Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Joanne Clarke
(University of East Anglia)
Kokkinogia too had been a settlement, of which Red Monochrome Painted ware, in typical Early
negative features cut into the bedrock were all Chalcolithic forms including platters, bottles
that survived. Digging began with this in mind, with pointed bases, plus slipped or painted
but after a time the subterranean features became Coarse ware trays with lug handles and other
so numerous that the likelihood of Kokkinogia decorative motifs that are diagnostic of the early
being a settlement in the fashion of Sotira or 4th millennium B.C.
Kantou diminished. By 2004 excavations had
unearthed over nine pit-like features, plus four Discussion
chambers inter-connected through a series of The complete absence of economic data at
intricate tunnels, entranceways and port holes. Kokkinogia is unique amongst Cypriot prehis-
The first chamber discovered, Feature 66 (Figs 2 toric sites (see Clarke, McCartney and Croft
and 3), was originally thought to have been a 2007 for a recent discussion by Croft). At
Bronze Age tomb, but on excavation, the absence Agious, the botanical evidence is poor (see
of cultural material and the presence of a small Hansen 2004, 198) but faunal preservation is
porthole linking it with a second chamber (Fea- good and suggests that deer were predominant
ture 70) (Figs 2 and 4) suggested otherwise. On (Croft 2004, 207). It is therefore unlikely that the
the floor of Feature 70 a Combed ware bottle absence of economic data at Kokkinogia is the
(Fig. 8a) was found carefully placed inside a result of poor preservation. Kokkinogia also lacks
Combed ware bowl (Fig. 8b). Additionally, a the full range of material culture usually found at
third chamber (Feature 105) was identified as Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites. There
being linked to Feature 70 by a tunnel (Figs 2 and are no bone tools (which are common on most
4). prehistoric sites), no small objects, such as
Although the nature and extent of the cham- hooks, spirals, beads or pendants, and there are
bers suggested that Kokkinogia was somewhat no figurines. The absence of figurines would not
different to other sites where subterranean fea- be unusual for a Late Neolithic site, where
tures had been discovered, it was not immediate- imagery of any kind was uncommon, but it is cer-
ly clear what type of site Kokkinogia might be. tainly unusual for the Early Chalcolithic period.
One possible explanation was that it was chrono- If Kokkinogia was partly contemporary with
logically later than Sotira and Kantou, perhaps Agious one would expect to observe similarities
dating to the beginning of the Early Chalcolithic in the pottery and just as importantly, in the types
period (ca 3900/3800 cal. B.C.) and thereby and variety of other objects. Instead, the range of
making it contemporary with the beginning of material culture represented is a depleted version
occupation at the nearby Early Chalcolithic site of that which might be expected on a typical Late
of Agious, characterised by the presence of part- Neolithic settlement site. What is found at
ly and fully-subterranean features (Todd and Kokkinogia, however, are large quantities of
Croft 2004). However, the pottery from Kokkino- ground stone items, far in excess of what would
gia suggested otherwise, as it bears little resem- be expected from a site of its size, most of which
blance to the pottery from Agious. At Kokkino- are expedient tools (McCartney 2007). Although
gia, the assemblage is characterised by Combed a standard range of Late Neolithic pottery is rep-
ware and Red Monochrome Painted ware in pre- resented, there is a significantly higher propor-
dominantly Late Neolithic forms, including tion of Coarse ware than in other broadly con-
hemispherical bowls with flat or omphalos bases temporary assemblages (Clarke 2004, 63). There
and globular bottles with flat or rounded bases. are also instances where commonplace artefacts
At Agious, the assemblage is characterised by are found in unusual contexts or in unusual asso-
Early Chalcolithic types of Red-on-White and ciations (Clarke 2004, 65-66).
EXCAVATIONS AT KALAVASOS-KOKKINOGIA, 2004 TO 2007 3
THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA low oval upper cut into the havara surface mea-
EXCAVATIONS, 2004 TO 2007 sures 1.45!1.20!0.25m. deep and was damaged
by ploughing and had collapsed on its north-west
Objectives side. On its east side it was cut away by a later
In light of the unusual features discovered at cultivation pit (Feature 150). In the base of the
Kokkinogia in 2002 and 2003/2004, the aims of upper cut was a narrower circular aperture lead-
the 2005-2007 seasons of excavation were: ing down into one of the largest chambers record-
1. To further investigate the underground ed at Kokkinogia, measuring approximately
features found during the first three sea- 2.6!2.4!1.15m. deep. In the southern end of
sons, in order to define their extent and Feature 161 was a niche, 0.65!0.55!0.44m.
inter-connectedness, and to ascertain how deep.
these spaces was used. Intersecting with Feature 161 was Feature
2. To determine whether Kokkinogia was a 152, the bell-shaped pit described above, and
ploughed out settlement or some other Feature 184, described below. There was a high-
type of site. er than usual number of hammerstones in the fill
In order to achieve these aims excavations of Feature 161. These may have fallen into the
were extended onto the plateau (Fig. 9), to the chamber by accident after it went out of use
west of the features discovered in the first two suggesting that there was a concentration of these
seasons. artefacts nearby, or that they may have been
deliberately thrown in at intervals over the course
Description of main features excavated of time, or possibly both.
