This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author’s own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author’s own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

Contributions investigate the settlement patterns, maritime connectivity, and material culture of the southeast of Crete in a diachronic fashion, in an attempt to define it as a region and trace its history. Papers focus primarily on the archaeology of the sites along the coastal strip spanning between the Myrtos Valley and Kato Zakros.

Beneath the Bronze Age 'Palace of Minos', Neolithic Knossos is one of the earliest known farming settlements in Europe and perhaps the longest-lived. For 3000 years, Neolithic Knossos was also perhaps one of very few settlements on Crete and, for much of this time, maintained a distinctive material culture. This volume radically enhances understanding of the important, but hitherto little known, Neolithic settlement and culture of Crete. Thirteen papers, from the tenth Sheffield Aegean Round Table in January 2006, explore two aspects of the Cretan Neolithic: the results of recent re-analysis of a range of bodies of material from J.D. Evans' excavations at EN-FN Knossos; and new insights into the Cretan Late and Final Neolithic and the contentious belated colonisation of the rest of the island, drawing on both new and old fieldwork. Papers in the first group examine the idiosyncratic Knossian ceramic chronology (P. Tomkins), human figurines from a gender perspective (M. Mina), funerary practices (S. Triantaphyllou), chipped stone technology (J. Conolly), land and-use and its social implications (V. Isaakidou). Those in the second group, present a re-evaluation of LN Katsambas (N. Galanidou and K. Mandeli), evidence for later Neolithic exploration of eastern Crete (T. Strasser), Ceremony and consumption at late Final Neolithic Phaistos (S. Todaro and S. Di Tonto), Final Neolithic settlement patterns (K. Nowicki), the transition to the Early Bronze Age at Kephala Petra (Y. Papadatos), and a critical appraisal of Final Neolithic 'marginal colonisation' (P. Halstead). In conclusion, C. Broodbank places the Cretan Neolithic within its wider Mediterranean context and J.D. Evans provides an autobiographical account of a lifetime of insular Neolithic exploration.

This book brings together for the first time scholars working on the Bronze Age settlement patterns and material culture of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, a region that actively participated in the coastal and maritime trade networks of East Crete. During the past few decades, while various archaeological projects focused on the northern isthmus, the Ierapetra area remained largely neglected and unknown, a terra incognita. Yet, new excavations at Gaidourophas, Anatoli Stavromenos, Chryssi Island, Bramiana, and the ongoing research at the site of Myrtos Pyrgos are showing that the coastal area of Ierapetra was a vibrant and thriving settlement landscape during the Bronze Age. Far from being simply on the periphery of the major Minoan centers, the southern Ierapetra Isthmus played important roles in the cultural dynamics of Crete. Aiming to be the first building block in the development of an archaeological understanding of the region of the southern Ierapetra Isthmus, this book presents the status of the discipline and indicates future research trajectories.

The aim of this volume is to measure acceptance of, and resistance to, outside influences within Mediterranean coastal settlements and their immediate hinterlands, with a particular focus on the processes not reflecting simple commercial routes, but taking place at an intercultural level, in situations of developed connectedness.

Travellers in Time re-evaluates the extent to which the earliest Mediterranean civilizations were affected by population movement. It critiques both traditional culture-history-grounded notions of movement in the region as straightforwardly transformative, and the processual, systemic models that have more recently replaced this view, arguing that newer scholarship too often pays limited attention to the specific encounters, experiences and agents involved in travel. By assessing a broad range of recent archaeological and ancient textual data from the Aegean and central and east Mediterranean via five comprehensive studies, this book makes a compelling case for rethinking issues such as identity, agency, materiality and experience through an understanding of movement as transformative. This innovative and timely study will be of interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students and scholars in the fields of Aegean/Mediterranean prehistory and Classical archaeology, as well as anyone interested in ancient Aegean and Mediterranean culture.

Communities in Transition brings together scholars from different countries and backgrounds united by a common interest in the transition between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age in the lands around the Aegean. Neolithic community was transformed, in some places incrementally and in others rapidly, during the 5th and 4th millennia BC into one that we would commonly associate with the Bronze Age. Many different names have been assigned to this period: Final Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, Late Neolithic [I]-II, Copper Age which, to some extent, reflects the diversity of archaeological evidence from varied geographical regions. During this long heterogeneous period developments occurred that led to significant changes in material culture, the use of space, the adoption of metallurgical practices, establishment of far-reaching interaction and exchange networks, and increased social complexity. The 5th to 4th millennium BC transition is one of inclusions, entanglements, connectivity, and exchange of ideas, raw materials, finished products and, quite possibly, worldviews and belief systems. Most of the papers presented here are multifaceted and complex in that they do not deal with only one topic or narrowly focus on a single line of reasoning or dataset. Arranged geographically they explore a series of key themes: Chronology, cultural affinities, and synchronization in material culture; changing social structure and economy; inter- and intra-site space use and settlement patterns, caves and include both site reports and regional studies. This volume presents a tour de force examination of many multifaceted aspects of the social, cultural, technological, economic and ideological transformations that mark the transition from Neolithic to Early Bronze Age societies in the lands around the Aegean during the 5th and 4th millennium BC.

Communities in Transition brings together scholars from different countries and backgrounds united by a common interest in the transition between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age in the lands around the Aegean. Neolithic community was transformed, in some places incrementally and in others rapidly, during the 5th and 4th millennia BC into one that we would commonly associate with the Bronze Age. Many different names have been assigned to this period: Final Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, Late Neolithic [I]-II, Copper Age which, to some extent, reflects the diversity of archaeological evidence from varied geographical regions. During this long heterogeneous period developments occurred that led to significant changes in material culture, the use of space, the adoption of metallurgical practices, establishment of far-reaching interaction and exchange networks, and increased social complexity. The 5th to 4th millennium BC transition is one of inclusions, entanglements, connectivity, and exchange of ideas, raw materials, finished products and, quite possibly, worldviews and belief systems. Most of the papers presented here are multifaceted and complex in that they do not deal with only one topic or narrowly focus on a single line of reasoning or dataset. Arranged geographically they explore a series of key themes: Chronology, cultural affinities, and synchronization in material culture; changing social structure and economy; inter- and intra-site space use and settlement patterns, caves and include both site reports and regional studies. This volume presents a tour de force examination of many multifaceted aspects of the social, cultural, technological, economic and ideological transformations that mark the transition from Neolithic to Early Bronze Age societies in the lands around the Aegean during the 5th and 4th millennium BC.

A new look at the Cult of the Saints in late antiquity: Did it really dominate Christianity in late antique Rome?