern] This period, like MN, is distinguished primarily on the basis of changes in pottery. Within LN and the succeeding Final Neolithic period there are three separate patterns of animal bone frequencies: (F1) ca. 90% sheep/goat, 10% pig; cow and red deer very scarce; fish ca. 5%. (F2) as F1, but fish up to 20-40%. (G) ca. 70% sheep/goat, 10-15% pig, red deer and cow up to 10-15% and 5% respectively, fish down to 5% or less. The beginning of the period is defined by the appearance of {Late Neolithic Matt-painted} pottery (= dark-on-light pattern-painted ware where the paint is dull, or matt, in contrast to the lustrous Urfirnis paint of MN). This change in the luster of the paint/slip used for decoration may reflect the substitution of a manganese-based paint for an earlier ironbased one; the former has no luster but also does not vary in color when fired, whereas iron-based paints usually vary in color from red through brown to black depending upon the degree of oxidation of the iron in the paint. In advanced LN, Matt-painted ware accounts for up to 50% of the total pottery. A transitional MN/LN class of pottery is Fine Black-burnished ware, often decorated with fugitive white paint which usually survives only as a ghost or negative on the black-burnished surface. At its peak, this Fine Black-burnished ware accounts for ca. 20% of the total pottery. In the chipped stone, barbed or barbed-and-tangled arrowheads appear, but such arrowheads persist as late as the beginning of the Early Bronze Age further north in the Argolid and so can hardly be considered absolutely diagnostic of the LN phase. The percentage of obsidian is now up to 85%. Wild grape pips appear during LN and continue into Final Neolithic.

Final Neolithic (ca. 4000 3000 b.c.)

[continuation of Renfrew's Diversification of Village Farming Pattern] This period has only been recognized as a major sub-phase of the Neolithic, distinct on ceramic grounds from the preceding LN, since about 1970. Some scholars prefer to view it as no more than a later stage of the Late Neolithic (i.e. LN II). On the southern Greek Mainland, and particularly at Franchthi, the pottery of this period is characterized by a predominance of coarse, unpainted wares exhibiting a variety of odd handle types and a preference for plastic, as opposed to painted, decoration. Small amounts of a number of odd wares (e.g. red-on-white painted; crusted; dark slipped-and-burnished; patternburnished) also occur during the period. In chipped stone, large triangular arrowheads of flint, bifacially flaked, are characteristic. Obsidian now accounts for 95% of the chipped stone at Franchthi. For the first time at Franchthi, the buried population in the FN period consists both of adults (4) and children (2), the adults including both women (3) and men (1). As in the case of the MN burials, adult burials appear to be secondary whereas the child burials are primary. With FN, the prehistoric occupational sequence at Franchthi Cave ends. A few odd bits of Bronze Age material suggest that the cave was visited sporadically over the ensuing two millennia, and finds of specialized votive material at the back of the cave show that it served some sort of cult purpose in Classical times, but it never served again as a

principal residence for any significant number of people. The reason for its abandonment ca. 3000 b.c. was the steady rise in sea level which, though not rapid in comparison to that which took place between 14,000 and 6,000 B.C., nevertheless buried at this time the broad terrace below the cave on which both the settlement and the fields of the Neolithic inhabitants had been located.

Paleolithic and Mesolithic elsewhere in Greece

Only a limited number of sites producing remains of these periods have yet been excavated in Greece: Asprochaliko Cave in the Louros River valley and the Kastritsa Rock Shelter at the south end of Lake Pambotis (or Ioannina), both in Epirus; the not too far distant Klithi Rock Shelter near the Albanian border and the Grave Rock Shelter and Sidari open-air site on the island of Corfu, all also in northwestern Greece; Theopetra Cave in Thessaly; Seidi Cave in the Copac Basin of Boeotia; Kephalari Cave and the Kleisoura Rock Shelter in the Argolid; and Kalamakia Cave in the Mani region of Laconia. Paleolithic stone implements have now also been found in a number of areas as the result of surface surveys: in the Peneios River valley of Thessaly, on the island of Euboea, in Boeotia, in Epirus, in the Peneios River Valley of Elis, and in the central and southeastern Argolid. Some of the material from Asprochaliko and from the southeastern Argolid belongs to the Middle Paleolithic period (ca. 30,000 to 40,000 years ago). No preNeolithic material has so far been found in Crete nor is there any certain evidence for preNeolithic settlement in the Cycladic islands, despite the fact that Melian obsidian is to be found on the Greek Mainland as early as the Upper Paleolithic period at Franchthi Cave.

Lesson 2: Narrative

The Neolithic Cultures of Thessaly, Crete, and the Cyclades

General The Neolithic Sequence in Thessaly o Aceramic Neolithic o Early Neolithic (ca. 6000-5300 b.c.) o Middle Neolithic (or Sesklo culture) (ca. 5300-4400 b.c. at Sesklo itself) o Late Neolithic (ca. 4300-3300 b.c.) o Final Neolithic (ca. 3300-2500 b.c.) The Neolithic Sequence in Crete o Aceramic Neolithic (from before 6000 to 5700 b.c.) [Level X = at least four architectural levels] o Early Neolithic (ca. 5700-3700 b.c.) o Middle Neolithic (ca. 3700-3600 b.c.) [Level III = one architectural level] o Late Neolithic (ca. 3600-2800 b.c.) [Levels II-I = three architectural levels] The Neolithic Sequence in the Cycladic Islands o The Saliagos Culture (ca. 4300-3700 b.c.) o The Kephala Culture (ca. 3300-3200 b.c. or later in radiocarbon years) o A Final Neolithic Successor to the Saliagos Culture? In their comprehensive study of the Greek Neolithic, Demoule and Perl`s divide this era into three major horizons which they view as being separated by significant changes in such spheres as exchange systems, the production and function of ceramics, the sizes of and durations of occupation at settlement sites, and changing degrees of cultural

General

uniformity throughout the region. The earliest of these horizons corresponds to Thessalian and Peloponnesian EN and MN (their Phases 1 and 2), the second to LN (a millennium-long period which they subdivide into Phases 3 and 4), and a last, even longer phase corresponding to FN (Phase 5). The exploitation of wild (as opposed to domesticated) food resources played a surprisingly limited role in the Greek Neolithic. The economy may therefore be accurately described as {agropastoral} [farming = agro-; stock-rearing and herding = pastoral], with no significant emphasis on hunting, except for the copious evidence for fishing in the islands. During the earlier phases of the Neolithic era, settlements were concentrated on the most fertile alluvial and colluvial soils. Because these soils retained water well and could be easily enough turned over, or tilled, by human labor, there was no need for draft animals or artificial irrigation to any significant degree. Not surprisingly, therefore, the faunal record offers no evidence for the presence of donkeys, horses, or oxen, nor does Neolithic architecture in Greece include any large-scale irrigation works, although fairly wide and deep ditches around settlements are not uncommon is some areas (e.g. Thessaly). Villages occupied throughout the year (as indicated by the age at death of the pigs raised in them) and for long periods of time (as revealed by the deep stratification at numerous mound sites in Macedonia [where they are known as toumbas], Thessaly [where they are known as magoulas], and central Greece, as well as at Knossos on Crete) are the norm for the Greek Neolithic; the latter phenomenon in quite rare in the remainder of Europe at this time. Settlement density and settlement size are both significantly higher in the northern parts of Greece than they are in the Peloponnese and the islands (aside from Knossos on Crete). Right from the beginning of the Neolithic there is evidence for widespread trade in utilitarian goods (mostly stone tools and the materials from which these were produced) as well as in exotics (display items of shell and, in the later phases, metal). Evidence for at least part-time craft specialization is reasonably copious throughout, but compelling evidence for social stratification and organizational hierarchies is rare. Monumental architecture, whether funerary or ritual in function, is conspicuously absent.

The Neolithic Sequence in Thessaly Aceramic Neolithic

This period has been identified at some half-dozen sites and can be roughly dated to shortly before 6500 B.C. although no carbon dates are yet available for it. At Argissa, there is evidence for domesticated cattle and for some domesticatd plants (wheat, barley, oats). This diet was supplemented by peas, lentils, vetch, pistachios, acorns, and wild olives. At Argissa, six shallow oval cuttings were found in the bedrock. Associated post-holes, hearths, and pebble floors indicate a small permanent settlement. The houses have been interpreted as pit-huts with sunken floors: gradually, some have theorized, the floor levels rose and the huts became buildings with floors at ground level. Other authorities consider such a development unlikely. No fired pottery occurs, but attempts at making it are preserved in the form of fragments of simple sun-dried pottery. Between 30% and 60% of the chipped stone is obsidian. Arrowheads at Argissa are of the transverse type. Other stone objects include ear-plugs (or were these used for the lips or nose?).

Early Neolithic (ca. 6000-5300 b.c.)

The three subdivisions of this period are based on changes in the pottery. The numbeers and settlement stability of the EN occupation in Thessaly are striking in view of the

dearth of Mesolithic sites in the region. Demoule and Perls report 120 EN sites in eastern Thessaly alone, with an average intersite spacing of less than 5 kms.; no less than 75% of these continue to be occupied in the subsequent MN period. Early Ceramic There is now evidence for domesticated sheep and goat. Plant remains at Sesklo, Souphli, and Achilleion include wheat, barley, pea, and lentil, all of which were already present in the Aceramic Neolithic. Pottery at Argissa is red or reddish-brown burnished ware in the form of simple hemispherical bowls and hole-mouthed jars, both shapes familiar from the Early Neolithic at Franchthi Cave. Proto-Sesklo Pottery becomes much better made and more varied. Features such as articulated rims, distinct bases, and sometimes quite elaborate feet appear. Typical is red- or pink-slipped ware. The first pattern-painted pottery occurs in a red-on-white style. The richest Proto-Sesklo site is Nea Nikomedeia, located 60 kms. southwest of Thessaloniki, actually in southwestern Macedonia rather than in Thessaly. The site has four building levels broken down into two main Early Neolithic phases. Carbon dates from the site suggest an occupation period of ca. 5800-5300 b.c. The layout of the architecture at Nea Nikomedeia is that of an open settlement with free-standing structures. The buildings are rectangular in plan and have a framework of oak posts entwined with reeds and rushes, both sides of which are coated with mud [the so-called {wattle-and-daub} technique of wall-building]. The use of mudbrick is unknown at the site. The houses are oriented east-west for protection from prevailing northerly winds. Those excavated tend to be relatively large (8 x 8, 8 x 8, 8.5 x 6 m.). In the first architectural period, four houses are grouped around a larger structure (12 x 12 m.), possibly a shrine, or perhaps a chieftains hut, to judge from its contents. This shrine is divided into three sections internally by two rows of posts. The resulting large central room also features internal buttresses. If not a communal shrine, this building would seem to be evidence for some sort of social hierarchy. In the first phase, the site was surrounded by a wall, but in the subsequent phase this wall was replaced by a deep waterfilled ditch; neither feature makes very good sense as a serious defensive structure, and the latter may have been intended principally for drainage Wheat (but not breadwheat), barley (naked, not hulled), and lentils were the main crops at Nea Nikomedeia, but peas and vetch were also known. Sheep and goat are the most common animals, but domesticated pigs and cattle were also present. Hunting and fishing are also well attested by the surviving animal bones. The most common type of pottery is monochrome, either plain burnished or slipped and burnished. There is also pattern-painted pottery, either red-on-cream or, less commonly, white-on-reddishbrown. Large female figurines of terracotta feature slitted eyes and fat buttocks; they may have been intended to represent pregnant females. A number of figurines, together with two polished stone axes and a cache of 400 flint blades, were found in the shrine. Other stone objects include stamp seals (also called pintaderas) designed to create geometric impressions, ear plugs, axes and adzes, and carved frogs; flintand chert sickle blades were set into bone or wooden handles. Clay sling bullets are more common than stone arrowheads. Awls, pins, needles, and fish-hooks were made of bone. There is evidence for twined basketry from impressions on the bases of clay vases. The dead were buried within the settlement area in a contracted position in shallow pits outside houses or within ruined buildings. Grave gifts are absent except in one case where a pebble was stuck in the mouth of a male skeleton. Pre-Sesklo

This is an intrusive northern or northwestern culture found only in northern Thessaly, where it succeeds the Proto-Sesklo culture. Pre-Sesklo is characterized by the appearance in quantity of impressed wares: at first, barbotine and nail-impressed, then later a finer ware exhibiting impressions made with cardium shells. Figurines are crude and pearshaped and lack any facial features or incised decoration. This intrusive culture is gradually absorbed and has almost entirely disappeared by the time of the emergence of the Sesklo culture in the Middle Neolithic period. There is some evidence for secondary burial in the Pre-Sesklo culture at the site of Prodromos in western Thessaly where eleven skulls and a few other bones were found in three successive strata underneath a house floor. At this same site, the EN remains of what was probably the roof of a building included squared beams joined by wooden pegs.