2005-2007
Excavation continued on the plateau edge in Feature 184
order to link Area Q, located to the south, with Feature 184 is a cavernous pit or quasi-cham-
Area U, 50m. to the north. A number of new fea- ber with an aperture in its north-west side leading
tures were uncovered in both areas, all of them to another unexcavated chamber or possibly a
subterranean. tunnel. Originally, the top of Feature 184 had
been a circular aperture in the bedrock surface
Area Q approximately 1m. in diameter but bedrock col-
Feature 152 lapse had enlarged the aperture and made it irreg-
This was a bell-shaped flat-based pit, 0.73! ular. At a depth of 1m. below the surface of the
0.67!1.0m. deep, with a circular entrance that bedrock, Feature 184 bells out to 2!2.2!1.35m.
had been truncated by ploughing and is now deep. This chamber is characterised by two aper-
much wider than it had been in prehistory. The tures: a north-west aperture that was 0.60m. wide
west side of the pit consists of a large aperture ! 0.75m. high. Much of this aperture remains
leading into Feature 161 (Fig. 10). It is unclear unexcavated so its dimensions are not fully
whether the aperture was designed to connect known. The second aperture, on the south side, is
Feature 152 with Feature 161, or was simply the very large and fill deposits ran continuously into
result of one feature having cut the other by Feature 161. This aperture is 1.40m. wide !
chance, by erosion or by the collapse of the wall 0.75m. high. In the north-west alcove, at some
separating the two. point during infilling, a number of ground stone
objects were stacked or cached. Objects included
Feature 161 hammerstones, a rubber standing vertically
Feature 161 consists of an upper cut and aper- against the north edge of Feature 184, utilised
ture giving access to a chamber below. The shal- pebbles and grinders.
4 JOANNE CLARKE
0.55m. above the base of the chamber and con- immediate vicinity of a half-sunk dwelling but
necting it with Feature 239. Excavation demon- he does not specify which one, except to say that
strated that the fills of Features 191 and 239 were it was a Type I dwelling. It is certainly interest-
discontinuous. As a concentration of stones that ing, in light of the Kokkinogia burial, to note
ran through Feature 239 was not disturbed by the Dikaios report of a similar grave cut at Pam-
aperture into Feature 191 it is likely that Feature poules, in close association with a half-sunk
239 post-dates and cuts Feature 191. dwelling that appears to have been similar to
Feature 136.
Feature 199 and associated burial 229
Feature 199 was a figure-of-eight shaped Feature 203
cut into the havara bedrock, comprising two This was an approximately circular chamber
roughly circular pits. The earlier, north-western with near vertical walls and slightly dished floor.
pit was subsequently cut by the later, south-east- The chamber has a maximum extent of 2.15m.
ern pit. A rough line of small stones and havara north-south and 2.05m. east-west and a more or
lumps were placed across the waist of the fea- less horizontal floor area of 1.80!1.65m. The
ture in prehistory, probably when the second pit maximum height of the chamber was 1.05m. The
was cut, in order to provide a clearly delineated, entire north-east quarter of the chamber opens
hard edge all the way around its circumference. out into a large alcove. This alcove narrows for
Within the north-west pit was an articulated 1.10m. eastward, being 1.50m. wide at the cham-
burial of a female individual, and a number of ber edge and narrowing to 0.80m. towards the
bones from a second individual (Fig. 15). The end of the alcove. Nothing was found in the
articulated individual was placed on her right chamber.
side along the north side of the pit, with the left
arm folded across the chest and the left hand in Feature 205
the vicinity of the right shoulder. The right arm This was entered through an aperture
seemed to mirror the position of the left arm, as 0.85!1.20m. cut into the bedrock surface, which
if something was being carried in the vicinity of appears to have been a collapsed entranceway
the right shoulder. The lower, right leg was fold- leading into an antechamber with maximum
ed, meaning the body was in a semi-contracted dimensions of 1.40!1.75m. This sloped down to
position. The left leg did not appear to be articu- the south into a main chamber, 2.45m. long and
lated with the rest of the body and some of the 1.95m. wide, making it one of the largest under-
skeletal elements from this leg may have been ground features at Kokkinogia. Feature 205 clear-
included in an upper spread of disarticulated ly connects with the unexcavated Feature 121 to
bone. The head had been placed on a small stone, the south-east. A number of objects were found
which tilted the skull forward, facing east. A in the fill of the chamber, but not on its floor;
smooth, rounded stone (10!14cm.) was found in these included three diabase pebbles, a number of
the base of the grave just above the right shoul- utilised pebbles, a rubber, a hammerstone and an
der. The presence of additional disarticulated anvil.
