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British Archaeology Abroad, 1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

Mr. A. H. S. Megaw, Director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, reports: Excavation was resumed in the summer of 1965 on all three sites currently assigned to the School for investigation: a Neolithic settlement in the Cyclades (the first such to be systematically excavated), a Minoan settlement in Kythera, and an important Bronze Age site in Euboea which continued in occupation until the Geometric period. At the first two the planned excavations have been completed. At Saliagos, an islet near Antiparos, Professor J. D. Evans (London) and Dr A. C. Renfrew (Cambridge) in their final campaign identified three phases of Neolithic occupation, homogeneous in culture, and, pending confirmation by the C14 method, at present assigned to the early 4th millennium B.C. (PL. XVII~T).h e central building complex of the last phase was found to be enclosed by a perimeter wall, over I m. thick at one corner, to which a semicircular bastion-like structure gave the impression of defensive purpose. Wellstratified deposits exceeding 2 m. in depth yielded more of the characteristic pottery (with usually rectilinear decoration in white paint on a dark burnished surface) and more evidence of a rich chipped stone industry, chiefly of Melian obsidian, Two fragments of marble vessels and a schematic 'violin-idol' are noteworthy local antecedents for the Early Cycladic marble industry. An incomplete marble figurine of a fat seated woman was also found, of the type familiar from finds in Naxos and in mainland Greece. The principal domesticated animal attested was the sheep and there is little evidence of wild species. The preserved grain included emmer, einkorn and two-row barley, while over 40 species of marine molluscs were recorded.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1966

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Footnotes

We published in 1963 an account of the work of the British Schools of Archaeology and History abroad for 1962, and for the two subsequent years added to this a report on the work of the Egypt Exploration Society (ANTIQUITY, 1963, 36; 1964, 7; 1965, 33). Here the Directors of the Schools and the Field Director of the Egypt Exploration Society provide a summary account of the work of British official archaeological institutions abroad during 1965, and we are glad again this year to be able to illustrate some of the more notable finds. As before the reports of the Schools are printed in the order of their establishment.

References

[1] Preliminary Report published in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 51, 1965, 3-8.

[2] Preliminary Report published in J.E.A., 51 1965, 9-15.

[3] An account of these excavations by Professor Plumley will appear in a forthcoming number of ANTIQUITY.

[4] A preliminary note has appeared in J.E.A., 51, 1965, 1-2; the definitive report will appear in Kush, 14, 1966.