Middle Neolithic (or Sesklo culture) (ca. 5300-4400 b.c. at Sesklo itself)
The culture of this period in Thessaly develops directly from the Proto-Sesklo culture of the Early Neolithic period and differs from its predecessor largely in being richer, more complex, and more uniform. The Sesklo culture extends from Servia in western Macedonia south to Lianokladhi in Phthiotis, an area of distribution comparable in size to that occupied by the contemporary MN culture of southern Greece characterized by Urfirnis pottery. The type site for this Thessalian phase, during which the total number of sites and the average size of individual sites both increase, is Sesklo. The hallmark of the period is the elaborately decorated red-on-white-painted Sesklo ware. Monochrome redslipped ware is also very popular. Sesklo consists of an acropolis surrounded by a lower town, the whole estimated to have covered some 25-30 acres and to have housed some 3000-4000 inhabitants. The acropolis of Sesklo appears to have been enclosed within a wall approximately one meter thick, not a very impressive fortification but nevertheless a barrier of sorts, while at some other sites contemporary fortifications take the simpler form of a surrounding ditch. The acropolis of Sesklo is covered with square and rectangular buildings. Near the center is a {megaron} (rectangular building with a porch in front of one of the short sides and an axially placed door in this short side). Not far off is a two-room rectangular building, identified on the basis of its contents as a potters shop, in one room of which there are internal buttresses to help support the roof. Such internal buttresses are also attested in House P at Tsangli and appear to be a fairly common architectural feature of this period. In general, houses are square or rectangular in plan, consist of relatively few separate rooms, and are separated from each other by narrow alleys. They have rubble {socle}s [that is, foundations of unworked fieldstones] about one meter high and superstructures of mudbrick (attested already in the Early Neolithic at Sesklo, in contrast with the wattle-and-daub architecture typical of EN Nea Nikomedeia); the roofs were pitched (on the evidence of house models from Krannon and elsewhere); the walls may have been pierced by windows and by several doorways, as well as perhaps being gaily painted (again on the evidence of house models). The economic basis of this culture appears to remain largely unchanged from that typical of the Early Neolithic. The percentage of obsidian among the chipped stone at Sesklo rises, probably indicating improved and more extensive exchange networks throughout the Aegean. Figurines continue much as before, although there is now more evidence for male figurines. Stone ear plugs disappear. Not one Neolithic burial has yet been found at Sesklo. This fact indicates that either burial was performed beyond the bounds of the town or burial as a rite was not considered important and bodies were simply discarded. In the entire Middle Neolithic period throughout Greece, the only evidence for a cemetery is a group of secondary cremation burials in a cave at Prosymna in the

Argolid. The Larissa phase, originally assigned by Milojcic to the early stages of the Final Neolithic, has more recently been recognized by Gallis to be a phase transitional between Middle and Late Neolithic. Its most distinctive pottery is a fine black- burnished ware decorated in white with linear patterns, a class of pottery which is similar in concept to a contemporary (i.e. transitional MN-to-LN) ware in southern Greece. To this Larissa phase dates the cemetery at Souphli, the earliest true cemetery of the Thessalian Neolithic, in which the cremated bones of the dead were crammed into black- burnished jars each of which was buried in an individual pit.

Late Neolithic (ca. 4300-3300 b.c.)

The Late Neolithic in Thessaly is often referred to as the Dimini culture (for example, by Vermeule), but this is misleading in that the rich finds from Dimini itself represent a provincial eastern Thessalian variant of the later LN period in Thessaly as a whole. Milojcic and his German co-workers have divided the Late Neolithic period in Thessaly into four phases on the basis of changes in ceramics. These phases fall into two broad subdivisions as follows: Tsangli-Arapi Phases: earlier Late Neolithic (ca. 4300-3800 b.c.) Pottery is either dark-surfaced, plain or incised, or light-surfaced with dark-on-light pattern-painted decoration executed in a matt paint. There are no figurines. Relatively little architecture from these phases is known, although the large megaron from Velestino may belong here. Measuring some thirty meters long, this is the largest Neolithic building thus far known in Greece. A cemetery of creamtion burials of the Tsangli Phase at Plateia Magoula Zarkou is located over 300 meters from the contemporary settlement and provides evidence for some sort of social differentiation, probably gender-based, in the form of a mutuall exclusive distribution of collar-necked jar and concave-sided bowl shapes among the tombs. From the settlement at this same site, where it had been carefully placed in a pit sealed beneath a house floor, probably as some sort of foundation deposit, comes a remarkable terracotta model of a roofless building containing eight human figures, two larger adult couples and four smaller children accompanied by a range of domestic equipment. Otzaki-Dimini Phases: later Late Neolithic (ca. 3800-3300 b.c.) The famous pottery from Dimini showing a marked preference for spiraliform and meandroid patterns belongs to the later of these two phases but is typical of east Thessaly only. Naturalistic figurines are rare although they certainly exist (e.g. the wellknown seated woman holding a child, from Sesklo). More characteristic are schematic figurines in marble which loosely resemble later Cycladic types of the Early Bronze Age. The architecture at Dimini and Sesklo is distinctive: small forts with multiple enclosure walls and a central megaron opening onto a courtyard. Parallels are fairly common in the Early Bronze Age of western Anatolia (Troy I-II, Karatas Semayk, Demirci Hyk, etc.). It is at present unknown whether towns existed outside of these fortified Thessalian complexes. The total chronological span of these phases is a little unclear; there are three building levels at Dimini, two at Sesklo. The fact that bears are represented in the bone assemblages from Dimini and contemporary Pefkakia only by foot bones has suggested to some that these are all that is left of bearskins that served as either rugs or wall hangings. Typical of the later LN in Thessaly is a growing regionalism, while in contemporary southern Greece settlement in caves is on the rise.

Final Neolithic (ca. 3300-2500 b.c.)

Thessalian Final Neolithic is known as the Rachmani phase, a long period which overlaps with southern Greek Final Neolithic but which extends well beyond it so that its end is contemporary with the phase of the southern Greek Early Bronze Age known as Early Helladic II. The pottery of the Rachmani phase is extremely varied. Distinctive is {Crusted ware}, in which vases are coated after firing with colored paste which can be scraped off relatively easily. This Crusted ware has technological parallels in the Final Neolithic of Franchthi Cave. Figurines of this phase are frequently {acrolithic}; that is, the heads are made of stone, while the bodies are of clay or wood. Copper objects appear for the first time, so the culture is properly described as {Chalcolithic} (chalkos = copper + lithos = stone). Architecture is poorly known except for the apsidal House Q at Rachmani itself. At the coastal site of Pefkakia in the Gulf of Pagasai, imported Early Helladic II pottery (socalled EH Urfirnis, including fragments of the distinctive sauceboat shape) is found in late Rachmani contexts, an indication of the extensive intercultural contacts of the middle phase of the Early Bronze Age which distinguish that era from the more self-contained Neolithic period.

The Neolithic Sequence in Crete

There is as yet no evidence from Crete for human occupation in either the Palaeolithic or Mesolithic periods. Early Neolithic finds are so far restricted to the settlement at Knossos. The following summary is based almost entirely on J. D. Evans excavations at Knossos.

Aceramic Neolithic (from before 6000 to 5700 b.c.) [Level X = at least four architectural levels]
There is no pottery, but two baked clay figurines have been found. Walls are of unbaked mudbrick or of stones, mud, and mudbrick. No complete house plans have been recovered. The economy is a fully developed Neolithic one including domesticated wheat, barley, lentils, sheep/goat, pig, and some cattle. Of the bones, ca. 75% are sheep/goat, 20% pig. Stone axe-heads are rare. Chipped stone includes some Melianobsidian from the beginning of the sequence. Querns and grinders of stone are also present from the beginning.

Early Neolithic (ca. 5700-3700 b.c.)

This period is subdivided into two phases of drastically different lengths: Early Neolithic I (ca. 5700-4000 b.c.) [Levels IX-V] This period constitutes by far the longest stage of homogeneous cultural activity on the site. The buildings in Levels IX-VIII are rectangular and constructed of fired mudbrick. From Level VII onwards, buildings are constructed of {pis} (poured mud) on stone foundations. Wall surfaces are regularly mud-plastered. Although no complete house plans were recovered, it is clear that buildings of this phase, as later in the Neolithic sequence at Knossos, consisted of large numbers of relatively small rooms. Since the roofing over these structures was flat and fairly thick, all unsupported spans were necessarily kept relatively small. Pottery, which appears in a fully developed form and increases in quantity with time, is generally dark-surfaced and burnished. It is decorated

with incised and dot-impressed ({pointill}) motifs which are often filled with white, and occasionally with red, paste. Complex handles and rims are claimed as evidence that the pottery was not in a formative stage of development and hence that the technology behind it was imported wholesale from outside the island, but such features could conceivably have been imitated from containers in other media such as woodwork or basketry. Stone axes are still rare, while stone maceheads first appear in Level VI. Early Neolithic II (ca. 4000-3700 b.c.) [Level IV = three architectural levels] There are no apparent changes in the architecture. Again no complete house plans were recovered, but one partially cleared building, none of whose original limits were certainly located, consisted of at least eight rectangular rooms. Towards the end of the period, new shapes in pottery increase in frequency and rippled relief decoration becomes popular. In an overall sense, however, the pottery is much the same as in the preceding period. Also near the end of the period the first evidence for a weaving industry appears in the form of spindle whorls, loomweights, and shuttles. Stone maceheads and axes increase in frequency. Rock crystal makes its first appearance among the materials used for chipped stone tools.

Middle Neolithic (ca. 3700-3600 b.c.) [Level III = one architectural level]
This is a short transitional phase. For the first time, sizable portions of house plans were recovered. The buildings are large, basically rectangular units with many small rooms, in marked contrast to the small freestanding buildings of contemporary Thessaly which consist of between two and four rooms each. The changes in the pottery are minor. There is increased evidence for weaving, and the number of stone axes and maceheads continues to grow. A simple nine-room house at the site of Katsamba is contemporary with this period at Knossos.

Late Neolithic (ca. 3600-2800 b.c.) [Levels II-I = three architectural levels]
The two large buildings excavated by Sir Arthur Evans under the central court of the later Minoan palace belong to this phase. These buildings contained two fixed hearths, unparalleled in the other Neolithic phases at the site and unusual in later Minoan Crete. The better preserved (A) consists of at least fifteen rooms. The pottery is largely unchanged except for the appearance of crusted decoration at the very end of this phase, at more or less the same time as it appears in both Thessaly (Rachmani) and southern Greece (Final Neolithic). The first evidence for the use of metal artifacts consists of a copper axe found by Sir Arthur Evans in one of the buildings he excavated. There is now growing evidence for occupation at a number of other sites in Crete in the form of pottery from Phaistos, finds from numerous caves in west and central Crete (e.g. Platyvola, Trapeza), and a house at the site of Magasa. The last, an unusual two-roomed structure in which no less than nineteen stone axes and four millstones as well as fragments of obsidian were found, may have been a toolmakers workshop or even

something as rustic as a sheepfold; as an isolated building not forming part of a larger hamlet or village, it is distinctly unusual in prehistoric Crete. Cretan Neolithic Burials At Knossos, there is no evidence for adult burials, but infant and child burials are found in pits under house floors in the Aceramic, EN II, and MN levels. During the Late Neolithic period, caves and rock shelters served as burial places in other parts of Crete.

The Neolithic Sequence in the Cycladic Islands The Saliagos Culture (ca. 4300-3700 b.c.)
The Excavated Site The only extensively excavated site of this culture, Saliagos, lies on what is now a small islet between Paros and Antiparos. This site was clearly a settlement, the finds from it including architecture, pottery, stone artifacts, and both plant and animal (including fish and shellfish) remains. The architecture consists of buildings with rectangular rooms. In the last of the three distinguishable strata on the site, much of the excavated area was occupied by a single rectangular complex measuring 15 by more than 17 meters. The pottery is dark-surfaced, usually unburnished when coarse and burnished when fine. Characteristic are open bowls, of which ca. 40% stand on high pedestal feet. Equally characteristic is the decoration of this dark-surfaced pottery with geometric ornament, both rectilinear and curvilinear, in white matt paint. The chipped stone, exclusively of obsidian, has as its most distinct types ovates and tanged or tanged-and-barbed points/arrowheads (perhaps all used in fishing for tuna); blades are rare. Marble figurines of both schematic (fiddle-shaped) and realistic (The Fat Lady of Saliagos, a {steatopygous}[excessively big-butted] female stylistically typical of the Neolithic period) types were found, though they were rare (only one of each). Fragments of two marble vases were recovered. Plant remains consist of emmer wheat and two-row barley. Of the animal bones, sheep/goat accounted for 83.5%, pig for 12.1%, and cattle for 3.5%. Large numbers of fish bones were found, of which 97% of the identifiable pieces belonged to tuna, often of very large size. Interestingly, however, no fish-hooks were identified among the artifacts of bone or stone and nets are unlikely to have been used to catch fish of this size. In all probability, the characteristic tanged arrowheads were used to spear such fish out of the water. Large numbers of shellfish were also collected by the Neolithic inhabitants of Saliagos (35 different species identified). The Culture Although a fairly large number of sites characterized by the stone tool assemblage found at Saliagos have now been identified in the Cyclades, the vast majority of these sites are small and many of them were probably nothing more than lookout posts or even spots where a single individual spent a short period of time obsidian-knapping. The only site to have produced evidence of farming activity is Saliagos itself, and sites of any size are few. In any case, the density of sites of any kind during this period seems low and the colonization of the Cyclades appears to have been a fairly late and gradual phenomenon which may have been connected with the exploitation of annual tuna runs through the central Aegean but which clearly was not connected with the first exploitation of Melian obsidian, a phenomenon predating the 200-to-400-year occupational history of Saliagos by some 6000 years. No traces of a cemetery or of tombs of any sort were found at Saliagos nor was any metal. The Saliagos culture is roughly contemporary with late MN and early LN on the Greek Mainland. In terms of both its pottery and its reliance on marine resources, it differs considerably from known Mainland Greek or Cretan Neolithic cultures. Similar pottery has been found at sites on nearby Naxos (Grotta, Cave of Zas);

the closest mainland ceramic analogues come from Anatolia to the east rather than the Greek Mainland to the west, thus suggesting that the Cyclades may have been initially colonized during the Neolithic pereiod by human groups from both sides of the Aegean.