bones laying on and between the long bones of The most exciting artefact from the chamber
the articulated skeleton remains puzzling. was located beneath the anvil. It was a moulded
In addition to pits, Dikaios also reported find- unfired cylindrical mud lamp (Fig. 16), which
ing a burial at Pampoules, which he describes as appears to have been moulded into shape within
a circular pit dug into bedrock containing some sort of vessel, from which it was removed
human remains partly disturbed by the building once the mud had set. The top of the artefact was
of a platform (Dikaios and Stewart 1962, 139). smoothed with a thumb and a finger-sized hole
This burial appears to have been located in the was inserted into the centre. There are slight
8 JOANNE CLARKE
traces of burning around the outside of this hole. tions of vessel shapes and fabrics at Kokkinogia
At some point prior to the final hardening of the also differ from the standard Late Neolithic set-
mud, a thicker object was inserted into the finger tlements, in the sense that there is a significantly
hole, creating a wider hole, which does not pen- higher proportion of Coarse ware at Kokkinogia,
etrate the full length of the original hole. sometimes representing up to 30% of the total
sherd count from a feature. In contrast, on stan-
Feature 215 dard settlement sites Coarse ware never repre-
This was a chamber, cut into a hollow in the sents more than 5-8% of the total pottery assem-
havara bedrock. The entrance is an approximate- blage (Clarke 2001, 67-68).
ly oval aperture, 0.95!0.80m. cut through the There is no relationship between the size of a
upper stratum of solid havara and into the friable feature and the quantity of sherds found in the
havarokonnos beneath. At this level, the entrance fill. Feature 105, at over six cubic metres, is the
opens out into a chamber extending east and largest chamber so far discovered but produced
west. The chamber roof comprises the base of the only 22 sherds. In contrast, Feature 152, an
upper stratum of havara. The unique feature of entranceway into Feature 161 measuring less
this chamber is that it contained two surfaces. On than a cubic metre, produced 141 sherds, and
the upper surface, at the western extent of the Feature 161 itself produced 280 sherds. General-
chamber, a near vertical alignment of stones ly speaking the number of sherds found within a
blocked access to the west part of the chamber. feature was never more than in the low hundreds.
At least two vessels, one broken into many There were two exceptions to this: Feature 136
sherds, and the partial sherds of another, lay ver- (the possible structure), which has produced the
tically against this line of stones (Fig. 17). All largest number of sherds (916); and Feature 113,
sherds from this pot spread appear to have been which had the secondary cache of objects within
Early Chalcolithic, suggesting that this upper sur- its fill, partly accounting for the greater number
face within Feature 215 was utilised later than the of sherds (637).
primary, Late Neolithic use of most subterranean In general the Kokkinogia assemblage is Late
features at Kokkinogia. A number of flint blades Neolithic in character. Late Neolithic pottery is
were discovered in association with the large found across the site in most of the features. In
sherds described above. some features there appears to have been pur-
The second surface was the utilised base of poseful deposition of parts of vessels as well as,
the chamber. Here were discovered a number of but not necessarily in association with, ground
ochre pieces, an ochre-encrusted stone and a Red stone tools. For example, Feature 77 in Area Q
Monochrome Painted flask, similar to the one (published in Clarke 2004, 61), a deep circular
discovered in the cache in Feature 113. flat-bottomed pit, was filled after its primary use
with a range of partly restorable vessels and stone
Ceramics tools. The vessels were deposited in different
The pottery has yet to be fully studied, so this parts of the fill so that there was no mixing of
discussion is both general and preliminary. A joining sherds from different vessels. In one part
total of 5694 sherds have been processed to date; of the fill were the partly restorable sherds of a
considerably less than what might be expected Combed ware bowl, in another part of the fill
from a Late Neolithic settlement site, where were sherds from a Red Monochrome Painted
sherd counts number in the tens of thousands. bowl. There were no fully restorable vessels
The smaller quantity of pottery from Kokkinogia however. Likewise, in Feature 113, objects were
is therefore another characteristic that distin- cached throughout the fill, including one com-
guishes it from standard settlement sites. Equal- plete Red Monochrome Painted flask. Even so,
ly interesting is the fact that the relative propor- there were also parts of restorable vessels in the
EXCAVATIONS AT KALAVASOS-KOKKINOGIA, 2004 TO 2007 9
fill, in association with clearly cached items and caching probably occurred during the early part
it may be that these were purposefully cached as of the Early Chalcolithic period.
