Over the past decade, evidence has been mounting that our ancestors developed skills to sail across large bodies of water early in prehistory. In this fascinating volume, Alan Simmons summarizes and synthesizes the evidence for prehistoric seafaring and island habitation worldwide, then focuses on the Mediterranean. Recent work in Melos, Crete, and elsewhere-- as well as Simmons’ own work in Cyprus-- demonstrate that long-distance sailing is a common Paleolithic phenomenon. His comprehensive presentation of the key evidence and findings will be of interest to both those interested in prehistory and those interested in ancient seafaring.

Alan Simmons summarizes and synthesizes the evidence for prehistoric seafaring and island habitation in the Mediterranean as part of the mounting evidence that our ancestors developed sailing skills early in prehistory.

With one of the richest archaeological records and most complicated histories in the Mediterranean, Sardinia provides an important laboratory for studying the interaction of indigenous societies and outside forces in a partly isolated geographical context. Stephen L. Dyson and Robert J. Rowland, Jr. use both material culture and written documents to reconstruct the social and economic processes of an island society that showed both cultural creativity and continuity but responded to invasions from the Phoenicians through the Romans to the Aragonese. This first accessible reconstruction of island archaeology provides a balanced picture of the sweep of Sardinian history.

This book presents a diachronic study of seafaring, seafarers and maritime interactions during the Early, Middle and Late Bronze Ages of the eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt)

The Art and Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age offers a comprehensive chronological and geographical overview of one of the most important civilizations in human history. Jean-Claude Poursat's volume provides a clear path through the rich and varied art and archaeology of Aegean prehistory, from the Neolithic period down to the end of the Bronze Age. Charting the regional differences within the Aegean world, his study covers the full range of material evidence, including architecture, pottery, frescoes, metalwork, stone, and ivory, all lucidly arranged by chapter. With nearly 300 illustrations, this volume is one of the most lavishly illustrated treatments of the subject yet published. Suggestions for further reading provide an up-to-date entry point to the full richness of the subject. Originally published in French, and translated by the author's collaborator Carl Knappett, this edition makes Poursat's deep knowledge of the Aegean Bronze Age available to an English-language audience for the first time.

During the Bronze Age, the ancient societies that ringed the Mediterranean, once mostly separate and isolate, began to reach across the great expanse of sea to conduct trade, marking an age of immense cultural growth and technological development. These intersocietal lines of communication and paths for commerce relied on rigorous open-water travel. And, as a potential superhighway, the Mediterranean demanded much in the way of seafaring knowledge and innovative ship design if it were to be successfully navigated. In Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant Shelley Wachsmann presents a one-of-a-kind comprehensive examination of how the early eastern Mediterranean cultures took to the sea--and how they evolved as a result. The author surveys the blue-water ships of the Egyptians, Syro-Canaanites, Cypriots, Early Bronze Age Aegeans, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Sea Peoples, and discusses known Bronze Age shipwrecks. Relying on archaeological, ethnological, iconographic, and textual evidence, Wachsmann delivers a fascinating and intricate rendering of virtually every aspect of early sea travel--from ship construction and propulsion to war on the open water, piracy, and laws pertaining to conduct at sea. This broad study is further enhanced by contributions from other renowned scholars. J. Hoftijzer and W. H. van Soldt offer new and illuminating translations of Ugaritic and Akkadian documents that refer to seafaring. J. R. Lenz delves into the Homeric Greek lexicon to search out possible references to the birdlike shapes that adorned early ships' stem and stern. F. Hocker provides a useful appendix and glossary of nautical terms, and George F. Bass's foreword frames the study's scholarly significance and discusses its place in the nautical archaeological canon. This book brings together for the first time the entire corpus of evidence pertaining to Bronze Age seafaring and will be of special value to archaeologists, maritime historians, philologists, and Bronze Age textual scholars. Offering an abundance of line drawings and photographs and written in a style that makes the material easily accessible to the layperson, Wachsmann's study is certain to become a standard reference for anyone interested in the dawn of sea travel.

Old theories for the origins of domesticated animals and plants from the East and the spread of farming and husbandry in Europe have affected generations of archaeologists, resulting in several theories of migrations of populations. However, there is no evidence in the archaeological record of population movements from the East, while so far the contribution of the pre-Neolithic populations of the Aegean has been neglected. This book shows that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers developed a dense maritime network on the Aegean islands and contributed to the Neolithisation process, transferring domesticated species from the East to the Aegean through Cyprus. Their great specialization in fishing and long journeys was due to a tradition that had roots in the Palaeolithic period. This text is based on practical experience from excavations and surface surveys over the past 25 years in Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in the Aegean Basin and continental Greece.