The Kephala Culture (ca. 3300-3200 b.c. or later in radiocarbon years)

The Excavated Site Located at the northwestern tip of the island of Keos, Kephala consists of both a settlement and a nearby extramural cemetery. The settlement was short-lived (estimated occupational duration of one century) and small (maximum population estimate of 50) and is one of several more or less contemporary sites on the island (which include Paoura, Sykamia, and Ayia Irini). The settlement architecture at Kephala consists of small, poorly preserved buildings composed of one or more rectangular rooms. On the south side and near the base of the headland on which the settlement is located is a cemetery consisting of forty excavated graves containing the remains of sixty-five individuals (21 adult males, 25 adult females, 5 adults of unknown sex, 9 children, 5 infants). Thirty-five of the forty graves have walls constructed of small stones. In plan, these graves can be rectangular, circular, or oval, and they vary considerably in size (0.46-1.58 m. in length). In section, the graves occasionally narrow somewhat towards the top, though corbelling was not regularly practiced, and the interior height varies from 0.15 to 0.85 m. The graves were roofed with large slabs of schist. At least seven of these built graves were surmounted by built stone platforms, usually rectangular in plan, whose function is unclear. Of the five graves which were not constructed of small stones, two were small slab-sided cists (one containing a jar burial) and three were jar burials in simple pits. All five of these smaller and simpler tombs were used for the burial of children or infants. All burials were inhumations, the skeletons usually being contracted. Among the twenty-five tombs for which precise details are available, fifteen contained a single burial (nine adults, three children, three infants), five contained two burials, and five contained between four and thirteen burials. The tombs with multiple burials are likely to have been family tombs, some of which were clearly used over a considerable period of time. Of the twenty-seven for which there is definite information, only nine contained any grave offerings at all and only one contained more than one object. Grave goods were normally containers, marble vessels in two cases but more often clay pots. In only one case was a grave offering something other than a vessel: a flint scraper deposited with an adult male, who is the only certainly male recipient of any grave offering. From the settlement comes evidence of metalworking on the site in the form of pieces of slag and of burnt clay fragments of furnace-lining or of crucibles. Four fragmentary copper artifacts from the site (the single piece analyzed was almost pure copper) were unfortunately surface finds, but there is little reason not to accept them as representative of the sort of metal artifact in use during the sites occupation. Most of the chipped stone on the site is obsidian which was clearly locally worked and of which a far larger percentage consists of blades than at Saliagos. Half-a-dozen tools of flint/ chert are certainly imported. Eight terracotta figurines, all but one found in the cemetery although not in the tombs themselves, are either small, crudely modelled female figures (four examples), heads which resemble in their flat, backward-tilting faces and prominent noses the later marble Early Cycladic figurines (three examples), or {ithyphallic} [sexually aroused, as indicated by a prominent penile erection] males (one example). Among the pottery, the most common shapes are bowls, jars, and scoops. Decoration, when it occurs, may consist of incision, pattern-burnishing, or crusted decoration in red or white applied after firing. Of considerable interest are the impressions of woven mats on seventeen potsherds and of cloth on three more sherds.

The Culture The Kephala culture, assignable to the Final Neolithic period, has numerous connections with sites in Attica (Athens, Thorikos, Kitsos Cave) and the Saronic Gulf (Kolonna on Aegina). The extramural cemetery at Kephala is, after the appreciably earlier cemeteries of corbelling burials from Souphli and Plateia Magoula Zarkou in Thessaly, the Aegeans first communal burial ground to be located outside of a cave. The tomb types, marble vessels, and some of the figurines anticipate those characteristic of the subsequent Grotta-Pelos culture, the earliest Bronze Age culture thus far identified in the islands. The evidence from Kephala for Neolithic metalwork corresponds in date with that from contemporary Knossos on Crete, Pefkakia in Thessaly, and Sitagroi in eastern Macedonia, but only at Kephala and Sitagroi do slags or crucibles attest to the actual practice of some kind of metallurgy. Roughly contemporary deposits of copper artifacts accompanied by gold and silver objects with undeniable parallels among the treasures found in the rich Neolithic burials at Varna in coastal Bulgaria have also been found in the Cave of Zas on Naxos and in the Alepotrypa Cave on the west coast of the Mani in southern Laconia. Such distant contacts are eloquent testimony to the impressive distances over which objects were being exchanged by sea in the Aegean during the later fourth millennium B.C.

A Final Neolithic Successor to the Saliagos Culture?

Recent excavations at Grotta on Naxos have produced white-on-dark painted pottery reminiscent of that of the Saliagos Culture but here associated with an obsidian chipped stone industry consisting primarily of blades. The excavator has suggested that this assemblage, rather than that described above as the Kephala Culture, may be typical of the central Aegean islands at the end of the Neolithic and may have a better claim to being the direct ancestor of the Grotta-Pelos Culture, the Cyclades earliest Bronze Age assemblage. The Kephala culture may thus be limited to Attica and islands in the adjacent waters of the Saronic Gulf and the westernmost Aegean.

Lesson 3: Narrative

The Eutresis and Korakou Cultures of Early Helladic I-II

The Eutresis and Korakou Cultures of Early Helladic I-II

Terminology
In 1918 Wace and Blegen, in imitation of Evans tripartite scheme for Crete, divided the Mainland Greek Bronze Age into Early, Middle, and Late, and then subdivided each of these into I, II, and III. Until the excavations of Caskey at Lerna between 1952 and 1958, the distinction between the cultures of the Early Helladic (EH) II and III chronological periods was not very clear. Likewise, it was not until Caskeys supplementary excavations at Eutresis in 1958 that EH I culture became easily distinguishable from those of the preceding FN and the succeeding EH II periods.

As a result of the discovery in the mid-1960s of a new Early Bronze Age (EBA) assemblage in the basal level (I) at the site of Lefkandi on Euboea that was initially thought to be contemporary with the EH III cultures of the Argolid and Central Greece, Renfrew in 1972 proposed an alternative system of terminology whereby EH I, II, and III were abandoned as designations for cultural (i.e. artifactual) assemblages, though they might still be useful as terms for chronological intervals, that is purely for periods of time. In their place, Renfrew used site names to designate cultures: the culture that flourished during the EH I period was named the Eutresis culture, that of the EH II period the Korakou culture, and that of the EH III period in its northeastern Peloponnesian version (i.e. stratum IV at Lerna) the Tiryns culture. The Lefkandi I culture in Renfrews scheme became a second distinct cultural assemblage existing during the EH III period, contemporary with but spatially discrete from the Tiryns culture. In 1979, Rutter suggested that the culture represented by the finds from Lefkandi I was contemporary not with the Tiryns culture of the EH III period but rather with the last phases of the Korakou culture of EH II. In contrast with the Eutresis and Korakou cultures which are found distributed throughout Mainland Greece south of Thessaly, the Lefkandi I assemblage was regionally restricted: it is at present attested in the northern Cyclades (= Renfrews Kastri group of the EC II Keros-Syros culture), Euboea, eastern Attica, coastal Thessaly, and at several sites on the interior of Boeotia. Several of its more distinctive shapes have also been reported to occur in late EB II levels at the site of Limantepe on the western Anatolian coast immediately west of ancient Clazomenai and about 25 kms. west of modern Izmir. In 1987, Dousougli, in publishing collections of pottery both from excavations and from surface surveys at three sites in the Argolid, drew attention to a variant EH I cultural assemblage. Deposits of such material have been excavated both at Kephalari (just south of Argos) and at Tsoungiza, in both cases stratified below early EH II remains. This regional EH I complex characteristic of the Argive plain (Kephalari, Makrovouni, Talioti, etc.) and of the southern Corinthia (Tsoungiza, Zygouries) is as yet differentiated only by its pottery, which is distinct from, though clearly related to, both that from contemporary central Greece (e.g. Eutresis) and that from the southeastern Argolid (numerous sites in the Hermionid explored by survey but not yet excavated). Particularly characteristic of this Talioti sub-culture are: large red-slipped and usually unburnished bowls on high pedestal feet, often featuring simple incised and impressed patterns on the pedestals or the flattened interiors of the rims or both; mat impressions on the undersides of coarse cooking vessels; dark burnished and incised or impressed frying pans similar to those found in the EBA Cyclades, although possibly earlier than any of those; andaskoi furnished with an incised, high-swung vertical strap handle which may be descended from the incised scoops of the Final Neolithic period common in the area of the Saronic Gulf and the western Cyclades. Resistance to Renfrews system of site labels for distinct cultural assemblages has consistently been quite strong since the mid-1970s, with the result that both his sitebased terminology and the older EH I-II-III labels are in concurrent use as descriptors for the various EBA cultures of the central and southern Greek Mainland. The EH terminological system, if retained, should be modified as follows: EH I = Eutresis culture (including the Talioti sub-culture); EH IIA = Korakou culture; EH IIB = Lefkandi I culture; EH III = Tiryns culture. Moreover, one must remember that in many areas of Greece (for example, throughout the northern Peloponnese) there is no EH IIB cultural phase, the Tiryns culture (EH III = Lerna stratum IV) directly succeeding the Korakou culture (EH IIA = Lerna stratum III).

The Eutresis Culture of Early Helladic I (ca. 3100/3000-2650 B.C.)

This cultural assemblage was first recognized by Blegen at Korakou in 1915-16. Best defined stratigraphically at Eutresis between levels attributable to Final Neolithic and Early Helladic II, it is also well represented at Lithares (Boeotia), Palaia Kokkinia (Attica), Perachora-Vouliagmeni (Corinthia), Nemea-Tsoungiza (Corinthia), and Talioti (Argolid). The ceramic type shape of the period a red slipped and burnished hemispherical bowl has a wide distribution from the Peloponnese to Thessaly. This culture is likely to be characteristic of the entire Greek Mainland south of the Spercheios River valley, although the recent definition of the Talioti sub-culture (see above) in the central Argolid and southern Corinthia suggests that regional variants may be fairly distinctive and possibly quite numerous.

Architecture
There is a possible fortification wall at Perachora. Very little is known about the settlement architecture of this culture, primarily because levels dating from this period are normally found deeply buried beneath deposits belonging to later periods and are therefore relatively inaccessible. No tombs of this culture are known at present.

Material Culture
Stone, bone, and clay objects (spools, spindle whorls, and loomweights) are undistinguished. Metal finds are extremely rare. The pottery is somewhat variable, as the definition of the Talioti sub-culture (see above) has recently demonstrated. Nevertheless, the following traits seem to be widely shared: a preference for red slips in the finer tableware, whether this is burnished or not; a distinct fabric employed for cooking vessels, which are normally dark-surfaced; a penchant for simple incised or impressed patterns, normally rectilinear, on the fine tableware, and a corresponding predilection for plastic and impressed ornament on the cooking pottery and pithoi; and finally, a relatively simple shape repertoire consisting of convex-sided bowls, either pedestalfooted or flat-based, for eating and drinking, collar-necked jars for storage, and deeper bowls or wide-mouthed jars for cooking.

Origins
This assemblage appears to have developed directly out of central and southern Greek Final Neolithic culture. It is obvious from the summary above that at present we know very little about it. For the first phase of the Bronze Age, it is very poor in metal. From the point of view of stages in economic growth, the culture is perhaps best viewed as a terminal phase of the Neolithic.

The Korakou Culture of Early Helladic IIA (ca. 2650-2200/2150 B.C.)