well. To date no clear joins in the pottery have Feature 136 is particularly important, because
been found across features, but studies of this although there is no break in the stratigraphy
nature are ongoing. within this feature, Late Neolithic pottery was
Although most of the pottery can be attrib- found on the lower surfaces, while the pot spread
uted to the Late Neolithic, there were some on the uppermost, latest surface is Early Chalcol-
exceptions. The pottery from the possible struc- ithic.
ture, Feature 136, was predominantly Late Kokkinogia, therefore, appears to have been
Neolithic but on the uppermost, latest floor the utilised for an indeterminate period of time dur-
pot spread was characteristically Early Chalcol-
ing the transitional Late Neolithic / Early Chal-
ithic, indicating a terminal use of this feature
colithic period, with no discernable break in
sometime during the beginning of that period.
occupation. This would make Kokkinogia one of
Less clearly differentiated was the cache in Fea-
only two sites on the island to have continuous
ture 113, which had some elements that were
stratigraphy bridging the two periods; the other
Early Chalcolithic in nature, including a Glossy
Burnished ware fabric, but which was more typi- being Agios Epiktitos-Vrysi on the north coast of
cally Late Neolithic. In Feature 215, the small the island (Peltenburg 1982; Peltenburg et al.
Red Monochrome Painted flask, discovered on 2003, 261). It therefore seems that Kokkinogia
the lower surface of the chamber was transitional represents the activities of people who lived in
Late Neolithic / Early Chalcolithic, but the pot- south-central Cyprus around the time of the
tery found positioned upright against the stones abandonment of the Late Neolithic settlements of
in association with the upper surface was clearly Sotira and Kantou, but prior to the utilisation of
Chalcolithic, possibly even as late as Middle Agious. Whether or not Kokkinogia was a gen-
Chalcolithic. uine settlement is still not clear; further work
needs to be carried out in order to clarify this
PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS vexing issue. What is clear, however, is that the
subterranean features at Kokkinogia foreshad-
Attempts to relate features to one another and owed those of Agious and, indeed, those of
to understand the overall structure and function Kissonerga-Myloudia where there is a clear evo-
of the site have been hampered by the general lution from subterranean and semi-subterranean
lack of direct stratigraphic relationships between pit dwellings in the Early Chalcolithic to the
them. Much of the sequencing of Kokkinogia is well-known round houses that were common
therefore reliant upon radiocarbon dating and across the island in the Middle Chalcolithic peri-
pottery sequencing. Results of radiocarbon dat- od (Peltenburg, et al. 2003, 259-60).
ing are still pending, so it is only the pottery that
is discussed here.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The pottery in individual features suggests
that pits and chambers were cut at regular inter- I wish to thank the Department of Antiquities
vals throughout the latter part of the Late of Cyprus, the village of Kalavasos, Ian Todd and
Neolithic period. Some features were probably Alison South for their logistical support, project
cut together, e.g. Features 66, 70, 105, 155, 181, staff and students who made excavations possi-
115 and 123 located in Area U (see Fig. 2). Sec- ble, Alison South and Jeannette van der Post for
ondary use of some of the features at Kokkinogia their illustrations, Alexander Wasse for com-
occurred during the Early Chalcolithic period. ments on the various drafts of this paper and for
This is particularly notable in Feature 215 and to his editing work and Mr Alistair McLeish for
a lesser degree in Feature 113, where secondary proof reading.
10 JOANNE CLARKE
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RDAC 2004, 51-71. cole Franaise D Athnes), 58-98.
2007: Site Diversity in Cyprus in the Late MCCARTNEY, C. 2007: Lithics in J. Clarke
5th Millennium cal. BC: Evidence from (ed.), On the Margins of Southwest Asia,
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CLARKE, J.; P. CROFT and C. MCCARTNEY 2007: (Oxford: Oxbow), 72-90.
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Cyprus, RDAC 2007, 45-86. toric Ayios Epiktitos-Vrysi 1969-73 (Aris
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DIKAIOS, P. 1961: Sotira (Philadelphia: The Uni- LXX:4) (Paul strms Frlag: Svedalen).
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(Lund: Swedish Cyprus Expedition). stratigraphy, chronology, RDAC 1970, 1-
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Croft (eds), Vasilikos Valley Project 8: 1972: Cypriot Neolithic Chronology and
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MANTZOURANI, E. 2003: Kantou-Koupho-
EXCAVATIONS AT KALAVASOS-KOKKINOGIA, 2004 TO 2007 11
Fig. 9. Photo of the plateau, to the west of the ridge looking south. In the foreground is Feature 136, the possible structure.
Fig. 12. Photo close up of the flask and bowl base in Feature 113 east.
EXCAVATIONS AT KALAVASOS-KOKKINOGIA, 2004 TO 2007 17
Fig. 14. Plans and sections from Kalavasos-Pampoules (cf: Dikaios and Stewart 1962, fig. 63).