Kythera Island Project (KIP) study season 2006
Assessment and Analysis: Study season
Kythera Island Project undertook a 6-week study season m 2006. Study by C. Broodbank, A. Johnston, E. Kiriatzi and J. Vroom focused on the large amount of pottery from c. 1100 collection squares set out in 1999-2000 over the major coastal site of Kastri. The individual study of 5,143 feature sherds and the bulk fabric analysis of a much larger statistical sample fully documented the size of Kastri (c. 10-11 ha overall, less than 1% of which has been excavated) and allowed phase-by-phase exploration of site size and functional differentiation. The settlement was already fairly large in the FN-EB I and especially EB II periods. Early Minoanising material is widely scattered, but First Palace remains are, as usual on Kythera, elusive or genuinely rare. Second Palace material is abundant; the settlement area expands to c. 5-7 ha, plus peripheral, possibly destroyed funerary, areas. Third Palace pottery is patchily present, and there are a few possible Early Iron Age finds, plus limited Archaic. Classical is widely represented, as is Late Roman, with little Hellenistic and Early Roman. Activity then declines very sharply until the return to the coast during the last two centuries. Probabilistic GIS techniques were used by Delrieu to define period-specific site sizes for a large selection of KIP's surface sites. E. Kiriatzi, R. Siddall and M. Georgakopoulou also undertook a week of geological prospection in Kythera and southern Laconia, aiming at the comparative characterisation of the local metamorphic units, beach sand, clays and iron deposits. Scientific analysts of pottery (Kiriatzi, Georgakopoulou, with some assistance by A. Pentedeka), archaeometallurgical (Georgakopoulou) and geoarchaeological samples (Krahtopoulou) continued, as did study of the ground-stone (T. Gerousi). Exarchou continued the preparation of pottery drawings for publication.
Active in 2005.