This culture is defined stratigraphically at Eutresis and Tsoungiza above Early Helladic I levels of the Eutresis culture and at Eutresis, Lerna, Tiryns, and Tsoungiza below Early Helladic III levels of the Tiryns culture. The Korakou culture is widely distributed all over the Peloponnese, Attica, Euboea, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and as far west as the island of Lefkas. Pottery typical of the Korakou culture is found in late Rachmani levels at Pefkakia (near Volos in Thessaly), in Early Minoan II levels at Knossos in Crete, and in KerosSyros culture levels at sites such as Skarkos (Ios) and Ayia Irini (Keos) in the Cyclades. Many settlements of this culture, especially in the Argolid (e.g. Lerna, Tiryns), suffer

burnt destructions before being either abandoned or reoccupied by bearers of the Tiryns culture, but at Eutresis in Boeotia and at Kolonna on Aegina there is said to be a smooth and peaceful transition to the new Tiryns culture.

Pottery
A basically tripartite ceramic assemblage appears to have developed gradually and smoothly out of that of the preceding Eutresis culture. The fine wares, employed for most open shapes (saucers, bowls with T-shaped rims, large dippers with ring handles, small spoons, and especially {sauceboat}s [deep cups with a single small horizontal or vertical handle attached just below the rim on one side opposite an unusually long and highswung, troughed spout on the other]) as well as for some of the smaller closed shapes (beaked jugs,askoi), fall into two major classes. The most common is {Early Helladic Urfirnis} (so labelled to distinguish it from the much earlier and quite different Middle Neolithic Urfirnis). This ware is normally unburnished and usually coated solidly with a paint/slip varying in color from black through brown to red (depending on firing conditions) and often mottled in a variety of these darker colors on one and the same vase. Large bowls, some water jars, and, towards the end of the period, numerous smaller shapes are only partially painted or have a simple band at the rim instead of the more common solid coating. Rarely, vases are decorated with true patterns in dark Urfirnis paint on a light clay ground (patterned Urfirnis). The second major fine class, {Yellow Mottled ware} (or, in German, Elfenbeinware = Ivory Ware), has a shape range very similar to that of Urfirnis ware but is coated with a light-colored slip rather than a dark one and is usually burnished. The surface colors of Yellow Mottled vary enormously, even on the same vase, and include yellow, pink, and bluish-gray. Most large closed shapes, including the extremely common hydrias or water jars, are made in a pale-surfaced, medium coarse fabric which is usually left unpainted. The third and final component of Korakou culture ceramics consists of medium coarse and coarse, dark-surfaced, and unburnished cooking pottery. Very closely related to that of the preceding Eutresis culture, such pottery consists primarily of deep bowls with incurving rims which often feature plastic and impressed decoration in the form of bands or lugs just below the rim.

Architecture
Several sites, all of which lie on the coast (e.g. Lerna, Askitario, Kolonna), are fortified. For the first time large, presumably public buildings are attested (Building BG and the House of the Tiles at Lerna; at least two similar buildings at Akovitika in Messenia; the Rundbau at Tiryns; the White House at Kolonna on Aegina; the Fortified Building at Thebes; the House of the Pithoi at Zygouries). With the exception of the circular Rundbau, all of these conform to a single basic design, recently christened the {Corridor House}, which may be defined as follows: a rectangular, free-standing, twostoreyed structure characterized by a linear series of square to rectangular halls at the core and flanked on the long sides by corridors which also serve as stairwells. Most of these buildings were roofed with tiles, usually of terracotta only (some of which were even solidly coated with Urfirnis paint at Zygouries) but in some cases of bothschist and terracotta, and thus the roofs were presumably pitched rather than flat. Notable features of these structures are the presence of aligned off-center doorways, the absence of cut stone, and the failure to employ the half-timbering technique in wall construction, all in marked contrast to the tradition of monumental settlement architecture that flourished in contemporary western Anatolia (e.g. Troy I-II). The Tirynthian Rundbau, though distinguished both by its round plan and by its enormous size, features concentric corridors and a roof of both tiles and schist slabs and thus is clearly part of the same highly distinctive architectural tradition as the Corridor Houses.

The function of all these structures has been much debated: are they truly public buildings or simply fancy private residences? if public, did they serve religious, economic, or political purposes, or were they multifunctional? With the exception of the House of the Tiles at Lerna (see below), no known example has been found to contain much in the way of its original furnishings, and even that building was claimed by its excavator to have been not yet finished at the time of its destruction by fire, so the movable contents of these structures do not provide any useful clues as to their function. The Rundbau has been claimed to be a monumental granary, but this identification, though it has considerable appeal, cannot be substantiated by much solid evidence. At both Akovitika and Tiryns more than one such monumental building may have been in simultaneous use; if such buildings were in fact multiple rather than singular at most sites, they are unlikely to have been THE settlement centers or residences of rulers, but more evidence is needed on this point. Interestingly, not only this architectural type but also the practice of using tiles for roofing disappear completely at the end of the EH II period. Good portions of village plans have been cleared at the sites of Ayios Kosmas (Attica), Lithares (Boeotia), and Zygouries (Corinthia). The houses are in general rectangular (i.e. no curved walls) with flat roofs and some fixed hearths. Although there is no standard house plan, many exhibit common features (e.g. off-axis doorways) and some can even be recognized as simple one-storey versions of the larger Corridor Houses. The irregularities of most of the ordinary houses of the Korakou culture may be explained by the fact that the domestic architecture of this culture was agglomerative; that is, additions were made to an original building whenever and however they were needed or wanted rather than in any prescribed fashion or sequence. The contrast with the typological uniformity characteristic of the apsidal or rectangular megaron(= long-house consisting of one or two rooms with a shallow porch across, and an axially located doorway in the middle of, one short side) which was standard in the EH III and MH periods is striking. At the site of Orchomenos in Boeotia, a series of round foundations, presumably houses, may belong to the Korakou culture and are evidence for a fundamentally different kind of house plan.

Tombs
The number of different forms in common use clearly reveal that there was no standard tomb type: (1) Ayios Stephanos (Laconia): single burials in pits within the settlement. (2) Ayios Kosmas and Tsepi cemetery at Marathon (Attica): extramural cemeteries ofcistgraves, each containing multiple burials. Strong Cycladic connections are indicated by the tomb gifts as well as by the tomb type itself. (3) Lefkas, Nidri Plain, R-Graves: individual burials in pithoi, cists, or pits, all of which are set within raised circular platforms which supported tumuli/mounds covered with a layer of stones. These tombs, all located outside the settlement in a single cemetery, may actually be of a later calendar date than other EH IIA tombs, but some contain sauceboats and are thus culturally part of the EH IIA assemblage. There are traces of cremation in some tombs. Cists built of slabs are secondary and generally poor in grave offerings, while pithoi and cists built of rubble masonry are primary and often rich in their contents. (4) Corinth (Corinthia): multiple burials in small rock-cut chambers opening off of a vertical rock-cut shaft. (5) Zygouries (Corinthia): multiple burials in rock-cut chamber tombs constituting an extramural cemetery.

(6) Manika (Euboea): a series of extensive extramural cemeteries consisting of rock-cut chamber tombs used for multiple inhumation burials. The small tomb chambers are circular or trapezoidal in plan with roofs sloping down toward the back. The chambers are approached by a short vertical or steeply sloping shaft in which between one and three shallow steps are often cut. The mouths of the tomb chambers are sealed by stone slabs to prevent earth from filtering into the chambers and the entrance shafts are themselves filled with stones. The bones of the flexed inhumation burials often exhibit cutting marks, perhaps evidence for the severing of tendons to facilitate the flexing of the corpse after rigor mortis had set in. Pithos burials for children are quite common. No tombs of this culture are known from Lerna, so the presence at this site of an extramural cemetery which has so far escaped detection is probable. In the chamber tombs of Manika, one or two burials are often found lying fully articulated on the tomb floor. By contrast, the masses of human bones found tightly packed into thecist graves at Tsepi in nearby eastern Attica were clearly deposited secondarily in their final resting places. Thus not only the tomb forms but also the final disposition of the body after death varied considerably from site to site within the Korakou culture.

Settlement Pattern and General Town Planning

Many sites of the Korakou culture continue to be occupied in the subsequent EH III and Middle Helladic (MH) periods. However, a substantial number of EH IIA sites occurring inland on low hillocks or ridges or on low coastal promontories are abandoned, not to be reoccupied until Mycenaean or even later times, if at all. Many of these abandoned sites were probably small fishing hamlets or isolated farmsteads which were given up in the more nucleated and defence-conscious EH III and MH periods. In contrast with both the preceding EH I and the succeeding EH III phases, settlements during the EH II period vary so considerably in absolute size that most authorities feel confident that some sort of site hierarchy existed, although there is considerable disagreement over how many levels or stages to identify in this hierarchy (two, three, or even four have been proposed).

Material Culture Other than Pottery

In clay, pithoi and hearths are often decorated with impressed designs made by rolling quite crudely decorated cylinder seals over raised bands of clay on pithos shoulders or over the flattened upper surfaces of hearth rims. Identical patterns occur at Tiryns, Lerna, and Zygouries in the Argolid, a fact which has been argued to show that the same itinerant artist was responsible for making these purportedly non-movable items. Clay animal figurines are fairly common (cows/bulls, sheep, etc.) and in some cases feature intentionally slit bellies, presumably indicative of butchery practices and possibly even of sacrificial procedure. Large numbers of sealings from Lerna, as well as seal impressions both on sealings and on pottery from a number of other sites, show that Mainland {glyptic} [the art of seal-cutting] was probably more advanced than Minoan glyptic at this time. The seals are also evidence for the existence of the concept of private property and suggest that the House of the Tiles, in which most of the Lernaean sealings were found, may have served as a redistributive center for this area of the Argolid. The actual seals from Lerna III have not survived, but one recently found at Nemea-Tsoungiza is made of lead, while others of both stone and terracotta are known from other sites. Spindle whorls and loomweights are common. Some terracotta anchors (use unknown) appear at this time, but not at Lerna until Lerna IV (= Tiryns culture of EH III period). In stone, obsidian is the material for chipped stone, at least throughout the eastern mainland. Stone vessels are not common but do occur at Attic and Euboean sites which have strong Cycladic connections. Figurines of Cycladic type again occur at Attic and Euboean sites but almost never elsewhere. There does not appear to have been a

particularly Mainland version of this marble artifactual form, as there was on Crete (the so-called Koumasa variant of the standard Cycladic folded-arm figurine). Stone pestles and grinders are common, as are beads and pendants of various kinds. Ground stone axes (called {celts) are also common. In bone, small tools of various sorts are fairly common: pins, awls, needles, fish-hooks, and small tubes to hold pigment. There is an enormous increase in the number of metal artifacts during this period over what is known from EH I. Copper/bronze daggers and tweezers are common, the latter particularly in graves. Two pairs of silver tweezers come from tombs at Manika. There is a fair amount of gold jewelry, also from tombs (e.g. at Zygouries), a class of object which may be considered to culminate in examples of precious metal {plate} [containers made out of metal], such as the two gold sauceboats known (one reputedly from Arcadia) and several incised gold and silver cups said to have been found on Euboea.

Representational Art
Representational art is quite rare in the Korakou culture, regardless of the medium (terracotta, stone, metal, or bone). Most common are three-dimensional animals in terracotta, either figurines of sheep and cattle or else {protome}s [only the heads, necks, and occasionally shoulders] of the same animals attached at the ends of sauceboat spouts or the bases of handles on other shapes. The existence of more complex figurines is suggested by a fragmentary yoke of oxen from Tsoungiza, which incidentally is the earliest evidence from the Greek Mainland for the use of draft animals or the plow. Human figures, on the other hand, are unattested in terracotta. In stone, tombs in the EH II cemeteries of Attica (e.g. Ayios Kosmas) and Euboea (e.g. Manika) have produced numerous marble figurines, of both schematic and relatively naturalistic types, which invite comparison with contemporary examples in the same material from the Cyclades (see following handout). Much less frequent are representational forms used as elements in seal designs or as painted patterns on pottery. The two-dimensional pictorial motifs used on both these classes of object usually take the form of insects (especially spiders), although one example of a man-made object a round-bottomed beak-spouted jug is also attested. The only true scene in the pictorial art of the Korakou culture is a fragmentarily preserved depiction of a quadruped (again a bovid or caprid?) suckling its young, an impressed design on a hearth rim from Tiryns. The absence of the human form from Peloponnesian art of this period is striking.

