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Island Archaeology and the Origins of Seafaring in the Eastern Mediterranean

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Island Archaeology and the Origins of Seafaring in the Eastern Mediterranean An offprint from ISLAND ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ORIGINS OF SEAFARING IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Proceedings of the Wenner Gren Workshop held at Reggio Calabria on October 19-21, 2012 In memory of John D. Evans Eurasian Prehistory Guest Editors: Albert J. Ammerman and Thomas Davis PART ONE (Eurasian Prehistory 10/2013) Introduction 1. Introduction Albert J. Ammerman 2. Chronological framework Thomas W. Davis Placing island archaeology and early voyaging in context 3. The origins of mammals on the Mediterranean islands as an indicator of early voyaging Jean-Denis Vigne 4. Cosmic impact, the Younger Dryas, Abu Hureyra, and the inception of agriculture in Western Asia Andrew M. T. Moore and Douglas J. Kennett 5. The homelands of the Cyprus colonizers: selected comments Ofer Bar-Yosef 6. Marine resources in the Early Neolithic of the Levant: their relevance to early seafaring Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer 7. Early seafaring and the archaeology of submerged landscapes Geoff N. Bailey Case studies A. Cyprus 8. Tracing the steps in the fieldwork at the sites of Aspros and Nissi Beach on Cyprus Albert J. Ammerman 9. Akrotiri-Aetokremnos (Cyprus) 20 years later: an assessment of its significance Alan H. Simmons 10. The transportation of mammals to Cyprus sheds light on early voyaging and boats in the Mediterranean Sea Jean-Denis Vigne, Antoine Zazzo, Isabella Carrère, François Briois and Jean Guilaine 11. On the chipped stone assemblages at Klimonas and Shillourokambos and their links with the mainland François Briois and Jean Guilaine PART TWO (Eurasian Prehistory 11/2014) 12. Temporal placement and context of Cyro-PPNA activity on Cyprus Sturt W. Manning B. The Aegean 13. The Aegean Mesolithic: material culture, chronology, and networks of contact Małgorzata Kaczanowska and Janusz K. Kozłowski 14. The Aegean Mesolithic: environment, economy, and voyaging Adamantios Sampson 15. The late forager camp of Ouriakos on the island of Lemnos: Human groups on the move at the turn of the Holocene in the Northern Aegean Nikos Efstratiou 16. Initial occupation of the Gelibolu Peninsula and the Gökçeada (Imbroz) island in the pre-Neolithic and Early Neolithic Onur Özbek and Burçin Erdogu 17. Lower Palaeolithic artifacts from Plakias, Crete: Implications for hominin dispersals Curtis Runnels, Chad DiGregorio, Karl W. Wegmann, Sean F. Gallen, Thomas F. Strasser, Eleni Panagopoulou C. Central and Western Mediterranean 18. The spread of farming to the Adriatic: New insights from Dalmatia Andrew M. T. Moore 19. The question of voyaging foragers in the Central Mediterranean Marcello A. Mannino 20. Early prehistoric voyaging in the Western Mediterranean: Implications for the Neolithic transition in Iberia and the Maghreb João Zilhão Looking forward 21. Setting our sights on the distant horizon Albert J. Ammerman Eurasian Prehistory, 10 (1–2): 157–176 THE TRANSPORTATION OF MAMMALS TO CYPRUS SHEDS LIGHT ON EARLY VOYAGING AND BOATS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA Jean-Denis Vigne1, Antoine Zazzo1, Thomas Cucchi1, 2, Isabelle Carrère3, François Briois3 and Jean Guilaine3, 4 1CNRS, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, «Archéozoologie, archéobotanique: sociétés, pratiques et environnements» (UMR 7209), CP 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France; [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2University of Aberdeen, Department of Archaeology, UK 3Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Centre d’Anthropologie, TRACES (UMR 5608), Université Toulouse Le Mirail, CNRS, Toulouse, France; [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 4Collège de France, Paris, France Abstract Our interest here is in studying the history of the relationships between human being and animals on islands for reconstructing prehistoric voyaging and boats. The chapter aims to examine how the considerable amount of new evidence that archaeozoology has accumulated over the two last decades on Cyprus can throw new light in the Eastern Mediterranean on the poorly known questions of the intensity and the capabilities of early seafarers in the time between 12,500 and 9,000 cal. BP. It first revisits the paleogeographical framework of Cyprus in the light of recent geographical and geological approaches. In particular, it addresses the question of the presence of stepping stone islets between Cyprus and the mainland at the end of the Late Glacial. Then, it presents a brief review of the archaeozoological data, peculiarly those from the early sites of Aetokremnos, Klimonas and Shillourokambos. They indicate a marked increase of the immigration rate of mammals, which begins in the 13th millennium BP and culminated during the first half of the 10th millennium BP (the time of the Middle PPNB). Based on this scenario and on the biological constraints that are connected with the transportation by boat of large ruminants and with the evolution of mice in island