Chronological Problems of the Early Bronze Age Early Bronze I-II: The City of Arad Early Bronze III: The Khirbet Kerak Ware

Abstract

PERIOD V. The transition from Lerna IV to Lerna V occurred without a serious break in continuity. Apsidal house plans persisted, often appearing directly above the place of an older building. Gray Minyan ware was made in canonical Middle Helladic shapes, the kantharos and the ring-stemmed goblet. Some stone implements are like those of Period IV. Innovations include dark Argive and light yellow Minyan wares, Matt-painted pots, and a class of vessels with decoration in lustrous paint (not well known before Lerna was excavated). Intramural burials in cist graves became very common suddenly. Bones of horses and domestic fowl are now found for the first time. Much wider foreign contacts are attested by the appearance of small handmade flasks, possibly from the Balkans, and imported Middle Minoan IA pottery in the first phase of Lerna V. As the period progresses, with many successive building levels, there are examples of MM II and MM III ceramic styles and corresponding types of Cycladic pottery. The latest Middle Helladic strata have been lost by erosion in most parts of the site, but there is no reason to doubt that the transition to the Mycenaean period was gradual, as elsewhere in the Argolid. Two large shaft graves, much like those of Circle B at Mycenae, were found to have been emptied and refilled in antiquity. In the filling were great quantities of potsherds reflecting late MH styles and those of LH I. We call this period Lerna VI.