Investigations at Souskiou-Laona settlement, Dhiarizos Valley, 2005 Edgar Peltenburg, Diane Bolger, Mark Kincey, Andrew McCarthy, Carole McCartney and David A. Sewell Background The florescence of the Erimi culture on Cyprus occurred towards the end of the 4 th millennium BC, during the Middle Chalcolithic (MChal) period. It was then that its classic features œ the circular buildings, cruciform figures of picrolite and exuberant Red-on-White pottery including anthro- and zoomorphic vesselsœ reached their most sophisticated and canonical forms. At the eponymous site of Erimi, the largest and most sturdy structures occur in the advanced MChal, at the end of a sequence of increasingly elaborate architectural developments (Dikaios 1936; Bolger 1988). The painted designs on pottery also attain their most complex arrangements with the greatest variety of motifs. It is easily recognizable in survey and, providing this ease has not biased retrieval and recording, its widespread distribution indicates an increase in sedentary populations and perhaps regional integration at this time. These features were possibly generated by an evolution in social complexity attested most obviously by settlement development at Kissonerga-Mosphilia in the west and burial practices at Souskiou-Vathyrkakas . In addition to corroborating the Erimi architectural sequence, Kissonerga Period 3B open area excavation disclosed intra-settlement spatial patterning in which the most sophisticated and imposing structures were closely grouped together in a high sector that was set apart from others by a wall and ditch. They include the painted Red Building, the largest structure in pre-Bronze Age Cyprus, and one that contained an array of display pottery (Peltenburg et al. 1998: 246-247, Col. Pl. B. 1, 2, 6; Fig. 63, 1, 2). One role that may have underpinned the elevated status of the group/household occupying the high sector was control of rituals, especially those concerned with birth. This is evident from the location in the high sector of a unique deposit of defaced building model and some fifty non-utilitarian objects, the most explicit being birthing figurines (Peltenburg et al. 1991). Souskiou-Vathyrkakas has yielded evidence for some 100 rock-cut pit, shaft, bell- shaped, and square-pit-and-shaft MChal tombs (Peltenburg in press). Remarkable T. 73 stands out from all of these by its size, finish and mortuary practices. It is seven times as large 1 as the largest of the remaining tombs, rivalling the biggest of the later Cypriot EC-MC tombs. Its 2.50 m deep upper pit had a smooth white finish designed for public display and not seen elsewhere in the cemetery. Contents of one of the burial pits were most unusually strewn over the base of the upper pit, and the other one contained special objects. At both Kissonerga and Vathyrkakas , therefore, we have evidence for status differences in MChal society, perhaps for ritual practitioners with specialist knowledge. Bloch (1977: 330-331) has described how the ritualisation of power-holders‘ roles could lead to the institutionalisation of power, but this potential trajectory was thwarted until much later in Cyprus. The reasons for the emergence of such explicit status differentiation within egalitarian society are poorly understood. In a similar case of notable increase of well-known anthropomorphic figurines somewhat later in the Cycladic EB, the phenomenon is associated with a maximum dispersal of settlement and an —international spirit“ involving long-distance exchanges (Broodbank 2000: 171-173; 266-267). The question for MChal Cyprus, therefore, is whether the florescence is due to impacts from the outside world, is exclusively an insular development, or a mixture of both. In the later 4th millennium, Susan Sherratt (2000: 17-18) argues that expansion of Middle and Late Uruk into Syria and increasing demands for raw materials by urban centres there and in Mesopotamia prompted contact with and change in outlying regions to the west. There is little in Cyprus, however, to show surplus production for trade or foreign influence during the MChal, but it is likely that maritime contacts between the island and visible mainland did take place, so we need to assess if there is evidence for indirect influences which may signal the existence of motivated local agents who adapted alien cultural elements. Whatever the cause, the MChal florescence came to an end in the early 3rd millennium, and there is a disjuncture with the LChal which is characterised by many novel features. They include an impoverishment of picrolite use and hence major changes in the ideology that led to production of cruciform figurines and the inter-regional exchange system for the raw material. Souskiou-Laona One of the most remarkable and renowned sites of the Cypriot MChal is the Souskiou complex. As described in our first report of this project (Crewe et al. 2005), it is located in southwest Cyprus, 2.5 km inland from Palaepaphos (modern