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Chapter 5 - Changing with the Years

Khirokitia (Cyprus) at the Turn of the 7th to the 6th Millennium BC

from Part I - Upper Mesopotamia and Eastern Mediterranean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2022

By
Alain Le Brun ,
Odile Daune-Le Brun  and
Fouad Hourani
Edited by
Peter F. Biehl  and
Eva Rosenstock
Peter F. Biehl
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Eva Rosenstock
Affiliation:
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
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Summary

The history of Khirokitia, an Aceramic Neolithic village in Cyprus, is marked by a series of successive events clearly evidenced by variations in the spatial extent and organization of the village; the major one in the course of its occupation was an outstanding shift of the built area that happened around the end of the 7th millennium cal BC. As for changes in climatic, the study of the hydromorphological evolution of the riverbed running at the foot of the hill has revealed the existence of torrential flows and violent erosion that seem to indicate the onset of an erratic and concentrated precipitation during the occupation of the village. This chapter focuses on these main events that affected the village and investigates changes and continuities that can be observed in the environment as well as in the village relationship to the environment, subsistence strategies, craft techniques and activities organization, architectural practices, social organization and rituals.

Keywords

Aceramic NeolithicEnclosure wallFunerary practicesCraft
Type
Chapter
Information
6000 BC
Transformation and Change in the Near East and Europe
 , pp. 64 - 80
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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