Lerna III: The Type Site for the Northeastern Peloponnese

The House of the Tiles
Measuring ca. 25 x 12 m., the building consists basically of two large halls and two smaller rooms on the major axis with long corridors along both sides and benches outside. There are entryways on all four sides. The building was two-storeyed and had a low pitched roof covered with terracotta tiles except along the eaves where the tiles were of schist. A stone socle (ca. 0.45 m. high for the exterior walls, a little lower for the interior ones) served as a footing for a baked mudbrick superstructure. The bricks are 0.35 m. square in plan and 0.13 m. thick. Wood was used for the treads of the stairs and for sheathing [and so slightly thickening, with respect to the adjacent walls] the jambs of most doorways; wood was also used for the beams and rafters that carried the waterproofing clay and the capping tiles of the roof. Yellow clay was used to make up floor surfaces and to stucco the exterior walls. Reddish-brown clay was used in a thin

coating over the floors and for plastering the interior walls. The walls, with two minor exceptions at the northwest corner, are uniformly 0.90 m. thick. The walls in the east hall received their final coat of plaster and the wall surfaces there are divided into rectangular panels by incised lines. The walls above the staircase in the north corridor also received their final coat of plaster. The remaining walls of the building were left unfinished, coated only with combed reddish-brown clay. Of the two stairways, the northern provides access from the exterior of the building only and leads up to the east along the length of the north corridor. The southern stair leads up from the west hall on the interior in a southerly direction to a small landing in the south corridor, from which it would have continued up to the west along the length of the south corridor. Two rooms are accessible only from the exterior, one at the northwest corner (I) and one in the middle of the south side (XI). Both rooms are located close to benches which run along the exterior of the long sides of the building. Neither room had its walls plastered. The southern room was the only room in the building to have any contents of significance at the time of the buildings destruction by fire: much pottery as well as many sealings and a good deal of black, carbonized material, presumably the contents of containers made from perishable materials to which the sealings had been attached.

The Fortifications
There are at least four detectable stages: (1) A single wall running along the same line as the northern of the two walls in the later compartmentalized fortification system. This walls rough north (i.e. interior) face indicates that it may have been only a retaining wall for a raised settlement platform. Alternatively, this wall may have been the stone substructure of a mudbrick fortification wall. (2) A rectangular projection (Q-R) was added to the south of the earlier wall, and from this projection a horseshoe-shaped tower (U) still further to the south could be entered. The stone socles of the walls of this phase are characterized by herringbone masonry. The superstructure of the walls was in mudbrick. A stone staircase led up from east to west just to the west of the new projecting elements towards a now no longer preserved gateway. These fortifications were destroyed by fire. (3) A southern, outer wall was constructed at this time. The western compartments (A-D) of the wall possibly also belong to this phase. Tower U was demolished, and a new solid Tower V was constructed just to the west. Tower V itself went through a number of stages (first rectangular, later with rounded corners). The earlier stairway went out of use. Very possibly, a second tower was built projecting from the wall a good deal further west. (4) The west end of the earlier compartment/casemate wall system was drawn inwards from the earlier line of A-D to the line of Building EV (i.e. J-L). Spurwalls were added in between compartments Q-R and S-T at the eastern end of the system. The whole fortification system was in ruins when the House of the Tiles was under construction. After its destruction in turn, the House of the Tiles was covered with a circular tumulus and its area was not encroached upon for several building phases of early Lerna IV (= Tiryns culture of EH III).

Lesson 4: Narrative

The Early Cycladic Period

Problems of the Evidence
To date, only one settlement which has produced a stratified sequence of Early Bronze Age (EBA) levels containing typically Cycladic materials has been excavated in the central Aegean islands: Phylakopi on Melos. Ayia Irini on Keos has produced remains which are often more Helladic (i.e. typical of the Greek Mainland) than Cycladic in character and the site was in any case occupied only during the middle of the Early Cycladic (EC) period and neither at its beginning nor at its end. Paroikia on Paros is almost entirely a settlement of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Other excavated settlements of the EC period either are single-period sites (Kastri on Syros), remain largely unpublished (Panormos and Grotta on Naxos, Skarkos on Ios, Markiani on Amorgos), or were badly disturbed in antiquity and poorly excavated in the early days of Aegean archaeology (Mt. Kynthos on Delos). The vast majority of EC artifactual material comes from cemeteries, most of them looted to supply the demands of the antiquities market rather than scientifically excavated. Moreover, an estimated 80% of the material known as recently as 1972 had been dug up before 1910. Thus, not only is what is known of EC culture heavily biased in that most of it comes from tombs, but all too few of the thousands of objects in museums and private collections come from contexts which can be accurately described. The stratigraphy at Phylakopi, beginning from the bottom, may be summarized as follows (the terms are those coined by the original British excavators of the site at the end of the 19th century):

Pre-City: Founded directly on bedrock, this small village contains pottery characteristic of the Grotta-Pelos culture of the EC I period. Phylakopi I.1: The first settlement in the old excavations at the site to have produced architecture, this village of the Keros-Syros culture of EC II was found during Renfrews more recent excavations to be stratified directly above the preceding Grotta-Pelos settlement. Phylakopi I.2-3: A much larger settlement than the villages of the two prior phases, this town is characterized by pottery which is largely contemporary with that of the earliest Middle Helladic (MH) culture of the Greek Mainland. Since the pottery of Phylakopi I.1 is contemporary with the EH IIA Korakou culture of the Mainland, there is either a gap in the occupational sequence at Phylakopi corresponding to the Mainland Greek EH III period or at least an interval when evidence of human activity at Phylakopi is so sparse as to suggest that the size of the settlement then was sharply reduced from that in both the preceding and the subsequent phases. Phylakopi II: A rebuilt town of the later Middle Bronze Age (MBA) within which Minoan imports, beginning in MM IB-IIA and extending down through MM III and perhaps even into the earliest LM IA, become increasingly common. This town was totally destroyed by fire. Phylakopi III: Fortified for the first time early in this phase, the town of Phylakopi was continuously occupied down into the 11th century B.C.

Problems of Terminology Renfrew (1972)

Of the many hundreds of graves which have furnished the overwhelming majority of EC artifacts, only a few at Phylakopi and on the island of Amorgos could be assigned to the period of Phylakopi I.2-3. The material from the rest was quite different from the cultural assemblage of what has been more loosely termed Phylakopi I, and had in the past been divided into two major groups designated Pelos and Syros after the excavated cemeteries of Pelos (Melos) and Chalandriani (Syros). Very few artifact types were common to these two groups and thus they presumably represented two different cultures. To describe these different cultures on a more systematic basis, Renfrew analyzed all excavated Early Cycladic cemeteries in terms of the artifact types found in them (clay vases, marble vases, marble figurines, bronzes, jewelry, etc.). This analysis was performed on a cemetery-by-cemetery rather than on a tomb-by-tomb basis since many tombs were too sparsely furnished with grave offerings to provide useful data. The cemeteries were then compared for similarities, and the basic division between Pelos and Syros cultures was decisively confirmed. As a consequence, three Cycladic cultures which had flourished during the EBA and earlier MBA were distinguished by Renfrew and rechristened by him as the Grotta-Pelos, Keros-Syros, and Phylakopi I cultures. Grotta-Pelos was clearly older than Phylakopi I because the finds from the Pre-City phase at Phylakopi had been found stratified in the old excavations under remains of the Phylakopi I culture. Before his excavations of the 1970s at the same site, Renfrew had to use a series of circumstantial arguments to place the Keros-Syros culture chronologically in between the other two, but such indirect reasoning is no longer necessary now that strata of the three cultures have been found directly superimposed at one and the same site (Phylakopi) in the order postulated in 1972 by Renfrew. Unfortunately, none of the highly distinctive pottery of an artifactual assemblage termed the Kastri Group by Renfrew (after the small fortress of Kastri on Syros) and assigned by him in 1972 to a late stage of the Keros-Syros culture was found during the later 1970s at Phylakopi (see further below). Just as he had abandoned the traditional tripartite terminology for the various stages of the EBA on the Greek Mainland in favor of a set of cultures named after sites (see preceding handout), so for the Cyclades Renfrew avoided the use of the more or less standard terms EC I, II, and III and substituted for them a similarly conceived set of cultures: Grotta-Pelos for EC I, Keros-Syros for EC II, and Phylakopi I for EC III. This system was adopted unchanged by Doumas in 1977 with the minor exception of the rechristening of Grotta-Pelos as Pelos-Lakkoudes.

Barber and MacGillivray (1980)

In a useful overview of the entire EC period, Barber and MacGillivray expressed the view that Renfrews culture labels for discrete EC artifactual assemblages were confusing and unnecessary (a view shared by some other Cycladic specialists as well, notably Coleman) and advocated a return to the traditional tripartite terminology with only one significant change, namely the subdivision of EC III into A and B, the earlier (EC IIIA) being used to describe Renfrews Kastri Group and the later (EC IIIB) being used for Renfrews Phylakopi I culture, the old EC III.

Rutter (1983)
Rutters principal concern was to demonstrate that a major cultural hiatus separated the two periods labeled EC IIIA and EC IIIB by Barber and MacGillivray, a hiatus which in his view involved not simply a significant cultural discontinuity (already noted to some extent by Barber and MacGillivray) but also a substantial gap of perhaps as much as a

century and a half in the EBA culture sequence of the Cyclades. Rutter went on to argue that, since EC IIIA was in fact contemporary with later EH II on the Greek Mainland and, by extension, later EM II on Crete, it might perhaps be better termed EC IIB, while Barbers and MacGillivrays EC IIIB, generally agreed to be contemporary with early MH on the Mainland and MM IA on Crete, might be better labeled MC I. What, Rutter asked, was going on in the islands during what mightlegitimately be called EC III (i.e. the period equivalent to the duration of EH III on the Mainland and EM III on Crete)? Since he could find nothing to insert in this lacuna, Rutter decided to refer to it as the EC III gap, a concept acceptable to some (e.g. Davis) but one which Barber, MacGillivray, Doumas, Sotirakopoulou, and others resolutely insist is a mirage. These terminological squabbles have been relegated to a back burner in the aftermath of Mannings exhaustive review of the problem (1995) and pending new discoveries. All parties were agreed that the excavation of a single well-stratified settlement in the central Cyclades, ideally on Naxos or Paros, would be likely to eliminate at least the issue of the EC III gap. Unfortunately, most settlement sites of the third millennium B.C. in the Cyclades appear to have been occupied for relatively brief periods of time. Those excavated since the debate over the EC III gap began, such as Skarkos on Ios and Markiani on Amorgos, have failed to provide a complete EC sequence, so the nature of the EB 2-3 transition and the character of EB 3 culture in the Cyclades remain unsolved problems. Excavations on the island of Skyros in the Sporades, at the site of Palamari, have been much more promising and may eventually provide a more complete EB-MB sequence than any western Aegean island further to the south has so far furnished. The dispute over whether to use cultural or chronological labels for EC artefactual assemblages, on the other hand, is more deeply rooted, having now flourished for over twenty years. There is as yet so sign that this long-lived disagreement will be resolved anytime soon.

Grotta-Pelos Culture/Early Cycladic I (ca. 3100/3000-2650 B.C.) Subdivisions of the Culture

As a result of his excavations of a number of cemeteries, Doumas has proposed four chronological stages or groups, each named after the site where the subordinate assemblage in question is best represented: Lakkoudes, Pelos, Plastiras, and Kampos. The last is considered to represent a phase transitional to the Keros-Syros culture of EC II; curvilinear incised ornament (spirals, circles), the Kampos type of frying pan, and the incised bottles which are also found in EM I Crete first occur in this phase.

Architecture
Settlement Nothing significant as architecture has so far been excavated from this period at the settlements of Phylakopi (Melos) or Grotta (Pelos). Tombs The dead are buried in cemeteries of cist graves which never consist of more than fifty tombs and usually number twenty or less. These tomb groups presumably represent small kinship groups, in most cases probably no more than the members of a single nuclear family over a period of some two to six generations. Single inhumations are normal in the cists, although multiple burial of from two to eight individuals in two-level graves is fairly common. Cists are built of four upright slabs or sometimes of three slabs and a short stretch of dry rubble walling. The floor of the tomb is usually bedrock or simply sterile soil, but sometimes it is covered by a slab or slabs, occasionally by pebbles. The roof of the tomb I consists of one or more slabs. Bodies are deposited in a contracted position, usually lying on the right side. There are often no grave goods at all. The lower

level of two-level graves was evidently used as a receptacle for former tomb occupants in tombs utilized for multiple burials. Pottery Standard is a thick-walled, dark burnished ware. Typical shapes are bowls with rolled rims and horizontally pierced tubular lugs set well below the rim on the exterior, frying pans of the so-called Kampos type [straight side decorated with one or more incised lines framing spirals; rectangular handle with crossbar; main circular field decorated with incised running spirals around a central star], and cylindrical pyxides. Incised pottery is common in tombs but relatively rare in the settlement pottery from Grotta. Marble Marble objects come largely from tombs and consist almost exclusively of vessels and figurines. The most common types of marble vases are shallow lug-handled bowls, flat-based beakers, and footed jars. Marble figurines fall into three basic categories: (a) Plastiras type: The ears and kneecaps are particularly prominent features. Although the hands meet across the stomach, the arms are not folded. (b) Louros type: Short stubby arms extended horizontally at shoulder level are the most distinctive feature of this variety. (c) Schematic types: A number of different shapes are known, the most common being nothing more than ovoid or elliptical beach pebbles while the most distinctive are fiddle-shaped with long stalk-like necks and no recognizable heads. Metal Outside of some copper wire, and four quadrangular awls and a necklace of silver beads from a grave at Louros (Naxos), no metal artifacts can be assigned to this culture. External Connections This assemblage is contemporary with FN and EH I on the Greek Mainland and with EM I on Crete. Scattered and sporadic contacts with sites in northern Crete (Pyrgos Cave, Ayia Photia cemetery) and central Greece (Eutresis in Boeotia) are attested, but the links with the EB cemetery of cist graves at the site of Iasos on the western Anatolian coast seem closer and more extensive. The Grotta-Pelos culture is likely to be a local development from the Kephala culture of the preceding FN period.

