KEROS - Kavos - Dhaskalio - 2009

Keros, Kavos-Dhaskalio. C. Renfrew (BSA/Cambridge) reports on the 2009 study season.

The stratigraphic sequence at Dhaskalio is divided into three main phases, the first two coinciding with the use of the Special Deposit. Most levels are assigned to a late phase in the Early Cycladic, succeeding that of the Kastri Group and approximately equivalent to ECycIII, partially contemporary with the First City at Phylakopi. The Dhaskalio settlement thus flourished after the heyday of the Special Deposit South.

Finds characteristic of the Special Deposit South (e.g., broken marble figurines or the multiple-headed lamps found in fragmentary form at Kavos) are not found on Dhaskalio, although Dhaskalio has produced a high proportion of imported materials. Study of several categories of object (pottery, stone spools and marble bowls, vessels and figurines) confirms that, with few exceptions, breakage did not occur locally, but fragmentary material was brought here for dedication. Study of the typology of the marble figurines continues. No examples of the types common in Early Cycladic cemeteries have been found at the Dhaskalio settlement, despite their abundance in the Special Deposit South. However, the 11 schematic figurines found on Dhaskalio include examples of a type now designated the Dhaskalio sub-variety (Fig. 1). Most belong to settlement phase C, when the Early Cycladic cemeteries had gone out of use, although the Special Deposit South continued.

Among a range of specialist studies in progress, analysis of plant materials reveals evidence of the domesticated olive, not hitherto well documented in Early Bronze Age contexts.