The single ceramic phase of the Aegean Early Bronze Age known as the ‘Kastri group’ has been dated by scholars either to an early phase of EB 3 or to the late phase of EB 2. However, careful examination of the contextual associations of the characteristic pottery of this group in the Cycladic islands and the mainland, and detailed analysis of the ceramic forms and features first appearing in this phase, show the ‘Kastri group’ pottery to occur, as a rule, with forms of EB 2. It is also shown that either this pottery itself, or certain forms with which it occurs, present features heralding EB 3. It is thus proposed that the ‘Kastri group’ constitutes a transitional phase of apparently short duration, intermediate between EB 2 and 3, overlapping in date with both the last stages of the former and the early stages of the latter and ‘bridging’ these two periods.
Early Cycladic pottery from the lower levels of the site at Akrotiri, especially from the pits dug to bedrock to support the modern roofing, is described and discussed. This demonstrates that Akrotiri was occupied as early as the EC period. Evidence from this for relations with the rest of the Cyclades and the Aegean in general is discussed, together with the possible chronological equations. Most of the pottery belongs to the advanced phases of the Early Cycladic. There is, as yet, no certain evidence for Neolithic.
The dating of the Late Phylakopi I (I-ii/iii) has recently been debated warmly among bronze age specialists. The typological correlations in two sealed contexts of Early Cycladic pottery at Akrotiri show Phylakopi I-ii to overlap with the ‘Kastri’ phase and the ‘Amorgos’ group, and thus to follow EC II without interruption and to date to the early part of EC III. Phylakopi I-iii thus belongs to the later part of EC III, though elsewhere it also seems to overlap with the early Middle Bronze Age. These chronological equations appear valid for Phylakopi and Akrotiri but are not to be considered as applying to all Cycladic sites: at Ayia Irini IV and the Phrourion of Paroikia on Paros the situation seems to be different.
The recent excavations at Akrotiri on Thera have brought to light 21 new EC figurines which, taken together with those already known or completely unknown, raise the number of EC figurines from the site of 37. The Akrotiri figurines comprise a wide range of types, both schematic and naturalistic, covering almost the whole of the known EC sculptural repertoire and also introduce types which are entirely new. Thus they constitute a significant body of evidence, for the following reasons: first, because they show unmistakably the importance of the settlement at Akrotiri already in the third millennium BC; second, because, by contrast with most EC figurines, they come from a systematic excavation; and third, because, including types and showing features up until now rarely seen or even completely unknown in the Cyclades and the Aegean, they enrich our knowledge of EC figurative sculpture and offer us the possibility of drawing a number of inferences.
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