Keros -Syros Culture/Early Cycladic IIA (ca. 2650-2450/2400 B.C.) Architecture

Settlement The only significant settlement architecture so far excavated, from period II at Ayia Irini (Keos) and the main phase of occupation at Skarkos (Ios), consists of rectangular buildings constructed with extremely neat masonry. Thanks to an extraordinarily deep layer of destruction debris, the architecture at Skarkos is preserved in places up to a height of almost three meters, and most of the buildings so far cleared evidently hhad two storeys. While the settlement at Ayia Irini was occupied during at least one and perhaps two subsequent phases of the EC period (see below), Skarkos was abandoned after its EC IIA destruction until its ruins were cut into by much later graves dating from the 17th century B.C. At Mount Kynthos (Delos), lack of space and uneven terrain seems to have necessitated a less organized ensemble of rooms, many with rounded corners. Surface survey on the island of Melos has produced evidence indicating that settlement during this and the preceding period took the form of numerous small and fairly shortlived sites, probably farming hamlets occupied by small kin groups (e.g. extended families) for three to four generations. Each such site appears to have been accompanied by its own small {extramural} [located outside the bounds of the settlement proper, though not necessarily at any great distance from it] cemetery. On Keos, on the other hand, a surface survey of the northwestern portion of the island has revealed that the density of EC II sites per unit area was considerably lower than on Melos and that the site of Ayia Irini was by far and away the most important site of this period in this area of the island. There would thus appear to be a fair amount of variability between relatively dispersed settlement patterns like that on Melos and relatively nucleated ones like that on Keos. Certainly the size of the EC II site at Chalandriani on Syros suggests a nucleated

pattern on that island, whereas larger islands such as Paros and Naxos probably more closely resembled the dispersed pattern of Melos in their settlement. Tombs Cemeteries can be much larger than in the Grotta-Pelos culture, but need not be. Except at Chalandriani (Syros), Keros-Syros tombs are much the same as Grotta-Pelos ones. At Chalandriani there are several groups of graves (individual cemeteries?) adding up to more than 600 tombs in all. Except for about ten of these, all contained only a single individual. Tomb plans vary from circular to rectangular. All are built entirely of dry-stone walling and all have a false entrance in one side roughly closed off with stones. The tops of these tombs were sealed by a large slab, and the walls are often slightly corbelled. Burials were loosely contracted, usually on the left side. Most of the graves were very poor. Pottery There are three major classes among the fine wares: (a) Pattern-painted ware: Such pottery is decorated in a dark-on-light style utilizing exclusively geometric ornament. Common shapes are thesauceboat, the pyxis, the beaked jug, and the footed handleless cup. (b) Solidly painted ware (Urfirnis): This is simply a Cycladic version of the EH II Urfirnis of the Mainland. Typical shapes are sauceboats and small handleless cups/saucers. (c) Stamped and/or incised dark-surfaced and burnished ware: This ware represents a development from Grotta-Pelos pottery which incorporated more curvilinear ornament and makes use of stamped concentric circles, spirals, and small triangles (Kerbschnitt) for the first time. Common shapes are the footed jar, the globular pyxis, and the frying pan of the Syros type [undecorated side, concave in profile; two-pronged handle; decoration of main circular field with stamped concentric circles or spirals, often accompanied by incised boats and/or female genitalia]. Marble and Other Stones Folded-arm figurines (FAFs) appear for the first time in a variety of distinct types. Much rarer and much more striking are seated male harpists (sometimes found in pairs), standing male players of pipes, female FAFs seated on stools or high-backed chairs, a male seated on a stool holding a raised drinking cup, male warriors wearing a {baldric} [a leather or textile strap designed to hold up a sheath for a weapon] over their shoulders and sometimes holding a dagger, two-storey female FAFs (a smaller one standing on the head of a larger one), three-figure groups, and occasional anomalous types (e.g. a female in FAF pose, but with one arm across the back and one across the front). Stone vases include, as in the pottery, various types of footed cup, an occasional marble version of a frying pan or sauceboat, and a few vessels in the form of quadrupeds (mostly sheep) and birds. White marble is the preferred material for these vessels, but banded bluish-gray marble is occasionally used. A very pale, cloudy green stone resembling jadeite is used to produce miniature cups that were carved as parts of fingerrings or else were attached to other objects by short, tubelike appendages; the unusual material and its employment to produce tiny containers, often attached to items that probably functioned as jewelry, suggests that these miniature cups may have been used to consume small quantities of some valued substance (compare snuff boxes). A soft, dark green stone known as chlorite schist is a popular choice for vessels decorated with patterns in low relief such as spirals or incised patterns such as herringbone and hatched triangles. Such vessels often take the form of small lidded chests or pyxides that appear to imitate buildings of various types ranging from simple huts to an extremely complex multiple granary said to have been found on Melos (see further below). Metal Metal artifacts are now much more frequent than they were in the Grotta-Pelos culture. Tools and weapons include tweezers, daggers, adzes/chisels, and fish-hooks. Sources of metal that were exploited in the EC era have been located on the islands of Siphnos (lead and silver) and Kythnos (copper); the region of Laurion in southeastern Attica on the Greek Mainland also was, to judge from the results of extensive analysis of finished artifacts found at a large number of EH and EC sites, a major source of lead, silver, and copper ores during the EB 2 period. A mine at the site of Thorikos was found

to contain pottery of both late EH II and early EH III types, further proof for the exploitation of metal sources in that region of the Mainland from the EBA onwards. External Connections The Keros-Syros culture has extensive contacts with EM II Crete (Cycladic FAFs are imported and inspire the local Cretan imitation known as the Koumasa type), the EH II Mainland (sauceboats, bronze types, FAFs in marble, tomb types), and late Troy I and Troy II. The Keros-Syros culture appears to develop directly out of the late Kampos Group of the Grotta-Pelos culture.

Kastri Group or Lefkandii Culture/Early Cycladic IIB OR IIIA (ca. 2450/2400-2200/2150 B.C.) Architecture
Settlement (1) Kastri on Syros is a small fortified citadel ca. 50 m. across perched on a steep hilltop. In the valleys just below are the numerous cemeteries of Chalandriani which consist mostly of Keros-Syros tombs but which also include some typologically indistinguishable graves of this later Kastri Group phase. The fortifications consist of a wall with six hollow projecting bastions built of small to medium-sized slabs (no large blocks as in the fortifications of MBA Ayia Irini and Phylakopi III). Outside this wall is a second defensive wall or breastwork. Entrance into the fort is gained through one of the bastions. The interior of the settlement consists of clusters of small rooms separated by narrow alleyways. Hearths were found in three rooms, one containing a crucible and a hoard of metal objects in tin bronze. Other crucibles, as well as stone molds, were found in the settlement, and there is also evidence of lead-working on the site. The latest assessment of the evidence concludes that only melting and recasting took place in this settlement, no smelting of metal-bearing ores. Weapons found include two short daggers and the earliest well-dated slotted spearhead found west of the Anatolian Mainland. (2) Panormos on Naxos is another, even smaller fort some 25 m. long. The exterior is irregular, with several roughly semicircular bastions and a single entrance from the east. A pile of circular stones lying just outside of this entrance has been somewhat improbably interpreted as a supply of slingstones for the defenders. (3) Mt. Kynthos on Delos seems to have been yet another small fort perched on a hill and consisting of several bastions within which are some irregularly shaped rooms and at least three small apsidal houses. (4) Ayia Irini on Keos witnesses during period III several neatly constructed additions to, or remodelings of, the very tidily built rectangular structures of the Keros-Syros period II. All four of these sites are abandoned during or at the end of this period, only Ayia Irini being subsequently occupied but not until much later in the Middle Cycladic period. Every one of the four except Kastri had been occupied in earlier stages of the EC period. Tombs These are apparently unchanged from those of the Keros-Syros culture, to judge from tombs excavated both at Chalandriani on Syros and Akrotiraki on Siphnos. Pottery New and distinctive in this phase is a class of fine, semifine, and semicoarse pottery characterized by brilliantly burnished red, black, and yellowish-brown surfaces and occurring in a distinctive range of shapes consisting of one-handled tankards, twohandled cups, examples of the so-called {depas amphikypellon} [a very tall, cylindrical cup furnished with two vertical loop (i.e. round-sectioned) handles, both slightly upswung so as to define a heart-shaped outline], plates, and shallow bowls with incurving rims and broad, unpierced lugs set just below the rim. Globular pyxides of the preceding phase continue, but are now black-burnished and usually decorated with rectilinear plastic and incised ornament imitating the cords of basketry, rather different from the incised and/or impressed patterns of the Keros-Syros phase. Black-burnished jugs decorated with groups of incised vertical lines and teapots (= pyxides with a tubular spout) featuring plastic and incised decoration like that on the pyxides are rare. Painted

pottery is now restricted to a single shape, a footed one-handled cup decorated with darkon-light, widely spaced cross-hatching. Some of the pottery is now wheelmade for the first time. Despite these novelties, a high percentage of the pottery at sites such as Ayia Irini which had also been occupied during the preceding phase consists of familiar KerosSyros types. Marble The few preserved pieces seem comparable to those of the preceding KerosSyros culture. Metal Despite the small number of known sites, the evidence for metal-working is impressive as a result of the finds from Kastri. Much of the metalwork from this site has close typological parallels in western Anatolia and analyses have revealed that much of it is tin-alloyed bronze, a type of bronze otherwise commonly attested in the Aegean at this time only in Troy II. A rare silver diadem from Kastri, decorated with circular abstract patterns, quadrupeds, and what may be a human form having a birds head, is usually viewed as a badge of rank; the {repouss} [embossed decor, produced by lightly pounding sheet metal with a cushioned hammer over a carved matrix in wood or stone] ornament, like the object itself, is extremely unusual for this period, so any interpretation of the items significance is necessarily very speculative, but it is clearly very different in both form and decorative style from any object found in a Keros-Syros cultural context. External Connections This cultural phase in the Cyclades is contemporary with and closely comparable to the EH IIB Lefkandi I culture of Euboea, eastern Attica, and Boeotia on the Greek Mainland and there seems to be no good reason not to refer to these two by the same name. The pottery has strong western Anatolian affinities and is probably contemporary with Troy III, Limantepe late EB 2, and Poliochni Red to Yellow. Although many features of this cultural phase in the islands are unquestionably Cycladic, there can be little doubt but that the dramatic shift in the pottery, as well as in the metalwork at Kastri, reflects an influx of population from the east which passed through the islands enroute to Euboea and the central Greek Mainland. The small forts typical of the architecture of this phase presumably reflect the insecurity of the times. The architecture of these fortifications may be viewed as miniaturized versions of the great defensive circuits of earlier stages in the EBA at sites such as Troy I-II and Limantepe. The sudden abandonment of the Cycladic forts is at present unexplained. Equally mysterious is the absence of any sign of conflict or destruction at sites where Lefkandi I material directly overlies Keros-Syros material (Ayia Irini, Mt. Kynthos), while at Chalandriani and at Akrotiraki on Siphnos the same cemeteries and types of tomb are used by the Lefkandi I population as had been used by the Keros-Syros population. The fortifications at Kastri have often been compared to those of later EH IIA Lerna and they are probably contemporary, although the distinctive pottery of the Lefkandi I culture never appears at Lerna (but note that two imported marble cups, one from a secure context of early Lerna IV [at most, a generation or two after the destruction of the House of the Tiles], are stone versions of the Lefkandi I two-handled cup). Similar fortifications also appear in the western Aegean somewhat later at Kolonna on Aegina in City V of the EH III Tiryns culture.

Early Cycladic III (ca. 2200/2150-2050/2000 B.C.)

At the moment, there is little or no evidence for human settlement in the islands during this period of 100-150 years. At no known site has continuity of occupation from the Lefkandi I phase (EC IIB or IIIA) to the Phylakopi I phase (MC I or EC IIIB) been established. Renfrews Amorgos Group is more likely to be contemporary with the Phylakopi I culture and with a small group of pottery from the islet of Christiana near Thera than it is to be a late phase of the Keros-Syros culture.

