Were the S.E. Aegean Islands deserted in the MBA?

Abstract

Many interesting aspects appear in the article by J. Davis about “the earliest Minoans in the S.E. Aegean” (AnSt. XXXII, (1982), 33–41). There are two aspects in his work, the archaeological and the historical, both quite important for the research in this area.I would like to comment first on the archaeological evidence.Davis gives a review of the Light-on-Dark (henceforth L-on-D) fabric of E. Aegean sites (Trianda, Miletus, Serraglio, Iasos), and points out that the stratigraphic evidence suggests that “pots of this kind were in use during the early phases of the LBA.” (ibid. 36). He goes on to examine the settlement pattern of the S.E. Aegean islands (Samos, Rhodes, Karpathos, Kasos) and concludes that because “there is a paucity of evidence for MBA (or even EBA) settlements of any sort, in contact with Crete or not—on these same islands … there is a possibility that the islands were nearly uninhabited in the MBA.” (ibid. 39).