Kouklia). The prominent, narrow ridge on which the settlement is situated overlooks the Dhiarizos River valley and the Troodos Mts. to the northeast, and the Mediterranean to the south (Figs. 1-5). Although the settlement is largely oriented on slopes facing away from the valley, it is nevertheless positioned at a nexus of communication routes along the coast and between the coast and the mountains. Thus, it is perched near the entrance to the highly accessible Dhiarizos River 2 valley, which is the setting for a chain of Chalcolithic sites above the southern and eastern edge of the valley floor up to the Troodos Mts. It is also positioned near the junction of this Mediterranean-Troodos route with the series of sites in the Ktima lowlands, towards Paphos. This is an L-shaped junction of routes and settlements since the area to its southeast comprises intractable hill country that descends sharply to the sea (Fig. 1). Apart from Ranti- Asprokremnos to the east (McCartney 2000), there are no Chalcolithic sites there; hence the complex is also at the edge of a regional grouping of Chalcolithic sites. In sum, Souskiou- Laona lies on major routes at the eastern border of the many Chalcolithic sites of western Cyprus and may therefore be regarded as y a pivotal centre between the relatively well populated west and the rest of the island where resources like picrolite were available (see Peltenburg 1982, 54-55). Four associated cemeteries lie on the same ridge (Souskiou-Laona cemetery) and on the other side of the deeply incised Vathyrkakas stream, opposite the settlement ( Vathyrkakas Cemeteries 1-3) (see Fig. 2). Great significance is attached to the remarkable cemeteries of Souskiou in accounts of Cypriot prehistory (e.g. Knapp et al . 1994, 410; Peltenburg in press; Steel 2004: 96 passim ), but little is known of the associated settlement. Our excavation there constitutes the second phase of Lemba Archaeological Research Centre/University of Edinburgh fieldwork and is integral to a research strategy that seeks to explore the social dynamics underpinning the whole of the exceptional complex. It follows rescue work at the Laona cemetery, as reported in Crewe et al . 2005. To the overall research strategy outlined there should be added our current emphasis on situating the Souskiou complex within its inter-regional context and especially within the Dhiarizos River valley. In spite of the settlement‘s small size when compared to Kissonerga, the complex has yielded metal and faience, two special materials that only occurred later at Kissonerga, and an unrivalled concentration of cruciform figurines and fantastic pottery containers, many of them looted and best known from Vagnetti 1980. As just mentioned, one of the cemeteries, Vathyrkakas 1, also has an extraordinarily large tomb (T. 73) with unusual funerary goods and mortuary behaviour (Peltenburg in press). As at Kissonerga 3B, therefore, there is evidence here for the overt display of status differences, but the complex is quite unlike Kissonerga in size and setting. Given the apparently important role of birthing figures in the maintenance of status differences at Kissonerga, the profusion of similar symbols at Souskiou suggests that this was an exceptional community, something, of course, already evident from the cemeteries, multiple burials in deep tombs and wealth of grave goods. Aside from its value in providing insights on the associated cemeteries, excavation at the Souskiou settlement should contribute to an understanding of the florescence of the Erimi culture before it was so profoundly transformed in the LChal. 3 The settlement Previous work at the Laona settlement led to several conclusions. It was first identified in 1951 by Tryphonas A. Koulermou and the custodian at Kouklia, George Pastos, in an attempt to locate the likely habitations of those who were buried at Vathyrkakas cemetery 1 (Iliffe and Mitford 1952: 50). Hadjisavvas (1977) surveyed it in 1975 when he recorded heaps of stones marking the position of destroyed houses. He attributed it to the Chalcolithic 1 (E-MChal) period, with a possibility that it was also used during the Neolithic. The Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project (CPSP) re-surveyed the site in 1991 as part of its major survey in SW Cyprus (Rupp et al. 1992). Its report shows that finds were scattered in a 1.4 ha area on the southerly slopes of the Laona ridge. From her analysis of the site‘s pottery, Clarke concluded that it was an unusual assemblage for two reasons. First is the presence of Red-on-Red pottery, which is early within the MChal and which she regarded as an eastern ware only found at Souskiou amongst known western Chalcolithic sites. Second, the assemblage is completely dissimilar from others investigated by the CPSP, a contrast she suggests may not be due to chronological disparities. She also concluded that the site was largely MChal with the possibility of LChal presence ( apud Rupp et al.