Monday, May 17, 2010

Choirokoitia


These are some of the many circular buildings within the neolithic, aceramic (i.e. without the knowledge of how to produce pottery), settlement of Choirokoitia. The site date from the 9th millennia and onward, and the largest houses are about 9 meters in diameter. Another interesting feature is the huge wall, designed to protect the site from an unknown enemy.

2 comments:

Björn Nilsson said...

Am I getting this right: these people were early farmers, but they did not know the art of pottery? Does this mean that agriculture and pottery were spread in separate waves from somewhere in west Asia, and the two waves were clearly separated? Or could we imagine an independent "invention¤" of agriculture in Cyprus?

Patrik Klingborg said...

Yes, they were farmers who had no knowledge of pottery. I'm not quite sure on how this works, I'm not a pre-historian, but I believe that it has to do with the migration to Cyprus - the population was very quickly cut off from the rest of the world. It is possible that they knew about basic farming when leaving the mainland, just before the invention of pottery (?).

Anyhow, even as I cannot really answer your question, it is very interesting and I'll try to find out when I get back to Sweden.