First wave of cultivators spread to Cyprus at least 10,600 y ago

Abstract

Early Neolithic sedentary villagers started cultivating wild cereals in the Near East 11,500 y ago [Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)]. Recent discoveries indicated that Cyprus was frequented by Late PPNA people, but the earliest evidence until now for both the use of cereals and Neolithic villages on the island dates to 10,400 y ago. Here we present the recent archaeological excavation at Klimonas, which demonstrates that established villagers were living on Cyprus between 11,100 and 10,600 y ago. Villagers had stone artifacts and buildings (including a remarkable 10-m diameter communal building) that were similar to those found on Late PPNA sites on the mainland. Cereals were introduced from the Levant, and meat was obtained by hunting the only ungulate living on the island, a small indigenous Cypriot wild boar. Cats and small domestic dogs were brought from the mainland. This colonization suggests well-developed maritime capabilities by the PPNA period, but also that migration from the mainland may have occurred shortly after the beginning of agriculture.domestication | Sus scrofa | food production | prehistoric seafaring | Neolithic mobility T he transition from hunting-gathering to food production is a major step in the history of humanity and the biosphere (1, 2). Humans begun to cultivate morphologically wild cereals and pulses over a wide area in the Near East by ∼11.5 cal kyBP (thousands of calibrated radiocarbon years before present), a period known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) (3-7). Early cultivators lived in small villages and continued to hunt and gather in the wild (8-10). By 10.5-9 cal kyBP, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), villages increased in size, and the subsistence strategy developed into an established mixed agropastoral economy based on domesticated crops and animals (sheep, goat, pig, and cattle) (11-13). Previous research indicates that the first farmers settled Cyprus during the Early PPNB, beginning ∼10.4 cal kyBP (14, 15), bringing with them domestic cereals, pulses, goat, cattle, sheep, and pig to the island (SI Appendix, SI Text S1) (14,16,17). Before these settlements, the only known human presence on Cyprus was limited to the small Aetokremnos rock shelter occupied by fisher-trappers dating to 12.5 cal kyBP (18). Recently, three sites dated to ∼11.1-10.6 cal kyBP have been discovered (19)(20)(21)(22). The extensive excavations at one of these sites, Klimonas (SI Appendix, Figs. S1 and S2), unearthed plant remains, abundant animal bones, thousands of artifacts, and the remains of several buildings, including one communal structure. These finds reveal previously unknown aspects of the social and economic organization of the inhabitants of Cyprus at this early date.Our analyses of these finds combined with a series of 11 radiocarbon dates demonstrate that Cyprus was settled by Neolithic villagers several centuries earlier than suspected, a phenomenon that has far-reaching implications for a fuller understanding of the Neolithic Revolution in the Near East. The inhabi...

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