Early Minoan Period Research Articles

Sustainability of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: From Prehistoric Times to the Present Times and the Future

Contaminated water and poor sanitation are associated with disease transmission. Absent, inadequate, or improperly managed water resources and sanitation systems expose individuals to preventable health risks. Billions of people lack access to these basic services today and will remain in this condition for decades to come. As we are usually thinking and talking about water, sanitation and hygiene services have changed. Looking back at the history of water, sanitation, and hygiene can help us understand the challenges and opportunities of these issues and draw lessons to achieve sustainable development in the future. Throughout history, civilizations have successfully experimented with treating water and using it for drinking, sanitation, and agriculture. For example, the Minoan civilizations originally focused on water treatment and cleaning to improve the aesthetic properties of drinking water. During prehistoric times, Minoan and Indus Valley civilizations, dating back to about 2000 BC, were the first to focus on the treatment of water supplies. From the early Minoan period, they relied on rainwater collection. During historic times, Hippocrates was the first to invent and used a water filter in the form of a cloth bag, at about 400 BC, known today as the Hippocrates Sleeve. The Romans perfected existing water technologies on a larger scale and initiated their spread throughout the Empire. Hygiene in ancient Rome was promoted by the famous public baths and toilets, which were supplied with water through widely branched aqueducts that had a high standard of cleanliness for the time and were regularly maintained.

Ancient Yersinia pestis and Salmonella enterica genomes from Bronze Age Crete

During the late 3rd millennium BCE, the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East witnessed societal changes in many regions, which are usually explained with a combination of social and climatic factors.1-4 However, recent archaeogenetic research forces us to rethink models regarding the role of infectious diseases in past societal trajectories.5 The plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was involved in some of the most destructive historical pandemics,5-8 circulated across Eurasia at least from the onset of the 3rd millennium BCE,9-13 but the challenging preservation of ancient DNA in warmer climates has restricted the identification of Y.pestis from this period to temperate climatic regions. As such, evidence from culturally prominent regions such as the Eastern Mediterranean is currently lacking. Here, we present genetic evidence for the presence of Y.pestis and Salmonella enterica, the causative agent of typhoid/enteric fever, from this period of transformation in Crete, detected at the cave site Hagios Charalambos. We reconstructed one Y.pestis genome that forms part of a now-extinct lineage of Y.pestis strains from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age that were likely not yet adapted for transmission via fleas. Furthermore, we reconstructed two ancient S.enterica genomes from the Para C lineage, which cluster with contemporary strains that were likely not yet fully host adapted to humans. The occurrence of these two virulent pathogens at the end of the Early Minoan period in Crete emphasizes the necessity to re-introduce infectious diseases as an additional factor possibly contributing to the transformation of early complex societies in the Aegean and beyond.

Mediterranean polyculture revisited: Olive, grape and subsistence strategies at Palaikastro, East Crete, between the Late Neolithic and Late Bronze Age

This paper examines agriculture, farming and dietary resources in east Crete, and re-evaluates the role of grape and olive in its prehistoric economy, these being key in debates on the emergence of social complexity. To do so bioarchaeological, paleoenvironmental and landscape survey data from the Bronze Age town at Palaikastro and its territory are combined. The results indicate a highly compartmentalised landscape, including intensive crop cultivation and extensive animal herding with careful monitoring to maintain productivity. A heightened specialisation in ovicaprine management at Palaikastro and east Crete seems to be delineated. Marine resources were regularly exploited from easily accessible coastal areas. Other activities included viticulture since the Early Minoan period, with the possible involvement of several houses in wine-making. A final important activity in the area was large-scale olive tree management since the Final Neolithic period and through to the Late Bronze Age, that seems to be entangled with ovicaprine herding and grazing. Thus, the demand for olive oil production does not seem to have been the driving force behind the intensification of the tree management, at least initially, but a corollary of its use in other aspects of the local economy.