Phylakopi I Culture/Middle Cycladic I or Early Cycladic IIIB (ca. 2050/2000-1900/1850 B.C.) Architecture
Settlement The rectangular blocks of rooms in Phylakopi I.2-3 suggest a neater architecture than the haphazard and irregular conglomerations characteristic of the small forts of the Lefkandi I phase. But it should be kept in mind that Kastri, Panormos, and Mt. Kynthos are small forts and not major settlements; the neat architecture of period III at Ayia Irini is fully comparable to that of Phylakopi I.2-3. Occupation at both Phylakopi and Paroikia (Paros) appears to continue unbroken from this period until well down into the Late Bronze Age. The evidence from a surface survey of the island of Melos strongly suggests that, by the beginning of this period, a nucleation in settlement had taken place: the numerous small settlements and cemeteries of the Keros-Syros culture had coalesced into a single major settlement at Phylakopi. Whether this concentration of population at a single site is true of other Cycladic islands remains to be established, but the situation on Keos (Ayia Irini) and Paros (Paroikia) may well be similar to that on Melos. Tombs At Phylakopi, tombs are now rock-cut chambers whose use extends throughout the Middle Bronze Age. The closest parallels for these tombs are those at Manika on Euboea of the Korakou and Lefkandi I cultures (EH IIA-B) and at Pavlopetri in Laconia (EH IIA?), although the Melian tombs are larger and somewhat more complex in plan. Pottery The fine wares fall into two major groupings: (1) Incised ware: Popular shapes in this dark burnished ware are duck vases, truncated conical pyxides, lids, and jugs. (2) Painted ware: The painted pottery is characterized by a dull, but not truly matt, paint. Decoration consists of rectilinear patterns in a dark-on-light scheme. The favorite shapes are carinated bowls, beaked jugs, kernoi, and one-handled cups. Marble A few schematic figurines are known from Phylakopi I and later contexts in the islands, but the FAF disappears after the Lefkandi I phase and the production of marble vessels declines drastically at the same time. Thus a significant shift in the manufacture of marble artifacts parallels the dramatic change in the settlement pattern towards the end of the Cycladic Early Bronze Age. External Connections There seems to have been relatively little contact between the Phylakopi I culture and Minoan Crete. A fair amount of pottery of Phylakopi I types is said to have been found at Knossos, but no Minoan pottery comes from an unimpeachable context of Phylakopi I.2-3 on Melos. The discovery of MM IB-IIA imports in Phylakopi II indicates that the Phylakopi I culture cannot end much later than ca. 1850 B.C. at the latest. The distribution of duck vases suggests that Phylakopi I is at least partially contemporary with later Anatolian EB 3 (Troy V). Mainland connections at Kolonna, Eleusis, Athens, Lerna, Argos, and Eutresis suggest that Phylakopi I is contemporary with Middle Helladic (MH) I and early MH II. It is tempting to suggest that the Phylakopi I culture is an outgrowth of the Keros-Syros culture after this had been affected by the intrusive Lefkandi I culture with its strong western Anatolian affinities, but so long as the nature of the cultural assemblage which immediately precedes Phylakopi I remains a mystery, such a hypothesis must remain pure speculation.

Comments on Early Cycladic Figurines and Representational Art Grotta-Pelos Figurines

The Plastiras type probably developed from Neolithic figurines of the standing type, while fiddle-shaped schematic figurines appear to be an abstracted form of the Neolithic type of seated figure with folded legs. The Louros type is viewed either as a development from the fiddle-shaped variety (Getz-Preziosi) or as derived from the Dimini type current in LN Thessaly (Renfrew). With the exception of the nose, sculpturally indicated facial features are limited almost exclusively to the Louros and Plastiras types. Plastiras figurines regularly had inlaid eyes and navels. The gender of Louros figurines is rarely made explicit, but most Plastiras figurines are unambiguously gendered and there appear to be almost as many male figures as females, in marked contrast to the situation in the following period. Some male figures of both Louros and Plastiras types wear horizontally ribbed, beehive-shaped caps that are probably to be understood as helmets. Some {anthropomorphic} [i.e. in the shape of human figures] marble vessels exist, linked stylistically to the Plastiras type of figurine by the depiction of the arms in low relief on the torso, but {zoomorphic} [i.e. in the shape of animals] figurines or vessels, regardless of material, are extremely rare in the EC I period.

Keros-Syros Folded-Arm Figurines

Figurines of these types are to be considered as representing reclining rather than standing figures, to judge from the rendering of the feet and knees. Painted decoration (eyes, mouths [rare], hair, tattoo marks on the forehead and cheeks, occasional necklaces and other details on the body] is limited to marble figurines with folded arms and occurs for the most part on only two varieties of such figures. The latest types of folded-arm figurines lack either carved or painted details. Red and blue pigments were clearly valued by the EBA inhabitants of the Cyclades. The pigments, implements used to grind them, and various types of storage containers used to hold them[bone tubes or miniature dark-burnished terracotta jars, both decorated with incised ornament] are common in EC graves. It has been suggested that the presence of these objects in graves implies a ritual painting of the deceaseds relatives or of the deceased him/herself as part of the funeral rites. The presence of painted details on the figurines is said to be a reflection of this practice. The attribution of FAFs (and, to a limited degree, also of marble vessels) to individual artists on the basis of similarities in basic type and proportions has been vigorously pursued in a series of studies by Getz-Preziosi. But her methodology, and hence the claim that authorship can be identified on the basis of such relatively simple forms of art in a preliterate era, has been seriously questioned by Renfrew (1991), Cherry (1992), and Chippindale and Gill (1993).

Other Varieties of Keros-Syros Representational Art

Representational art during the EC II pereiod in forms other than FAFs may be subdivided into three-dimensional (marble figurines and vessels; the figural heads of bone and metal pins; zoomorphic terracotta vessels; models in stone and metal) and twodimensional (incised motifs on pottery) categories. Aside from female FAFs, lying down or more rarely seated, marble is used to produce a variety of male action figures (musicians, warriors, drinkers) and a small number of group figures (see above). Marble vessels occasionally take the form of sheep or birds; in one case a marble frying pan is ornamented with a continuous series of doves (?species) sitting on a low perch extending from one side to another of the vessels shallow interior. The bone and metal heads of pins often terminate in animal figures, either birds or goats. At least three or four examples are known of hollow-bodied terracotta hedgehods (so-called teddy-

bears) which rest on their rumps and hold a cup in their extended forearms, as though about to drink from it; since the bodies of these animals are linked to the cups by a perforation but otherwise lack any holes, the animals could be imagined as drinking when being filled and as vomiting when being emptied. Models of man-made objects include a set of lead boat-models said to come from Naxos. Typologically similar to the incised boats depicted on a number of frying pans from Chalandriani on Syros, these lead models suggest that the large crews of up to fifty paddlers/oarsmen needed to man such ships could be recruited on at least two Cycladic islands, despite the dispersed pattern of settlement that probably characterized most of the larger islands. Thus while the discovery of numerous such boat depictions at Chalandriani on Syros testifies to the size and maritime preeminence of that single site, the evidence for boats of more or less the same size from Naxos may be viewed as evidence for an unusual degree of inter-settlement cooperation on that island if no one site there could field a crew big enough to man such a vessel. Chlorite schist was used most often as a material to produce vessels that at least mimicked, if they did not faithfully reproduce, real EC architecture, in the form of elliptical or roughly circular huts with pitched roofs (the roofs being rendered as separately carved lids). The largest and most complex such house model is said to have been found on Melos and consists of a small rectangular court ringed on three sides by seven large cylindrical structures (silos/granaries?) and entered by means of a {trilithon} [the two jambs and the lintel each composed of a single large stone] doorway from a porch capped by a double-pitched roof. All these chlorite schist models stand on four horizontally ribbed, truncated pyramidal legs, and most are decorated with complex spiral patterns or horizontal ribbing in low relief. It is unlikely that either the legs of the relief decoration reflect real architectural details, and consequently it is uncertain to what degree the models should be taken as reflections of real EC buildings. No one familiar with the facts of EC settlement architecture or subsistence agriculture, for example, can accept that a building on the scale of that suggested by the Melian multiple granary ever existed on Melos or on any other Cycladic island in the third millennium B.C. The incised motifs on Keros-Syros frying pans depicting the sum, boats, fish, and female genitalia should be evaluated in the context of how these particular ceramic types functioned, a topic most comprehensively surveyed to date by Coleman but most recently by Doumas. The fact that fryaing pans are the only Keros-Syros ceramic type to serve as the vehicle for representational art, in concert with the fact that some of the motifs in question appear to have been employed only at specific sites (the boats occur uniquely at Chalandriani, for example), suggests that these vessels may have been intended at least in part as display pieces. The art with which they were decorated may, for example, have served as indicators of lineage or status or both. Alternatively, these motifs may be connected with the religion of the islanders, as argued by Goodison, and constitute effectively our only evidence for this dimension of EC life, unless the marble figurines, also, as many believe, are ritual objects of some kind.

Chronology Overview

The Chronology and Terminology of Aegean Prehistory

Stone Age

A. The Single Site of Franchthi Cave The dates below are uncalibrated; that is, they indicate radiocarbon, not calendar years. All are expressed in years before present [b.p.] rather than B.C.; the present is by convention arbitrarily anchored at 1950 A.D. B. Mainland Greece in General (including Thessaly, central Greece, and the Peloponnese the dates to the left are calibrated, true calendar years.

Bronze Age
See also the chart headed Relative Chronology of the Aegean on pp. 13-14 with dates indicated in calendar years, as well as the charts in: Hood, APG (1978) 15; O. Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze Age (1994) 19; S. W. Manning, The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age (1995) 217; and AJA 97(1993) 756 Table 2, 101(1997) 540 Table 1. Note the following abbreviations:

EBA = Early Bronze Age MBA = Middle Bronze Age LBA = Late Bronze Age

Crete
The Bronze Age culture is termed Minoan after the legendary king Minos.

The EBA is referred to as the Early Minoan (abbreviated EM) period and is subdivided into EM I, II, and III. The MBA is termed the Middle Minoan (abbreviated MM) period and is subdivided into MM IA, IB, IIA-B (only at the palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, and Mallia), IIIA, and IIIB. The LBA is called the Late Minoan (abbreviated LM) period and is subdivided into LM IA, IB, II, IIIA1-2, IIIB, and IIIC. The following Subminoan period is the earliest phase of the Iron Age. The Minoan palaces were first built at the beginning of MM IB; all of them except that at Knossos were destroyed and abandoned in LM IB; the palace at Knossos suffers at least two additional destructions in early LM IIIA2 and LM IIIB before finally going out of use. An alternative framework for Minoan chronology is based on major changes in social organization connected with the building, rebuilding, and abandonment of the major architectural complexes at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, and Zakro which are invariably referred to as palaces:

Pre-palatial EM I MM IA (ca. 3100/3000-1925/1900 B.C.) Protopalatial (or Old Palace) MM IB MM IIB (ca. 1925/1900-1750/1720 B.C.) Neopalatial (or New Palace) MM IIIA LM IB (ca. 1750/1720-1490/1470 B.C.)

Post-palatial LM IIIA-C (ca. 1490/1470-1075/1050 B.C.) Note that the terms Neopalatial and Post-palatial do not apply to Knossos during the periods in question, since the palace at Knossos appears to have continued to function as an administrative center at least as late as the middle of the 13th century B.C.

The Cyclades
The Bronze Age cultures within the central and western Aegean islands are termed Cycladic.

The EBA is referred to as the Early Cycladic (abbreviated EC) period and is subdivided chronologically into I, II, and III. o To EC I is assigned the Grotta-Pelos culture (sometimes called the PelosLakkoudes culture); o to EC II belongs the Keros-Syros culture; o the Kastri Group is assigned either to the early part of the EC III phase (EC IIIA, following Barber and MacGillivray) or to the later part of the EC II period (EC IIB, following Rutter); o the subsequent Phylakopi I culture is then put either late in the EC III period (EC IIIB, following Barber and MacGillivray) or early in the MBA, at the beginning of the Middle Cycladic sequence (MC I, following Rutter). The later stages of the MC phase are best attested at Phylakopi on Melos and Ayia Irini on Keos: MC II = Phylakopi II.2 = Ayia Irini IV, MC III = Phylakopi II.3 = Ayia Irini V. The LBA is termed Late Cycladic, subdivided as usual into I, II, and III, of which I is by far the best understood by virtue of the fact that the town of Akrotiri on Thera belongs to this phase. [For a published chart tabulating all phases of the Cycladic Bronze Age presently recognized, toether with the phases of the Cretan and Mainland Greek Bronze Age with which they are contemporary, see J. A. MacGillivray and R. L. N. Barber (eds.), The Prehistoric Cyclades (Edinburgh 1984) 301. For recent general treatments, see R. L. N. Barber, The Cyclades in the Bronze Age (Iowa City 1987) and S. W. Manning, "The Emergence of Divergence: Development and Decline on Bronze Age Crete and the Cyclades," in C. Mathers and S. Stoddart (eds.), Development and Decline in the Mediterranean Bronze Age (Sheffield 1994) 221-270.]

