Feature: Excavation in Cyprus provides evidence about human transition through 9,000 years

An excavation of a multi-period site in southwestern Cyprus has provided insight evidence into the transition of humans through different periods bridging 9,000 years.

"The evidence helped us understand how people lived through several millenniums and how they reacted to important changes in their lives, for example passing from the Stone Age and into the various periods of bronze," said the man in charge of the archaeological team involved in the expedition.

The team from the Archaeology Department of the University of Edinburgh led by Dr. Andrew McCarthy, a professor of history and archaeology and director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, has been excavating for nine seasons at the site of Prastio-Mesorotsos on both banks of the Dhiarizos river, about 15 km from the southwestern coast of Cyprus.

It collected evidence about the people who lived there continually from the Pre-Pottery (Aceramic) Neolithic period to the late Bronze Age, as well as the Late Roman/Byzantine eras, that is from 58 B.C. to at least 695 A.D..

"We believe that the place had been inhabited continually perhaps from the 7th millennium B.C. to about 1,000 B.C. and then was abandoned for about two centuries until it was inhabited again by the same or other people," Dr. McCarthy told Xinhua.

The inhabitants of the site, like people from other sites, probably moved to the newly created city of Palaipaphos, Old Paphos, set up by Mycenean Greeks at the mouth of Diarizos river, which had become famous all over the known world at the time as the center of ceremonies for the worship of Aphrodite, goddess of love.

The same or other people inhabited again the place until 1953 that was abandoned following a strong earthquake that flattened several villages in the area, among them Prastio, which means a suburb with fields or a small settlement near a town.

"The evidence collected at the site gave us a very vivid picture of the people who lived there over a very long period of time," Dr. McCarthy said.

The archaeologists concluded that the people at the site had to adapt to rapid and radical changes that were brought about by the discovery of copper and the onset of bronze.

The team discovered a series of Early Bronze Age roundhouses, unusual for that period, which show continuity from the preceding Late Chalcolithic period.

"A significant architectural and social change seems to have occurred near the end of the Early Bronze Age and the start of the Middle Bronze Age. It can now be demonstrated that the Middle Bronze Age architecture was built using the same basic infrastructure used to build Early Bronze Age houses," a report on the excavation said.

The archaeologists believe from the Middle Bronze Age inhabitants began to terrace and pre-plan their village layout in a more structured manner.

"This marks a drive toward more sophistication and control of the inhabited space just before the site was abandoned at the end of the Middle Bronze Age," the report said.

The team excavated several shallow pits, in one of these pits they found a fragment of an anthropomorphic figurine, perhaps the oldest statue ever found in Cyprus, made of unfired clay. Earlier excavations at the Prastio site led to the discovery of a pit oven for cooking meat for a large crowd.

Employing experimental archaeology, the Cypriot Department of Antiquities constructed a replica of the oven pit 2.5 to 3 meters in diameter, in the grounds of a local restaurant.

It proved to be both capable of cooking meat and also an ideal way for preparing food for large groups of people --a method still being used in Cyprus by people who want to cook meat when away from any utensils.

Meat cooked in a sealed oven, sometimes placed inside vine or carob tree leaves, called "kleftiko", is one of the most delicious and popular dishes in Cyprus to the day. Endit