Recent developments in the study of Early Bronze Age Crete (Early Minoan period)

The production and publication of new research on the Cretan Early Bronze has accelerated tremendously in recent decades. This article aims to present the highlights and main trends of the last 15 years: the sites, excavations, research projects and main publications. Moreover, it explores how the new data interlink with the extremely large body of information available from more than 100 years of archaeological studies on Crete. The aim of such a review is to identify patterns of research, popular themes and the strengths and weaknesses of the data recovered, and to consider the place of Early Bronze Crete in current trends in the fields of Mediterranean Prehistory and archaeology more broadly.

SPECIAL FORMS OF CERAMIC WARE FROM BURIAL COMPLEXES OF ULVIVOK-ROVANTSI TYPE

During studies of the cemeteries of Ulvivok-Rovantsi type, which are located in the South-Western of Volhynia region and can be dated back to X–VIII centuries BC, several very specific vase-shaped vessels were found. According to its scarcity, originality of the form and the absence of analogies among preceding, and chronologically synchronous and territorially close archaeological cultures, they can be considered as a certain “phenomenon” in the circle of sites from the final Bronze Age – beginning of the Early Iron Age in the interfluve of Prypyat, Vistula and Dnister Rivers. Similar ceramic ware is known from burials and places of worship in Crete during final part of Early Minoan period and the culture of Pannonian inlaid ceramics from the Early Bronze Age in the Middle Danube region. They could be a prototype for the ancient Greek lydions – special, rather rare ceramic ware for storing of valuable aromatic substances. The lydions were distributed mostly over the east of Aegean world, in particular on Crete, and used during marriage ceremonies and also were placed into burials. It is possible that lydions were used during worship ceremonies of Demeter – the chthonic goddess of fertility, marriage and the dead that appeared, as considered, in Crete during pre-Minoan period. Lidions, as well as kernoses (other ritual ware), were probably used for the libation during the cult ceremonies like Eleusinian mysteries. Taking into account the widespread of Demeter's worship during Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, not only in the territory of Aegean, but also far beyond its borders (it is evidenced by the finds of kernoses in Central, Eastern and Western Europe), it can be hypothesized that there were some form of this cult among population of South-Western Volhynia during Late Bronze Age, which is represented by ceramic ware, found on the cemeteries of Ulvivok-Rovantsi group, similar to the lydions, and possibly also by Ulvivok goblets. The issue of clarification of ways and directions of penetration of such cults from the Aegean and South-Eastern Balkans to Central and Eastern Europe and the level of their identity, taking into account considerable distances, diversity of cultures, ethnic groups and traditions remains subject to discussion. Later, when, perhaps, new similar discoveries will appear (preferably well-dated and located in undisturbed complexes), this hypothetical version can be confirmed or canceled. Key words: cemeteries of the Ulvivok-Rovantsi type, Crete, Minoan culture, culture of Pannonian inlaid ceramics, vase-lidion, Demeter cult, migration.

Human management and landscape changes at Palaikastro (Eastern Crete) from the Late Neolithic to the Early Minoan period

On the east Mediterranean island of Crete, a hierarchical society centred on large palatial complexes emerges during the Bronze Age. The economic basis for this significant social change has long been debated, particularly concerning the role of olive cultivation in the island's agricultural system. With the aim of studying vegetation changes and human management to understand the landscape history from Late Neolithic to Bronze Age, two palaeoenvironmental records have been studied at Kouremenos marsh, near the site of Palaikastro (Eastern Crete). Pollen, NPP and charcoal particles analyses evidenced seven phases of landscape change, resulting from different agricultural and pastoral practices and the use of fire probably to manage vegetation. Moreover, the Kouremenos records show the importance of the olive tree in the area. They reflect a clear trend for its increasing use and exploitation from 3600 cal yr BC (Final Neolithic) to the Early Minoan period, that is coeval with an opening of the landscape. The increase of Olea pollen was due to the expansion of the tree and its management using pruning and mechanical cleaning. The onset of olive expansion at c. 3600 cal yr BC places Crete among the first locales in the eastern Mediterranean in the management of this tree. Between c. 2780 and 2525 cal yr BC the landscape was largely occupied by olive and grasslands, coinciding with an increase in grazing practices. The high Olea pollen percentages (40–45%) suggest an intensive and large-scale exploitation of the olive tree. The results suggest that a complex and organized landscape with complementary land uses and activities was already in place since the Final Neolithic. The notable expansion of olive trees suggests the relevance of olive exploitation in the socio-economic development of Minoan towns of eastern Crete. Other crops, such as cereals and vine, and activities such as grazing have also played an important role in the configuration of the past landscape.

