British Archaeology Abroad, 1965

Abstract

Mr. A. H. S. Megaw, Director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, reports: Excavation was resumed in the summer of 1965 on all three sites currently assigned to the School for investigation: a Neolithic settlement in the Cyclades (the first such to be systematically excavated), a Minoan settlement in Kythera, and an important Bronze Age site in Euboea which continued in occupation until the Geometric period. At the first two the planned excavations have been completed. At Saliagos, an islet near Antiparos, Professor J. D. Evans (London) and Dr A. C. Renfrew (Cambridge) in their final campaign identified three phases of Neolithic occupation, homogeneous in culture, and, pending confirmation by the C14 method, at present assigned to the early 4th millennium B.C. (PL. XVII~T).h e central building complex of the last phase was found to be enclosed by a perimeter wall, over I m. thick at one corner, to which a semicircular bastion-like structure gave the impression of defensive purpose. Wellstratified deposits exceeding 2 m. in depth yielded more of the characteristic pottery (with usually rectilinear decoration in white paint on a dark burnished surface) and more evidence of a rich chipped stone industry, chiefly of Melian obsidian, Two fragments of marble vessels and a schematic 'violin-idol' are noteworthy local antecedents for the Early Cycladic marble industry. An incomplete marble figurine of a fat seated woman was also found, of the type familiar from finds in Naxos and in mainland Greece. The principal domesticated animal attested was the sheep and there is little evidence of wild species. The preserved grain included emmer, einkorn and two-row barley, while over 40 species of marine molluscs were recorded.