Cambridge Keros Project 2006-2008: Study season 2009
Assessment and Analysis: Study season
Since the conclusion of excavation by the Cambridge Keros Project, under the direction of Prof. Colin Renfrew, in June 2008, postexcavation study has continued uninterrupted. The date and nature of activities at the two main excavated sites — the settlement at Dhaskalio and the special area of ritual deposition at the Special Deposit South at Kavos (on Keros opposite) — have been clarified. Finds from Dhaskalio show it to be a major settlement spanning the later part of the Cycladic Early Bronze Age. Study of the pottery from the well-stratified levels allows the stratigraphic sequence to be divided into three main phases. The first two correspond with the periods of use of the Special Deposit. However, most of the levels excavated on Dhaskalio are to be assigned to a late phase in the Cycladic Early Bronze Age, succeeding that of the Kastri Group and equivalent approximately to what has been termed the Early Cycladic III period, contemporary in part with the First City at Phylakopi in Melos. Various aspects of the material from the settlement at Dhaskalio have now been intensively studied, including the stone discs, the pebbles, apparently representing localised ritual deposition, the petrology of the building stones, the obsidian assemblage, and the rich assemblage of mat and leaf impressions. Technical studies on the pottery, the metal objects and slags, and the lithic petrology, have been initiated. Extensive sampling of the pottery for petrographic analysis has been undertaken, and sampling for metallurgical study completed. Study of the plant materials recovered by flotation has resulted in the recognition of the domesticated olive, not hitherto well-documented in Early Bronze Age contexts. Samples have been selected for radiocarbon analysis at the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory. A coherent picture is now emerging both of the settlement at Dhaskalio and of the Special Deposit South. It is clear that the settlement was a major one, and it is notable that the finds characteristic of the Special Deposit South, such as broken marble figurines or the multiple-headed lamps seen in fragmentary form at Kavos, are simply not found on Dhaskalio. Moreover, it has emerged clearly that the settlement on Dhaskalio flourished considerably later than the heyday of the Special Deposit South.
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Renfrew, Professor Andrew Colin