Early Minoan settlement landscapes. A preliminary study of Cretan Early Bronze Age settlements and their relative spatial distribution

This paper presents a preliminary examination of the settlement landscape in the Early Minoan period, analysing individual changes within each phase of the Early Bronze Age on Crete island, as well as changes occurring from one phase to another. Furthermore, it seeks to tackle the chronological limitations and possibilities, in an attempt to contribute to our understanding of Early Minoan social and demographic dynamics and relations at an island-wide level. The main goal is to provide a useful tool for the further research of Minoan habitation patterns and a better understanding of the background from which the later palatial systems emerged and developed.

GIS-based landform classification of Bronze Age archaeological sites on Crete Island.

Various physical attributes of the Earth’s surface are factors that influence local topography and indirectly influence human behaviour in terms of habitation locations. The determination of geomorphological setting plays an important role in archaeological landscape research. Several landform types can be distinguished by characteristic geomorphic attributes that portray the landscape surrounding a settlement and influence its ability to sustain a population. Geomorphometric landform information, derived from digital elevation models (DEMs), such as the ASTER Global DEM, can provide useful insights into the processes shaping landscapes. This work examines the influence of landform classification on the settlement locations of Bronze Age (Minoan) Crete, focusing on the districts of Phaistos, Kavousi and Vrokastro. The landform classification was based on the topographic position index (TPI) and deviation from mean elevation (DEV) analysis to highlight slope steepness of various landform classes, characterizing the surrounding landscape environment of the settlements locations. The outcomes indicate no interrelationship between the settlement locations and topography during the Early Minoan period, but a significant interrelationship exists during the later Minoan periods with the presence of more organised societies. The landform classification can provide insights into factors favouring human habitation and can contribute to archaeological predictive modelling.

TRACING THE ANCESTRY OF THE MINOAN HALL SYSTEM

Among the more intriguing Minoan architectural forms is the so-called ‘Minoan Hall’. It consists, at its simplest, of a light well, a fore hall, and a room (polythyron) closed off by what are known as pier-and-door partitions. The Hall was located in the residential areas of the palaces, also in some Neopalatial houses, and was usually accompanied by a ‘lustral basin’, a square sunken room reached by steps often flanked by an elaborate balustrade. A window or a platform often enabled observation within the basin from ground level.Examples of the Hall were once known only from the Neopalatial period, but two earlier, Protopalatial, examples have been identified at Malia. The later of the two occurs in Middle Minoan II Building A in Quartier Mu. It consists of the lustral basin, a large hall with a light well, anda polythyron. The earlier example, a Minoan Hall suite in the Middle Minoan ICrypte hypostyle, consists of a unique series of five basement rooms, the first bordered by a light well, then apolythyron, followed by a relatively small, square room with a large interior window (a lustral basin?), with a benched entrance room next door. South of these rooms was a large hall at ground level, probably for groups, from which one accessed separately the first and last of the rooms underground.Comparison of the two room groups suggests that theCrypte hypostyleexample is the forerunner of the Quartier Mu group. Specifically, the latter'spolythyronwas, for practical reasons, set at ground level while its lustral basin, which involved chthonic connections, remained at basement level and was approached by steps. The same arrangement, but with some adjustments, was to be adapted later, in Neopalatial times, completing a long history of a social and ceremonial architectural form that may have begun as early as the Early Minoan Period.

