Cypriote archaeology in Goteborg: papers presented at a symposium on Cypriote archaeology held in Goteborg 20 May 1998.

Cypriote archaeology in Goteborg: papers presented at a symposium on Cypriote archaeology held in Goteborg 20 May 1998. KARIN H. NIKLASSON (ed.). Cypriote archaeology in Goteborg: paperspresented at a symposium on Cypriote archaeology held in Goteborg 20 May1998 (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology & Literature Pocket-book157). 109 pages, figures. 1999. Jonsered: Paul Astrom; 91-7081-146-6hardback SEK SEKIn currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Swedish Krona.Notes:The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. 200. Dr SIMMONS argues that the bones of pygmy hippopotamus pygmy hippopotamusChoeropsis liberiensis; see hippopotamus. found withfeatures and artefacts at Aetokremnos, on the Akrotiri Peninsula ofsouthern Cyprus, indicate that the species was killed off here by humancolonization. The `overkill' hypothesis has been applied toterminal Pleistocene history in various parts of the world and atvarious scales. It probably works better for islands than for largerterritories. Aetokremnos is thought to date to c. 9000-8500 BC, whichmakes it the island's earliest archaeology. Amidst other animalremains, the bones of more than 500 hippos were recovered. Dr SIMMONSdiscounts climate change as a factor in the extinction of this animal onCyprus; but he allows that hunting as such was not necessarily the solecause. The population may have been diminishing already; and thecolonists may have disturbed the habitat by fire and possibly byintroducing deer and pigs. His book reports on the stratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the andsedimentology sedimentologyScientific discipline concerned with the physical and chemical properties of sedimentary rocks and the processes involved in their formation, including transportation, deposition, and lithification of sediments. , the excavation, features and assemblages, and therelative and absolute dating. His assessments of human impact aredeveloped through sustained modelling and calculation and in referenceto both the substantial ecological, palaeonotological and archaeologicalliterature on the general theme of colonization and extinction and thestate of the art in studies of `pre-Neolithic' archaeology onMediterranean islands and coasts. The text is well organized but thephotographs and many of the line drawings are second-rate or worse. Dr PELTENBURG has published the third report on the excavationsamong the prehistoric Lemba sites. It deals with the Neolithic andChalcolithic settlement of Kissonerga. He proposes that the theoreticalinterest of the investigation reported here is twofold: the developmentand decline of social hierarchy; and the problem of settlement shift inthe archaeology of Cyprus. Were there many periods of change or is itmerely that archaeologists' samples at specific `sites' misslinks in a continuous process? On the whole, Dr PELTENBURG opts for thelatter view; and he considers that some, at least, of the shifts atKissonerga were planned for local political ends (cf. `Settlementshift', pp. 950-51, below). Splendid exposures of houses and the plan of parts of thesettlement were obtained. Economic intensification proceeded gradually:the proportion of storage capacity increased; and changing proportionsof animal bones seem to reflect the spread of human impact on thesurrounding landscape. Most remarkable is building B3, a LateChalcolithic `pithos house' burnt down full of some 4000 litres offood and liquid, tools, traces of working metal and minerals, shell, andpossibly even of pressing olives and a baby apparently trapped in theblaze. Also exceptional was the amount of deer bone, as though huntingand venison venison(vĕn`ĭzən)[O.Fr.,=hunting], term formerly applied to the flesh of any wild beast or game hunted and used for food but now restricted to the flesh of members of the deer family. were perquisites of its users. There remains a gap in the sequence, corresponding to much of theearlier 3rd millennium BC. One of the signal changes during that periodwas in burial rites. Eighty-nine inhumations were found in and betweenthe houses, including the first chambered tombs on the island, probablyfrom the early 3rd millennium. Up to that time, the great majority ofthe burials were of children but, thereafter, the proportion of adultsincreased (cf. Opuscula Atheniensia in `The Swedish Institutes',below). At the same time, there was a more than proportionate increasein effort invested in digging tombs and providing the corpses withaccompanying goods. Contemporary with the change in burial, there camethe first signs of contact with the mainland. This outstanding report is accompanied by Vol. II.1B, whichprovides more detailed data from the excavations. For lack of a Sites& Monuments Record of work other than by the government, DrPELTENBURG has worried about accessibility of detailed data for Cyprus;but, considering the expense of publication, Vol. II.1B has beenproduced electronically and in the Occasional Papers of the Departmentof Archaeology, University of Edinburgh (body, education) University of Edinburgh - A university in the centre of Scotland's capital. The University of Edinburgh has been promoting and setting standards in education for over 400 years. . In the first part of his elegant book, Dr TARAMIDES presents a fineset of photographs of prehistoric pottery. The second part, equally wellillustrated, describes in detail nine Early/Middle Bronze Age plates andthe report of examination by scanning electron microscope scan��ning electron microscopen. Abbr. SEMAn electron microscope that forms a three-dimensional image on a cathode-ray tube by moving a beam of focused electrons across an object and reading both the electrons scattered by the object and of four ofthem. Dr TARAMIDES suggests that these `satzes' were designed forcooking at high temperature and that they were pierced and slipped inorder to provide `non-stick' surfaces. The text is in both Englishand Greek. K.H. NIKLASSON has assembled seven papers in English on aspects ofthe later prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to of Cyprus, based on research both on the island andin the Aegean basin and the Levant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. . They deal with stone tools andpottery, and with Late Bronze Age tombs. Prof. Astrom reviews thecontribution of Goteborg University to the study of archaeology inCyprus and reports on `Recent discoveries at Hala Sultan Tekke'. Dr RAPTOU's review of archaeology, sculpture and literaryevidence has convinced him that influence on Cyprus from Athensincreased markedly c. 600-375 BC. The evidence is especially clear frompottery imported to Cyprus and in sculptural style. He detects in bothartists and purchasers `un changement profond de gout gout,condition that manifests itself as recurrent attacks of acute arthritis, which may become chronic and deforming. It results from deposits of uric acid crystals in connective tissue or joints. mais aussi dementalite' (p. 265). Whether or not he has identified the precisehistorical juncture, its effects have been very important for theeastern Mediterranean as a whole. Dr RAPTOU considers that regionalpolitics c. 400 were the critical factor; but, he is treading on verysensitive intellectual and ethical ground -- read on.