This volume is the second in the series of final reports on the work of the Kavousi Project and the first volume on the cleaning (1982-1984) and excavations (1987-1992) at the mountain sites located above the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. These sites, Vronda and the Kastro, shed light on the Early Iron Age, the transitional period in Cretan history known popularly as the Dark Ages, thereby elucidating the way of life of the people who lived in the area of Kavousi during that period and how their culture changed over time. Kavousi IIA is devoted to the excavation of material from the Late Minoan IIIC settlement at Vronda, particulary the houses on the summit of the Vronda ridge (Buildings A-B, C-D, J-K, and Q), along with earlier (Building P) and later (Building R) structures around them.

This book is the third volume in the final report of the cleaning and excavations at the Late Minoan IIIC settlement of Vronda-located near Kavousi in eastern Crete-that were conducted between 1983 and 1992. Detailed analyses of the architecture, pottery, other finds (including figurines and stone tools), and botanical and faunal remains are presented in this volume, along with a complete history of the site and an attempt to reconstruct the social, political, and religious organization of the settlement.

This is the second of three planned volumes in the final report on the cleaning and excavations at the Late Bronze Age site of Vronda near Kavousi in eastern Crete. It describes the excavation, stratigraphy, and architecture of the buildings on the slopes of the Vronda ridge: Building Complexes E, I-O-N, and L-M, Building F, and the pottery kiln, as well as areas excavated on the periphery that did not belong to any of these buildings. It also presents lists, catalogs, and images of artifacts and ecofacts that were uncovered at the site.

Kavousi I is the initial volume of the Kavousi Excavation Series, which presents the final report of the Kavousi Project, a program of archaeological investigation near the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. Subsequent volumes will publish the results of the 1987-1992 excavations at the Vronda and Kastro sites in the Siteia Mountains overlooking Kavousi and of the cleaning and new study of the excavations of Harriet Boyd in 1900 and 1901. This volume, Kavousi I: The Archaeological Survey of the Kavousi Region, provides a comprehensive look at the topography of the area, its natural resources, and the way in which the local people interacted with them over time, as shown in the changing pattern of settlement. It sets the stage for the report on the excavations and provides an introduction to the local soils and to the pottery classification used by the excavators.

This volume presents the results of the excavation of two cemeteries at the site of Vronda Kavousi in East Crete: the cemetery of tholos tombs belong to the Subminoan to Protogeometric periods (with some use in the eighth century B.C.) and the cemetery of enclosure graves with cremation burials belonging to the Late Geometric to Late Orientalizing periods. A discussion of individual graves (including the stratigraphy, architecture, human remains, faunal and botanical remains, pottery, and other finds) is followed by the analysis of the cremation process and human remains, the faunal and botanical remains, the pottery, the petrographic analysis of the pottery, the metals and other finds, the burial customs, and the history and society of the burying population. A study of the capacities of some of the pottery vessels and a metallurgical analysis of the iron objects appear in appendices.

This volume is the first of two that represent the final publication of Sector I of the Prepalatial to Postpalatial Minoan urban settlement and palace of Petras, Siteia, located in eastern Crete, and it presents the results of the excavations conducted there from 1985 to 2000. Individual chapters focus on the architecture (Tsipopoulou), cooking wares (Alberti), Early Minoan (EM) and Middle Minoan (MM) I pottery (Relaki), a unique example of an EM-MM amphora stamped with a seal prior to firing (Krzyszkowska), numerous miniature vessels and figurines (Simandiraki-Grimshaw), and a study of vessels (primarily Neopalatial) with potter's marks (Tsipopoulou). A subsequent volume will discuss in more detail the Neopalatial and Postpalatial pottery from Houses I.1 and I.2 and focus on the main Neopalatial period of the Petras settlement and its Postpalatial re-occupation.

Contributors to this landmark volume demonstrate that ancestor veneration was about much more than claiming property rights: the spirits of the dead were central to domestic disputes, displays of wealth, and power and status relationships. Case studies from China, Africa, Europe, and Mesoamerica use the evidence of art, architecture, ritual, and burial practices to explore the complex roles of ancestors in the past. Including a comprehensive overview of nearly two hundred years of anthropological research, The Archaeology of Ancestors reveals how and why societies remember and revere the dead. Through analyses of human remains, ritual deposits, and historical documents, contributors explain how ancestors were woven into the social fabric of the living.

The years c. 1250 to 1150 BC in Greece and the Aegean are often characterised as a time of crisis and collapse. A critical period in the long history of the region and its people and culture, they witnessed the end of the Mycenaean kingdoms, with their palaces and Linear B records, and, through the Postpalatial period, the transition into the Early Iron Age. But, on closer examination, it has become increasingly clear that the period as a whole, across the region, defies simple characterisation – there was success and splendour, resilience and continuity, and novelty and innovation, actively driven by the people of these lands through this transformative century. The story of the Aegean at this time has frequently been incorporated into narratives focused on the wider eastern Mediterranean, and most infamously the ‘Sea Peoples’ of the Egyptian texts. In twenty-five chapters written by 25 specialists, Collapse and Transformation instead offers a tight focus on the Aegean itself, providing an up-to date picture of the archaeology ‘before’ and ‘after’ ‘the collapse’ of c. 1200 BC. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean regions, as well as providing data and a range of interpretations to those studying collapse and resilience more widely and engaging in comparative studies. Introductory chapters discuss notions of collapse, and provide overviews of the Minoan and Mycenaean collapses. These are followed by twelve chapters, which review the evidence from the major regions of the Aegean, including the Argolid, Messenia, and Boeotia, Crete, and the Aegean islands. Six chapters then address key themes: the economy, funerary practices, the Mycenaean pottery of the mainland and the wider Aegean and eastern Mediterranean region, religion, and the extent to which later Greek myth can be drawn upon as evidence or taken to reflect any historical reality. The final four chapters provide a wider context for the Aegean story, surveying the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus and the Levant, and the themes of subsistence and warfare.

This volume, the first of two dealing with the Early Iron Age deposits from the Athenian Agora, publishes the tombs from the end of the Bronze Age through the transition from the Middle Geometric to Late Geometric period. An introduction deals with the layout of the four cemeteries of the period, the topographical ramifications, periodization, and a synthesis of Athens in the Early Iron Age. Individual chapters offer a complete catalogue of the tombs and their contents, a full analysis of the burial customs and funerary rites, and analyses of the pottery and other small finds. Maria A. Liston presents the human skeletal material, Deborah Ruscillo presents the faunal remains, and Sara Strack contributes to the pottery typology and catalogue. In an appendix, Eirini Dimitriadou provides an overview of the locations of burial activity in the wider city.

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration, and colonization; hybridization and cultural encounters; materiality, memory, and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volume's broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will help practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways. Together, the essays in this volume shed new light on the people, ideas, and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.