The Wider Island of Pelops

This volume explores the myriad ways in which pottery was created, utilized, and experienced in the prehistoric Aegean, across a period of more than 4000 years between the Middle Neolithic and the Early Iron Age transition.

The Wider Island of Pelops explores the myriad ways in which pottery was created, utilized, and experienced in the prehistoric Aegean, across a period of more than 4000 years between the Middle Neolithic and the Early Iron Age transition. Pottery is capable both of creating bonds and creating barriers. It serves as a sociocultural call and response, marking similarity and difference, collectivism and individualism, knowledge, and the absence of knowledge. Contextually-bound, it embodies identities, memories and multiple histories. It reflects choice and reinforces orthodoxy; a product of change, and a driver of it, that both creates and curates understanding of the world. Necessity and commodity, at times anachronistic, and at others, avant-garde, it is subversive and slavish, innovative and derivative; visible always, and never without value. The seventeen papers collected here provide a diachronic perspective on the value of pottery in marking and mediating cross-scale sociocultural discourse; in framing and facilitating the transmission of knowledge and meaning; in driving economies; in the preservation of memory, in the practice of cult; and, in more recent times, as a vector in the dialogue of imperialism: at once introducing key themes in the study of Aegean pottery, and providing a snapshot of recent archaeological work in Greece.

Preface Professor Christopher Mee (1950-2013) The Late-Final Neolithic and Early Helladic I Pottery from Midea in the Argolid: Continuity and Change - Eva Alram-Stern, Clare Burke, Katie Demakopoulou, and Peter M. Day Kouphovouno and the Cyclades: A Note - Robin Barber A Submerged EH II Settlement at Lambayanna in the Argolid: The Preliminary Results of the 2015 Survey - Julien Beck, Patrizia Birchler Emery, Despina Koutsoumba Tradition, Transition, and the Impact of the New in Neolithic Greece - William Cavanagh and Josette Renard Final Neolithic and Early Helladic Pottery from Geraki - Joost Crouwel Understanding Mycenae - E.B. French Localism and Interconnectivity in a Post-Palatial Laconian Maritime Landscape (Late Helladic IIIC to Submycenaean/Early Protogeometric) - Chrysanthi Gallou, Jon Henderson, Elias Spondylis, William Cavanagh Similarities and Differences between Korakou and Kolonna in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages - Walter Gauss The Ceramic Assemblage of Leska on Kythera - Mercourios Georgiadis Regional Diversities or Occupational Gap? Pottery Styles During the Late 14th and 13th Centuries BC at Ayios Vasileios - Eleftheria Kardamaki, Vasco Hachtmann, Adamantia Vasilogamvrou, Nektarios Karadimas, Sofia Voutsaki The Expansion of Mortuary Behaviour and Rites Across the Coastal Caves of the Mani Peninsula, Laconia, during the Final Neolithic: Evidence from the Burial Sites of Skoini 3 and Skoini 4 - Stella Katsarou and Andreas Darlas Attica during the Final Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age: Regional Ceramic Traditions and Connections with Neighbouring Areas - Margarita Nazou The Study of Mycenaean Pottery from Cyprus: A Short Story of the 1895 British Museum Excavations at Site D, Kourion - Angelos Papadopoulos Filling a Gap: First Steps in the Discovery of Early Helladic III Laconia - Aris Papayiannis Ceramic Surprises from LH IIIC Aigeira - Jeremy Rutter Coarse Labours Long Continued: Cooking Vessels, Culinary Technology and Prehistoric Foodways at Phylakopi, Melos - David Michael Smith Ritual Pyres in Minoan Peak Sanctuaries. Reality and Popular Myths - Iphigeneia Tournavitou, Preface ;

Professor Christopher Mee (1950-2013) ;

The Late-Final Neolithic and Early Helladic I Pottery from Midea in the Argolid: Continuity and Change – Eva Alram-Stern, Clare Burke, Katie Demakopoulou, and Peter M. Day Kouphovouno and the Cyclades: A Note – Robin Barber A Submerged EH II Settlement at Lambayanna in the Argolid: The Preliminary Results of the 2015 Survey – Julien Beck, Patrizia Birchler Emery, Despina Koutsoumba Tradition, Transition, and the Impact of the New in Neolithic Greece – William Cavanagh and Josette Renard Final Neolithic and Early Helladic Pottery from Geraki – Joost Crouwel Understanding Mycenae – E.B. French † ;