The Aegean in the Early 7th Millennium BC: Maritime Networks and Colonization, Journal of World Prehistory 28(4), 289-330, 2015 (original) (raw)
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In C. Lichter (ed). How did farming reach Europe? Anatolian–European relations from the second half of the 7th through the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC. Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2005, 29–40.
"In Near Eastern and Balkan archaeology there still is an obsession with the East–West thrust in explaining the Neolithic of Europe, even while there is an emerging understanding that the landmass of Anatolia is in fact a series of mutually exclusive landscapes, each of them with its own dynamics .... With the new work done on the Mesolithic in the Aegean, it becomes clear that the area has an enormous archaeological time depth, was intensively lived in, and densely exploited ... Against the background of such an Aegean, conceived as an ancient, known landscape involving lots of movement, the key element in the more recent forms of Montelius’ concept, that is the settling by farmers of Thessaly (and by extension: of the Giannitsa Basin) I would propose rather to regard as a chance happening, or better a contingency of long-standing trans-Aegean interactions. Indeed, the settling of Thessaly might have been a minor event, almost along the fringes of history, comparable to the settling of Crete perhaps...."
2023
1. Introduction …………………………………………………................................ 1 2. Çukuriçi Höyük and the centre of the Anatolian Aegean coast 2 3. Aspects of regional connectivity ………………….................………..… 4 4. Regional diversities at the central Anatolian Aegean coast ..… 6 5. Aegean connectivity in the Neolithic Age ………………............……. 8 6. Interregional ritual connectivity ……………………………................…. 10 7. Conclusions ……………………………………………………............................. 11
The historical ages in the South-Eastern Aegean (800–200 BC): a review
During the years 800–200 BC, SE Aegean islands manifest a continuous growth and dynamic presence which is sensed both internally on each island as well as externally, within the framework of their intra-insular communication. To this day, archaeological sites bearing durable remains vestiges of inhabitance with and an uninterrupted usage have been identified in the Southeastern Aegean. The multitude of movable findings—a result of systematic and rescue excavations—suggests the use and function of these premises and at the same time attests commercial transactions between the islands and the wider mainland—even with geographically remote areas—which is a component of their undoubtedly developed economic and commercial relations. Rezumat. În perioada 800–200 a.C., insulele din sud-estul Mării Egee cunosc o creștere continuă și manifestă o prezență dinamică atât pe plan intern, cât și pe plan extern, în cadrul relațiilor dintre ele. În prezent au fost identificate mai multe așezări datând din această perioadă, fără întrerupere. Multitudinea descoperirilor, rezultate atât în urma săpăturilor sistematice, cât și a celor de salvare, atestă tranzacții comerciale între insule și chiar într-un spațiu mai larg, ceea ce reprezintă o componentă a dezvoltării relațiilor economice și comerciale.
Shima: The International Journal of Research Into Island Cultures, 2020
In the last decade, abundant evidence for seafaring and interaction among Southern Aegean communities has been produced through the recovery of imported materials (mainly metals, lithics, and ceramics) in archaeological excavations dated to the Final Neolithic period (c 4th millennium BC). This article attempts to synthesise the available data on exchange networks, and to discuss the images of maritime interaction, namely the longboats depicted on FN rock carvings. It is suggested that during the 4th millennium BC maritime communication played an important role in the transfer of people, ideas and technologies. A contrast between closely interacting regions, comprised by both mainland and island areas (such as for example Attica and the Northern Cyclades), and long-range, lower intensity connections (for example between Attica and Crete) can be identified. Similar to the Early Bronze Age period, the capacity of a Final Neolithic community to provide enough men for a longboat crew would be crucial in long-distance maritime connections. The longboat could have been used in establishing social alliances among Final Neolithic communities and/or piracy and warfare.
In: F. Schön, L. Dierksmeier, A. Condit, V. Palmowski and A. Kouremenos (eds.), European Islands Between Isolated and Interconnected Life Worlds. Interdisciplinary Long-Term Perspectives. RessourcenKulturen 16, Tübingen, 2021
The Aegean archipelago constitutes one of the most intriguing ‘laboratories’ of island archaeology in the Mediterranean, due to the unique geomorphological configuration among the various island groups, as well as their varied cultural and historical developments. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the study of intra- and interisland connections and island/continent interactions through the application of spatial and maritime network analysis, as well as artefact analysis and the reconstruction of technological (châine opératoire approach) and distributional patterns. To a certain degree, such an interdisciplinary focus was developed for the eastern Aegean and western Anatolian borderland, an area where maritime interaction and communication via the sea has occupied archaeological scholarship over the past two decades. Although only separated by narrow sea straits, the islands and the Anatolian mainland are often considered archaeologically through the lens of boundedness and separateness. These concepts interpret archaeological frontiers of insular versus mainland areas by postcolonialist models of core-periphery relationships, in which the islands are frequently considered to be passive. In this paper, developments and diachronic changes during the Early Bronze Age (EBA) in the ceramic repertoire of the east Aegean islands are discussed, emphasising mainly on evidence from Lemnos, Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, in relation to traditions from the central Aegean (Cyclades) and the adjacent Anatolian coastlands. Focusing on the seascape/coastscape perspective and the concept of the peraia, this research also explores what constitutes the distinct cultural identity of these island communities and how this is formed and transformed through time during the 3rd mill. BCE.
Papadatos, Y. and P. Tomkins 2013. Trading, the Longboat and Cultural Interaction in the late FN-early EB I Aegean. The view from Kephala Petras, East Crete, American Journal of Archaeology 117, 353-381. Currently, long-distance trading, gateway communities, and the use of the longboat are understood to have emerged in the Aegean sometime during Early Bronze (EB) IB/IIA. This longboat-trading model envisages an essentially static configuration of trading communities situated at nodal points in maritime networks of interaction, an arrangement that was brought to an end, by the beginning of EB III, with the introduction of the masted sailing ship. This article questions this EB IB/IIA emergence date and argues instead that trading, gateway communities, and the longboat have a deeper and more dynamic history stretching back at least as far as the end of the Neolithic (Final Neolithic [FN] IV). The results of recent excavations at the FN IV–Early Minoan (EM) IA coastal site of Kephala Petras in east Crete paint a picture of an early trading community that, thanks to its close Cycladic connections, enjoyed preferential access to valued raw materials, to the technologies for their transformation, and to finished objects. This monopoly over the resource of distance was in turn exploited locally and regionally in east Crete, as a social strategy, to construct advantageous relationships with other communities. FN IV–EM IA Kephala Petras thus appears to represent the earliest known of a series of Early Bronze Age gateway communities (e.g., Hagia Photia, Mochlos, Poros-Katsambas) operating along the north coast of Crete.