Urban Water Management in Ancient Greece: Legacies and Lessons

The evolution of urban water management in ancient Greece, beginning in Crete during the early Minoan period, resulted in a variety of remarkable developments on both the mainland and islands of Greece. Important developments include the implementation of hygienic living standards, advanced hydraulic technologies for water transportation, constructions for flood and sediment control, and sustainable urban water management practices, which can be compared to modern-day practices. The evolution of water management was also related to sociopolitical conditions. During oligarchic periods the emphasis was on the construction of large-scale hydraulic projects, whereas in democratic periods the focus of water management was on sustainable small-scale, safe, and cost-efficient management practices and institutional arrangements related to both the private and public sectors. Such practices and institutions are relevant even today, as the water-related problems of modern societies are not very different from those in antiquity.

Archaeoastronomy: New trends in the field, with methods and results from studies in Minoan Crete

We describe briefly new trends in archaeoastronomy and present results from our studies on Crete to show what this field can contribute to archaeological investigations in the Bronze Age Aegean. Our basic method is the study of orientations, but contemporary Linear A texts, finds from the sites, and later Mycenaean and Greek texts have proved to be important supplementary sources. In broadest terms the results show systematic observation of the heavenly bodies from the end of the early Minoan period (ca. 2000 BCE) and the use of the knowledge obtained to regulate a lunisolar calendar and to navigate.

The role of relative function ceramic typologies in Bronze Age settlement analysis

Summary: Given the importance of the site of Myrtos to the definition of village living patterns in the Early Minoan period, and the current state of disagreement as to the nature of the social system actually in place at Myrtos, a new investigation into the matter is warranted. In order to carry out that investigation, the possibility of constructing and utilizing a typology of relative function from the available ceramics is examined, and the results applied to an analysis of the living pattern at the site, along with a review of prior attempts at artifact-distribution and architectural-design analysis. It is suggested that the social pattern and population level at Myrtos during the EM II period was closer to Warren's original communal model than more recent theories of independent nuclear families, as there is clear evidence for an intra-site communal storage and distribution pattern.

The Early Minoan Occupation of Knossos: A Note on some new Evidence.

Following their discovery of the “Burnt Palace” at Beycesultan in the mid 1950's, Seton Lloyd and James Mellaart drew attention to a number of features of its architecture which seemed to indicate links with the palace architecture of Minoan Crete, and discussed the possible significance of these similarities (Lloyd and Mellaart, 1956 118–123, 1965 61, 62). Whatever this may be in terms of relationships between the two areas in the second millennium B.C., however, it seems clear that they cannot throw any light on the first appearance of palaces in Crete. The problems of the origin and development of the Cretan Bronze Age palaces are complex, and though they have been much discussed since the first excavations in the early years of the century, a major obstacle to progress has always been the lack of precise evidence, or even of any evidence at all, for the early stages of the process. As they stand, most of the palaces are the product of a series of rebuildings and remodellings over a long period, and it is not always clear just what they were like when first erected. Most frustrating of all, however, is the lack of evidence bearing on the question of whether they were preceded, during the Early Bronze Age, by buildings which were in any respect analogous in form and function. It has long been clear that the sites of some of the major Middle and Late Minoan palaces were occupied during the Early Minoan period, but at Phaistos and Knossos at any rate extensive clearing and levelling in preparation for the erection of the Middle Minoan palaces has obliterated practically all traces of the Early Minoan buildings. At Phaistos Branigan has hinted that the fragments of walls found by Pernier (1935, pl. VI) on the highest point of the hill might have belonged to a building of some consequence, possibly similar to the Early Minoan II mansion known as the House on the Hill at Vasiliki (Branigan 1970, p. 41). Branigan thinks that in addition to the rooms mentioned by Pernier, there may be traces of a corridor similar to that in the Vasiliki building. Only the bottom two courses of the walls survive, so that it is difficult to say much about their construction, though it seems to be poorer than that of the walls of some Early Minoan private houses later found by Levi on another part of the site.