conditions, we conclude that voyagers, in all likelihood, constituted separate and specialized human groups. Starting from 10,500 cal. BP at least and probably going back to 11,000 BP, they were controlling the voyages being made between the mainland and Cyprus so well that they were able to cross the sea several times each year and to cope with the difficult problem of the transportation of large ruminants. This implies that the boats in use were already much more sophisticated than one suspected before. They were likely sailing boats, fast and big enough for transporting weaned calves standing in the boat. Key words: early navigation, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, island biogeography, archaeozoology INTRODUCTION a major role in the reconstruction of the beginnings of seafaring in the Mediterranean basin. The Near East is one of the main Eurasian regions Less than 25 years ago, the earliest evidence of innovation between the end of the Late Glacial for the frequentation of Cyprus by human beings and the beginning of the Holocene. Cyprus is the went back only to the 8th millennium BP: that is, only large and remote island in this area. Therefore, with the Khirokitia culture. It was considered to be the history of its settlement by human beings plays an impoverished and marginal version of the first 158 J.-D. Vigne et al. pottery Neolithic cultures on the adjacent areas 1999; see also Vigne in this issue). The present of the Near East. In short, the Khirokitian was chapter aims to take advantage of the huge characterized by a combination of anachronisms amount of new archaeozoological data recovered and unique island traits: round houses and a rough on Cyprus during the last three decades and to lithic industry; the absence of pottery, obsidian, draw up an assessment of the existing evidence cattle and dogs; a high level of deer hunting; on early seafaring. At the same time, we shall special burial practices; paintings and figurines try to compare what we have learned from the (e.g., Le Brun et al., 1987; Ronen, 1995). All of experimental evidence that is currently available this suggested that Cyprus was not closely linked (in particular, that of the Monoxylon 2 expedition; with the continent, and that voyaging on the open Tichý, 1999), together with knowledge about sea was surprisingly poor there at a time when it traditional Mediterranean boats of reasonably old had even a much deeper history going back some age, and to put forward a reconstruction, as a first 30,000 years in Southeast Asia. approximation, of what the earliest boats in the Since the 1980s, the discoveries made at Mediterranean would have looked like. Before several new archaeological sites have shown that doing that, it will be useful to revisit briefly the the prehistory of Cyprus began at a much earlier basic paleogeographical and paleontological time, and they led to the documentation of a frameworks, 25 years after the pioneering work series of older cultures that are, on the whole, far of S.O. Held (1989). less divergent from those on the mainland than the one found at Khirokitia. Thus, there is now a completely different story – and it drastically PALEOGEOGRAPHICAL UPDATE modifies the image of maritime exchange and interaction between Cyprus and the mainland at At least for its southern part, Cyprus is a typical the boundary of the Late Glacial and the early oceanic island (in the geological sense of the Holocene. After 25 years of intensive research term): it rose up from the bottom of the oceanic by various archaeological teams conducting floor starting from the early Tertiary Era due to the surveys, excavations and analyses, not all the Eastern Mediterranean subduction; it was built up questions, of course, have been solved and not around a core of volcanic material coming from all the information obtained has been exploited. oceanic plates; and it was never land-bridged to However, it is now possible to draw up a series of any of the surrounding continents (Henson et al., new assessments, including the latest inferences 1949; Held, 1989; Geological Survey Department, with regard to the transportation of people, 2013). However, it is of the utmost importance materials, animals and plants to the island, and for our purpose to know as precisely as possible to discuss in wider terms their implications for the paleogeographical and paleo-oceanographic the nature of early seafaring (what many of the conditions that seafarers faced during the span of specialists who took part in the Wenner Gren time that we consider in this chapter. Held (1989) Workshop now prefer to call “voyaging”) in the rightfully insisted on the importance of what years between 12,500 and 9,000 BP. he called the island’s “geometric properties”: As S.J.M. Davis (1984) already emphasized distance/currents, target size, coastline, coastal in his research on the mammals at Khirokitia, morphology, and the existence of stepping-stone paleontological and archaeozoological informa- islands. In this first section, the plan is to return to tion is of utmost importance not only for the questions that concern the distances, the stepping study of the times, rhythms and intensity of stone islands and the currents.
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