The lecture will discuss variety in technological behavior and scope in northeastern Aegean Neolithic sites and attempt to balance the common tendency to regard change in the material culture of this region as the dull outcome of economic and social developments elsewhere in the Aegean and the Balkans.
The Aegean Neolithic textile crafts are obscure since no actual fabrics have been discovered; consequently, the available information is only indirect. What we know is some basic archaeological evidence for textile technology, namely some easily diagnostic textile tools made of stable materials, such as clay and stone, and from sewing implements made of bone. Based on these groups of finds, we know that household textile industries existed since the Early Neolithic, while the use of the vertical warp-weighted loom, as we know it from the later periods, appears much later.
Archaeological and analytical data from prehistoric sites led to the mapping of land and maritime communication routes in the Aegean. Due to the progress of research, these routes are being revised or expanded, enlightening the direction, mode and scale of the maritime dialogues in the Aegean from the Stone Age to the end of the Bronze Age.
The partial or wholesale destruction of archaeological sites is an increasing problem in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. Opportunistic and systematic looting of cemeteries to acquire objects for sale on the antiquities market has been ongoing for centuries, a problem that shows little signs of abating despite international efforts.
British School at Athens (Upper House) (52 Souedias, Athens)
Although in some parts of the world, such as Mesoamerica or Mesopotamia, the study of state formation employs multi-dimensional approaches, this has not been the case in the Aegean. Here, the rise of Minoan and Mycenaean states has been subjected to rigid neo-evolutionary chiefdom-to-state models and biased by over-reliance on the evidence from a few major palaces.
The largest known jadeite source in the Aegean is located on the Cycladic island of Syros. During sampling, several flakes and preforms of considerable age were identified, demonstrating, for the first time, the presence of several knapping places around the large jadeite boulders on Syros.
The narrative of a Mediterranean Bronze Age civilisation uni-directionally shaped by the influence of the ‘civilised’ core has dramatically changed in recent times, when alternative narratives have emerged and acquired momentum. These have highlighted the importance of the ‘west’ broadly intended as encompassing the central Mediterranean and Europe, in shaping social dynamics of the basin.
