The Chalcolithic period in Cyprus has been known since Porphyrios Dikaios’ excavations at Erimi in the 1930s and through the appearance in the antiquities market of illicitly acquired anthropomorphic cruciform figures, often manufactured from picrolite, a soft blue-green stone. The excavations of the settlement and cemetery at Souskiou Laona reported on in this volume paint a very different picture of life on the island during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Burial practices at other known sites are generally single inhumations in intramural pit graves, only rarely equipped with artefacts. At Souskiou, multiple inhumations were interred in deep rock-cut tombs clustered in extra-mural cemeteries. Although the sites were also subjected to extensive looting, excavations have revealed complex multi-stage burial practices with arrangements of disarticulated and articulated burials accompanied by a rich variety of grave goods. Chief among these are a multitude of cruciform figurines and pendants. This unusual treatment of the dead, which has not been recorded elsewhere in Cyprus, shifts the focus from the individual to the communal, and provides evidence for significant changes involving kinship group links to common ancestors. Excavations at the Laona settlement have furnished evidence suggesting that it functioned as a specialised centre for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its early phase. The subsequent decline of picrolite production and the earliest known occurrence of new types of ornaments, such as faience beads and copper spiral pendants, attest to important changes involving the transformation of personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, a topic that forms a central theme of this final report on the site.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Plates
• Abbreviations and special terms
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction (Edgar Peltenburg)
  • 1.1 Background to current research
  • 1.2 The site of Souskiou
  • 1.3 Research framework: variability among small scale societies
• Part I Chronology and environment
  • 2 Chronology (Charalambos Paraskeva)
    • 2.1 Relative chronology
    • 2.2 Absolute chronology
    • 2.3 From absolute to relative and back again: the chronology of Souskiou Laona
  • 3 The setting (Katleen Deckers and David Sewell)
    • 3.1General remarks (D. S.)
    • 3.2 Vegetation and wood use (K. D.)
  • 4 Quaternary landscape evolution in the vicinity of Souskiou (John E. Dixon and Tim C. Kinnaird)
    • 4.1Introduction
    • 4.2 Geomorphological setting
    • 4.3 Geological setting
    • 4.4 Landscape evolution
    • 4.5 Conclusions
• Part II Settlement: built and open environment
  • 5 Site survey and surface collection (Andrew McCarthy)
    • 5.1Introduction
    • 5.2 Summary of transect finds
    • 5.3 Conclusions
  • 6 Chalcolithic settlement on the Laona ridge (Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 6.1Introduction
    • 6.2 Structural components
    • 6.3 Buildings, walls and other features from the settlement
    • 6.4 Intra-settlement burials and human bone
  • 7 Geoarchaeological analyses of domestic space and building technologies (Matthew Dalton)
    • 7.1Introduction
    • 7.2 Micromorphological methodology
    • 7.3 Summary of micromorphological results
    • 7.4 Summary of spatial microartefactual and geochemical analyses
    • 7.5 Conclusion
• Part III Mortuary contexts
  • 8 The cemetery (Lindy Crewe)
    • 8.1Introduction
    • 8.2 Aims and methodologies
    • 8.3 Terminology and definitions
    • 8.4 Catalogue of tombs and related features in Operation C
    • 8.5 Additional Period I or I/II features in Operation C
    • 8.6 Discussion of mortuary and other features
  • 9 Human remains (Kirsi O. Lorentz)
    • 9.1Introduction
    • 9.2 Materials and methods
    • 9.3 Analytical results
    • 9.4 Discussion
    • 9.5 Conclusion
• Part IV Integrated studies
  • 10 Chalcolithic pottery (Diane Bolger)
    • 10.1Introduction
    • 10.2 Ceramic typology
    • 10.3 Decorative and technological features
    • 10.4 Fabric composition
    • 10.5 Pottery from the transect survey
    • 10.6 Pottery vessels and miscellaneous objects from the Souskiou settlement
    • 10.7 Pottery vessels and sherdage from the cemetery
    • 10.8 The stylistic development of Red-on-White pottery
    • 10.9 Comparison of the Laona and Vathyrkakas assemblages
    • 10.10 Ceramics and social identity at Souskiou
  • 11 Figurines and figurative pendants (Elizabeth Goring)
    • 11.1Terminology
    • 11.2 Typology
    • 11.3 Corpus
    • 11.4 Picrolite and figurative objects
    • 11.5 Figurines
    • 11.6 Figurative pendants
    • 11.7 Fragmentary figurative objects
    • 11.8 Roughouts and pre-forms
    • 11.9 Pottery and fired clay fragments
    • 11.10 Stone other than picrolite
    • 11.11 Shell
    • 11.12 Pig’s tusk (and possibly bone)
    • 11.13 Discussion
  • 12 Other body ornaments and objects (Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 12.1Introduction
    • 12.2 Beads
    • 12.3 Pendants
    • 12.4 Materials
    • 12.5 Production on site
  • 13 Picrolite: procurement, manufacture and use (Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 13.1Introduction 233
    • 13.2 The outputs
    • 13.3 Manufacture
  • 14 The ground stone industry (John E. Dixon, Romesh Palakumbura and Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 14.1Lithology and provenance (J. D. and R. P.)
    • 14.2 Ground stone typology (E. P.)
    • 14.3 Caches and other objects (E. P.)
  • 15 The chipped stone industry (Carole McCartney)
    • 15.1Introduction
    • 15.2 The assemblage
    • 15.3 Core technology
    • 15.4 The tools
    • 15.5 Working picrolite with chipped stone techniques and tools
    • 15.6 Production loci
  • 16 Chemical analyses of copper objects and faience beads using portable X-Ray Fluorescence (Vasiliki Kassianidou and Andreas Charalambos)
    • 16.1Introduction (V. K.)
    • 16.2 Chalcolithic metal artefacts from Cyprus (V. K.)
    • 16.3 Chalcolithic faience objects from Cyprus (V. K.)
    • 16.4 A new analytical study (A. C. and V. K.)
  • 17 Animal remains and the bone and antler industry (Paul Croft)
    • 17.1Animal remains
    • 17.2 The bone and antler industry
  • 18 The plant remains (Leilani Lucas)
    • 18.1Introduction
    • 18.2 Methodology and presentation of data
    • 18.3 Contexts of the samples
    • 18.4 Analytical results
    • 18.5 The plant remains in a wider context
  • 19 Mollusca (Janet Ridout-Sharpe)
    • 19.1Introduction
    • 19.2 Mollusca from the settlement
    • 19.3 Mollusca from the cemetery
    • 19.4 Mollusca from Souskiou Laona in a wider context
  • 20 Periods III–VI (Peter Cosyns, Agata Dobosz, Lisa Graham and Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 20.1Periods III–VI at Souskiou (E. P.)
    • 20.2 Early and Middle Bronze Age pottery from Period III (L. G.)
    • 20.3 Pottery of Periods V–VI (A. D.)
    • 20.4 The glass (P. C.)
  • 21 Ritual, identity and community at Souskiou: traditions and transformations (Diane Bolger, Lindy Crewe and Edgar Peltenburg)
    • 21.1Introduction
    • 21.2 Re-assessing the Souskiou cemeteries
    • 21.3 The Laona settlement and the ritual economy of Souskiou
    • 21.4 The emergence of social inequality at Souskiou
    • 21.5 The decline of the cruciform and the transformation of social identity
• List of References
• Appendices
  • Appendix A: Catalogue of registered objects (full version on ADS)
  • Appendix B: Objects from buildings, features and trenches
• Plate section