The Greek Mainland

The Bronze Age cultures of the Mainland are described as Helladic after the Greeks own word for Greece, Hellas.

The EBA is termed the Early Helladic (abbreviated EH) period and is subdivided into I, II and III. As in the case of the related Kastri Group in the Cyclades, there is presently a debate going on among specialists as to what the chronological position of the Lefkandi I culture on the Mainland is: some view it as an early stage of EH III (e.g. MacGillivray) while others see it as a late stage of Early Helladic II (e.g. Rutter). The MBA on the Mainland is described as the Middle Helladic (abbreviated MH) period, which is occasionally but not regularly subdivided into I, II, and III. The Mainland LBA is called either Late Helladic (abbreviated LH) or Mycenaean and is subdivided into I, IIA, IIB, IIIA1-2, IIIB (further subdivided into 1-2 in the Argolid), and IIIC (usually subdivided into at least three and sometimes as many as five subphases). The latest phase of LH IIIC in certain regions of the Mainland is usually termed Submycenaean.

Western Turkey
The Bronze Age cultures of Asiatic Turkey (i.e. Asia Minor) are usually referred to as Anatolian, from the Greek word for the rising of the sun [anatole] and, by extension, the east (compare the Latin-based term Orient and the French-based Levant). The portion of this enormous landmass closest to the Aegean is ordinarily described as Western Anatolia and can itself be further subdivided into northern, central, and southern sections. The Bronze Age chronology of all of Western Anatolia has traditionally been based upon the stratification of a single site in the northern subdivision, the mound of Hissarlik that forms the core of the Classical to Hellenistic Greek city of Ilion and the Roman Imperial city of Troy. Thus the Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia is typically broken down into EB [Early Bronze] 1-3, represented at Troy by settlements I (= late EB 1), II (= EB 2), and III-V (= EB 3). The Western Anatolian MBA [Middle Bronze Age] is not further subdivided and is represented at Troy by settlement VIa-c or VI Early. The Western Anatolian LBA [Late Bronze Age] is likewise not subdivided, and is represented at Troy by settlements VId-h (or VI Middle and Late) and VIIa-b. Note: In general, absolute dates for the Aegean Stone and Bronze Ages are not yet very reliable and many different sets of dates are often in use for one and the same phase or period. A major debate has been raging since 1987 over the absolute date of the great volcanic explosion of the island of Thera/Santorini early in the Late Bronze Age. As a result, absolute dates within the first two-thirds of the second millennium B.C. (ca. 20001350 B.C.) are presently in an unusually active state of flux. It is therefore always best to describe an archaeological assemblage in terms of a relative chronological label (e.g. Early Helladic II, Late Minoan IA, etc.) rather than in terms of its supposed duration in calendar years B.C. Indeed, it is often preferable to refer to a particular assemblage by the site and level in which it was found (e.g. Troy VI, Lefkandi I, Lerna V, Ayia Irini VII, etc.), particularly in the cases of archaeological cultures whose precise chronological positions are disputed even in relative terms (e.g. the Kastri Group and Lefkandi I). [For the most recent surveys of chronology, both relative and absolute, see P. Warren and V. Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol 1989) and, for the Early Bronze Age, S. W. Manning, The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, Radiocarbon, and History (Sheffield 1995), the latter abstracted in AJA 97(1993) 756 Table 2.]

GLOSSARY
acrolithic (2) describes a statue with the head and extremities of stone, the trunk being usually made of wood, either gilt or draped (Oxford Dict.) acropolis (2) a generic term for a high place or citadel in a city (Pedley, 353) agglomerative (3) tending to cluster or heap together (Oxford Dict.) agora (12) the market place; the commercial and administrative center of a city (Pedley, 353) agrimia (15) plural of agrimi, the Cretain wild goat, a variety of ibex with long horns curving right over to the back; common in Minoan times and frequently depicted with complete realism in Minoan art (Warren, 139)

alabaster (12) a fine, translucent variety of carbonate or sulphate of lime, especially the pure white variety used for vases (Oxford Dict.) alabastron (14) a slim oil container of clay or stone with rounded end, narrow neck, and flaring mouth (Biers, 335; Warren, 139) anta (3) a thickened extension at the end of a wall (Biers, 335) antechamber (10) a room which leads to the chief room of a building (Oxford Dict.) ard (11) a primitive light plough which scratched the surface of the land rather than turning furrows (Oxford Dict.) ashlar masonry (10) construction of blocks of squared stone laid in regular courses (Biers, 335) Sample Image (Lesson 21) askoi (3) (sing. askos) a vase in the shape of a sack, skin, or animal (Vermeule, 385) augur (26) soothsay awl (5) pointed tool of bone, or of bronze or stone set in a handle, used for boring small holes in hides, wood and other materials (Warren, 140) balustrade (13) a row of balusters, surmounted by a rail, forming an ornamented parapet or barrier along the edge of a terrace or balcony (Oxford Dict.) bastion (4) a projecting part of a fortification, consisting of earthwork faced with stone (Oxford Dict.)

battered (7) architectural term meaning a wall deliberately built not vertically but leaning inwards as it rises (Warren, 140)

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bothros (7) (pl. bothroi) a pit in the ground, often used for garbage, sometimes for chthonic offerings (Vermeule, 385) burnish (2) the rubbing or polishing of the surface of a pot with the smooth piece of stone, bone, pottery or wood after it had dried in the sun but before it was fired in the kiln; this technique produced an attractive glossy surface after firing (Warren, 140)

Click on image to enlarge carinated (10) having a profile, common on vessels, where a concave and a convex curve meet to procude a ridge or sharp edge like a keel; Latin carina (Warren, 140)

causeway (10)

A raised road formed on a mound (Oxford Dict.) enlarge celt (3) stone sculptors chisel (Oxford Dict.) centrifugal (20) tending away from the center centripetal (20) tending toward the center chalice (5) a drinking cup

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chamber tomb (13) a rectangular chamger cut into the side of a hill and approached by a long entrance passage (dromos) (Biers, 335) chert (2) a form of amorphous silica found in several varieties, e.g. flint (Oxford Dict.)

chthonic (15) an adjective meaning of the earth and often referring to the gods of the underworld (Pedley, 353) cist grave (3) a shallow rectangular grave cut into the earth or rock, sometimes stone-lined or slab-built (Pedley, 353) citadel (25) literally little city, the smaller or inner fortified city (Oxford Dict.)

colonnade (12)

a range of columns rupporting an entablature (Pedley, 353) image to enlarge

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conglomerate (19) a composite rock consisting of rounded and waterworm fragments of pre-existing rocks cemented together (Oxford Dict.) corbelling (2) an arch consisting of architectural members projecting ourward from a wall and bearing the weight of the next course above it. Each course projects slightly beyond the one below. (Biers, 335) cremation (2) the reduction of a corpse to ashes as a way of disposing of it (Oxford Dict.) crucible (2) a vessel made to endure great heat, used for fusing metals (Oxford Dict.) cut-and-thrust swords (28) a new sword type in the Late Mycenaean world, with the hilt-attachment so strengthened that slicing attachs could be made as fearlessly as puncturing attachs (Vermeule, 385) cycladic figurine (2) white marble figurine from the central islands of the Aegean sea (Warren, 141) Cyclopean walls (21) Walls built of huge unworked limestone boulders which are roughly fitted together. Between these boulders, smaller hunks of limestone fill the interstices. The exterior faces

of the large boulders may be roughly hammer-dressed, but the boulders themselves are

never carefully cut blocks. (Rutter, web page) dado (10) the lower portion of a wall, distinctively decorated (Biers, 335)

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dagger (10) a short stout edged and pointed weapon used for thrusting and stabbing (Oxford Dict.) dais (26) a raised platform or table (Oxford Dict.) denticulate (9)

having small tooth-like projections (Oxford Dict.) enlarge

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depa amphikypella (4) a Homeric term for a two-handled drinking cup misapplied by Schliemann to a peculiar Trojan shape, and used in Linear B for a large jar (Vermeule, 385) dromos (10)

the entrance corridor to a tomb of the Mycenaean period (Biers, 335) Click image to enlarge emporium (11) a place in which merchandise is collected or traded (Oxford Dict.) ewer (14) a pitcher with a wide spout, used to carry water (Oxford Dict.) extramural (2) Outside of the walls faience (10) quartz grains fused together and covered with a vitreous glaze (Pedley, 354) festoon (9) chain or garland of flowers, leaves, suspended in a curved form between two points, or a carved or molded ornament representing a garland (Oxford Dict.) fibula (28) a dress pin with a clasp. (Biers, 336) flint (2) a kind of hard stone, most commonly of a steely gray color, found in roundish nodules of varying size, usually covered with a white incrustation (Oxford Dict.)

fresco (10) a wall painting made by rapid application of colors to plaster while still damp (Pedley, 354) frieze (10) the architectural course between the architrave (which is supported by the columns/piers) and the cornice (Pedley, 354) frying pan (3) a peculiar shape of Cycladic vase whose use is uncertain; possibly made for the kitched but practically never used there; thought by some to be a mirror-case (Vermeule, 386) glyptic (10) engraving on a precious stone (Oxford Dict.) griffin (15) a mythological beast with the body of a lion, and wings and head of an eagle (Pedley, 354) gypsum (13)

a soft stone used in Minoan architecture (Biers, 336) half-timbered (9) constructed of wooden framework with spaces filled by stone, rubble, or mud brick (Biers, 336) hegemony (18) preeminence of one group over others hilt (10) the handle of a sword or dagger horns of consecration (15) Evans name for clay or stone architectural elements usually used on palace or shrine

entablatures, of divine significance (Vermeule, 386) hypogeum (5) an underground chamber ingot (10) a plate of metal cast in a mold (Pedley, 354) inhumation (2) the practice of burying in the ground; interment of a body (Oxford Dict.) insula (7) a block of buildings; a square or space divided off (Oxford Dict.) intaglio (15) a figure or design incised or engraced; a cutting or engraving in stone or other hard material (Oxford Dict.) intramural (9) within the walls

ithyphallic (2) having an exaggerated erect phallus jamb (10)

a base, usually of stone, for a door frame (Warren, 143) Kamares ware (11) Middle Minoan I-II pottery with polychrome decoration in red, orange and white on a black surface; named after its first discovery in the Kamares Cave on the south side of Mount Ida in Crete (Warren, 143) kantharos (8) a drinking cup with high swung handles (Biers, 336) katavothros (21) sinkhole keel-vaulted (13) late Bronze Age rectangular tomb built of stone with a roof which is pitched or gabled like the inverted keel of a boat (Warren, 143) kernos (4) (pl. kernoi) ritual vessel with small vases attached in a ring, for libations (Vermeule, 386) krater (14) a large, open, deep bowl, usually of pottery, with handles on the side; used for mixing

wine and water (Warren, 143) kylix (14)

a tall, stemmed, shallow drinking cup (Biers, 336) labrys (15) double headed axe larnax (6) terracotta chest; oval types were used by the Minoans as bathtubs and burials; rectangular types with a gabled lid were regularly used for burials; the sides are decorated with abstract patterns, octopuses and scenes of hunting and cult (Warren, 144) libation table (10) a table on which liquid offerings, often through rhytons, are poured at religious sites (Warren, 144) lightwell (12) a small courtyard or shaft inside a building, uncovered to let in light and air (Pedley, 354)

Linear A (10) an undeciphered script consisting of simple linear signs apparently derived from older hieroglyphic or pictographic script; used for the Minoan language in the Second Palace period on clay tablets and religious vessels of stone. Linear B (10) a script used by the Mycenaeans consisting of simple linear signs apparently derived from older hieroglyphic or pictographic script; deciphered in 1952 as an early form of Greek, expressed in syllables, by Ventris (Warren, 144) lintel (6) a horizontal block or beam bridging a door or other opening (Pedley, 355) loomweight (2) small terracotta pieces used to hold down the warp threads on a weaving loom lustral basin (10) a small rectangular space, conventionally thought sacred, accessible from above by a

short flight of steps (Pedley, 355) macehead (2) polished spherical or solid oval stone with a cylindrical hollow right through for mounting the stone on a stick or shaft (Warren, 144) magazine (12) a room in a palaca or house, or a separate building, used for storage and containing large jars to hold cereals and liquids (Warren, 144) mattock (22) an agricultural tool used for loosening hard ground (Oxford Dict.) meandroid (2) from meander: a rectilinear decorative motif, winding backwards and forwards continuously (Pedley, 355) megaron (2) a free-standing, more or less square room entered at one side through one or more anterooms and a two-columned porch. It generally contains a round, fixed hearth.

(Biers, 336) microlith (1) small stone tool with a sharpened edge used with a haft (Oxford Dict.) millstone (2) a circular stone used for grinding grains on a mill (Oxford Dict.)

Minyan ware (23) name given to the wheel-made, gray, polished pottery of the Middle Bronze Age on the

Greek mainland (Warren, 145)