Painted Mycenaean Larnakes

Nearly ten years ago the first specimens of a new group of painted Mycenaean sarcophagi, or larnakes, began to become known in Greece. They attracted immediate attention, and some disbelief. The group has not yet been studied as a whole, or evaluated as a relic of Aegean art, for the circumstances of discovery and dispersal have made close examination difficult. The scenes of mourning figures painted on them have considerable interest, however, and it seems timely to put together what is known about them in spite of the incomplete evidence. Once the larnakes become better known it will be a pleasurable task for scholars to relate them as harmoniously as possible to neighbouring monuments of Aegean painting and to the late Mycenaean environment which produced them.Until the discovery of these Greek larnakes, scholars rightly believed that the practice of using clay coffins for burial was essentially a Minoan one, not Mycenaean. The great number of larnakes on display in the Herakleion Museum in Crete demonstrates how widespread larnax-burial was in the Late Minoan period, apparently gathering momentum after the destruction of the Cretan palaces. While the earliest terracotta larnakes known in Crete are as old as the latter part of the Early Minoan period, they were not used extensively among the middle classes until the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. The first preserved wooden coffins of Crete are found in chamber tombs of sea-captains and soldiers who died in the late fifteenth century. Perhaps they adapted the custom from Egypt in an age when relations between coastal Crete and the Nile Valley were particularly active. One of the coffins in the harbour cemetery of Katsaba near Knossos was painted blue; otherwise there are no traces of rich surface elaboration in the Egyptian fashion. As far as one can tell from the rotted condition of wood in the Aegean climate, the Minoans did not use external face masks, or gilding, but made simply carpentered containers for simple inhumations.

Minos and Daidalos in Sicily

My subject in this paper is the familiar one of the impact of civilised on uncivilised in the widest extension of Minoan and Mycenaean civilisation. In dealing with the earliest relations between the Aegean and Italy, I do not propose to discuss the parallels which have been drawn between the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age pottery of the two sides of the Adriatic. The unquestioned likenesses may be due to sharing a common heritage, and do not prove direct contact between the two areas.Probably as early as the Middle Minoan I period, at the end of the third millennium, Minoan navigators occasionally reached Sicily. The earliest Cretan objects in the West are sporadic, and may have passed from hand to hand. But from the close of the Early Minoan period liparite is found regularly in Crete, and it is natural to suppose that the Cretans, went to the Lipari Islands to get it. It is suggested also that tin, which from the same period was increasingly used in alloying copper, was brought from the Western Mediterranean. On the other side, there are many Sicilian II swords and daggers which imitate L.M.I. types. Most of these cannot be so old as their prototypes. Though there are no weapons in Sicily which are certainly Minoan, it is clear that Minoan swords must have been imported, and served as models for a Siculan type which had a long currency.

III. The Surroundings of the Cave of Trapeza

A. Some 70 metres east of the cave, close to the south-east corner of the hill, a few fragments of an undecorated Middle Minoan I pithos and a fragment of a stone axe too small to give any idea of its type were found in a shallow deposit on a small terrace.B. In a cleft in the rock 40 metres east of the cave, dignified by the name of Τοῦ Γρυμάνη τὸ σπήλαιο, were found most of the pieces of a Neolithic vase (see below p. 16 and Plate V, 1), a handle of a fabric similar to ‘Trapeza Ware’, and a number of sherds, including the base of a tripod which could not be dated more closely than to the Early Minoan Period generally. A few Byzantine sherds also occurred.

Cretan Palaces and the Aegean Civilization. IV

Since the earlier parts of this study were written, various interesting discoveries have been made, not only in Crete, but on the mainland of Greece, such as tend partly to clear up, partly to complicate the problem of Aegean Civilization.Of the discoveries in Crete the most fruitful in new results are those of Mr. Richard B. Seager relating to the Early Minoan Period, firstly at Vasilikí on the mainland of the Gulf of Mirabello, and later on the islands of Psira and Mochlos off the same coast.