num_pages: 320
description: Beneath the Bronze Age 'Palace of Minos', Neolithic Knossos is one of the earliest known farming settlements in Europe and perhaps the longest-lived. For 3000 years, Neolithic Knossos was also perhaps one of very few settlements on Crete and, for much of this time, maintained a distinctive material culture. This volume radically enhances understanding of the important, but hitherto little known, Neolithic settlement and culture of Crete. Thirteen papers, from the tenth Sheffield Aegean Round Table in January 2006, explore two aspects of the Cretan the results of recent re-analysis of a range of bodies of material from J.D. Evans' excavations at EN-FN Knossos; and new insights into the Cretan Late and Final Neolithic and the contentious belated colonisation of the rest of the island, drawing on both new and old fieldwork. Papers in the first group examine the idiosyncratic Knossian ceramic chronology (P. Tomkins), human figurines from a gender perspective (M. Mina), funerary practices (S. Triantaphyllou), chipped stone technology (J. Conolly), land and-use and its social implications (V. Isaakidou). Those in the second group, present a re-evaluation of LN Katsambas (N. Galanidou and K. Mandeli), evidence for later Neolithic exploration of eastern Crete (T. Strasser), Ceremony and consumption at late Final Neolithic Phaistos (S. Todaro and S. Di Tonto), Final Neolithic settlement patterns (K. Nowicki), the transition to the Early Bronze Age at Kephala Petra (Y. Papadatos), and a critical appraisal of Final Neolithic 'marginal colonisation' (P. Halstead). In conclusion, C. Broodbank places the Cretan Neolithic within its wider Mediterranean context and J.D. Evans provides an autobiographical account of a lifetime of insular Neolithic exploration.Table of ContentsIntroduction ( Valasia Isaakidou and peter D. Tomkins )Approaching the Labyrinth ( John D. Evans )Time, Space and the Reinvention of the Cretan Neolithic)A sea of Crete in the context of the earliest Neolithic in Greece ( Kostas Kotsakis )The knapped stone technology of the first occupants at Knossos ( James Conolly )'The fauna and economy of Neolithic Knossos' revisited ( Valasia Isaakidou )Figurin' out Cretan Neolithic Anthropomorphic figurines, symbolism and gender dialectics ( Maria Mina )Living with the a re-consideration of mortuary practices in the Greek Neolithic ( Sevi Triantaphyllou )Stones of regional axe production and hidden landscapes on Neolithic Crete ( Thomas F. Strasser )Neolithic Katsambas the evidence from the house ( Nena Galanidou and Katya Mantelli )The Neolithic settlement of Phiastos Evidence for ceremonial activity on the eve of the Bronze Age ( Simona Todaro and Serena di Tonto )Obsidian in the Technological reorganization of the Obsidian industry from Petras Kephala (Siteia) between Final Neolitic IV and Early Minoan I ( Cesare D'Annibale )The final Neolithic (Late Chalcolithic) to Early Bronze Age transition in Crete and the south-east Aegean changes in settlement patterns and pottery ( Krzysztof Nowick )Between a rock and a hard coping with marginal colonisation in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Crete and the Aegean ( Paul Halstead )The Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition in New evidence from the settlement at Petras Kephala, Siteia ( Yiannis Papadatos )Long after Hippos, well before a commentary on the cultures and contexts of Neolitic Crete ( Cyprian Broodbank )The Neolithic of Crete, as seen from outside ( Andrew Sherratt and Susan Sherratt )
language: English
title: Escaping the Labyrinth: The Cretan Neolithic in Context
titlecomplete: Escaping the Labyrinth: The Cretan Neolithic in Context (Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology)
ratings_count: 3
publisher: Oxbow Books