The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus: An Archaeology of Environmental and Social Change 9781316513125, 9781009071826, 1316513122

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
1 Introduction
Unruly Landscapes
Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus
A Map
On Chronology
Part I On Environs
2 Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape: Environments, Climates, Weathering
Introduction
Archaeologies of Landscape
Environments, Climates, Histories
Weathered Landscapes
Conclusions
3 Unruly Landscapes: Rural Resources, Territory, Time
Introduction
Consuming Landscapes
Territory and the Messy Chora
Unruly Time
Conclusions
Part II On the Rural
4 Pulses in an Electromagnetic Field: First-Millennium bce Environmental and Social Change
Collapse and Regeneration
An Environmental History of the Early First-Millennium BCE
Surveying Landscapes of Before and After
Conclusions
5 Beyond Amathus: South-Central Cyprus in Context
Introduction
Emergent Settlements
Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes
A South-Central Small World?
Conclusions
6 Gypsum, Copper, Soil: Archaic Countrysides
Introduction
Gypsum
Copper and Trees
Soil and Water
Conclusions
7 Conclusions: Becoming Rural
Relational Countrysides
Unruly Anthropocenes
Appendix: List of Survey Sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni Valleys
Notes
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape
3 Unruly Landscapes
4 Pulses in an Electromagnetic Field
5 Beyond Amathus
6 Gypsum, Copper, Soil
7 Conclusions
Appendix
References
Index

Citation preview

The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus

The ninth to the fifth centuries bce saw a series of significant historical transformations across Cyprus, especially in the growth of towns and in developments in the countryside. In this book, Catherine Kearns argues that novel patterns of urban and rural sedentism drove social changes as diverse communities cultivated new landscape practices. Climatic changes fostered uneven relationships between people, resources like land, copper, and wood, and increasingly important places like rural sanctuaries and cemeteries. Bringing together a range of archaeological, textual, and scientific evidence, the book examines landscapes, environmental history, and rural practices to argue for their collective instrumentality in the processes driving Iron Age political formations. It suggests how rural households managed the countryside, interacted with the remains of earlier generations, and created gathering spaces alongside the development of urban authorities. Offering new insights into landscape archaeologies, Dr. Kearns contributes to current debates about society’s relationships with changing environments.

Catherine Kearns  is an assistant professor in the Department of Classics, University of Chicago. She conducts fieldwork on Iron Age sites in Cyprus with the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments Project, for which she has received support from the Mellon Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Loeb Classical Library Foundation, and the US Fulbright program. She has published in numerous journals and recently co-edited New Directions in Cypriot Archaeology (2019).

The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus An Archaeology of Environmental and Social Change Catherine Kearns University of Chicago

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781316513125 DOI: 10.1017/9781009071826 © Catherine Kearns 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-316-51312-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Alex

Contents

List of Figures [page ix] List of Tables [xiii] Preface [xv]

1 Introduction

[1]

Unruly Landscapes [14] Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus [20] A Map [33] On Chronology [37]

Part I: On Environs 2 Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape: Environments, Climates, Weathering [43] Introduction [43] Archaeologies of Landscape [47] Environments, Climates, Histories [53] Weathered Landscapes [65] Conclusions [73]

3 Unruly Landscapes: Rural Resources, Territory, Time [76] Introduction [76] Consuming Landscapes [82] Territory and the Messy Chora Unruly Time [99] Conclusions [106]

[90]

Part II: On the Rur al 4 Pulses in an Electromagnetic Field: First-Millennium bce Environmental and Social Change [113]

Collapse and Regeneration [113] An Environmental History of the Early First-Millennium bce [119] Surveying Landscapes of Before and After [130] Conclusions [150]

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5 Beyond Amathus: South-Central Cyprus in Context [154] Introduction [154] Emergent Settlements [159] Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes [171] A South-Central Small World? [186] Conclusions [198]

6 Gypsum, Copper, Soil: Archaic Countrysides [204] Introduction [204] Gypsum [206] Copper and Trees [221] Soil and Water [230] Conclusions [241]

7 Conclusions: Becoming Rural [244] Relational Countrysides [245] Unruly Anthropocenes [261]

Appendix: List of Survey Sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni Valleys [267] Notes [275] References [288] Index [350]

Figures

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

2.1

3.1 3.2

3.3 4.1 4.2

4.3

Idalion Tablet, (a) Face A and (b) Face B (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. 2297) [page 2] Map of Cyprus showing its position in the eastern Mediterranean, the central Troodos massif, and major historical sites. 75 m DEM [7] Kingdoms and hypothetical boundaries ca. 673 bce (adapted from Rupp 1987: 166, map 4) [22] Position of Vasilikos and Maroni river valleys on the south-central coast, east of Amathus, showing geomorphological zones [27] Survey findings for Geometric and Archaic sites around Amathus and in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, showing an outline of survey grids, and inset of central acropolis and surrounding necropoleis at Amathus. 75 m DEM [28] Virtual three-dimensional reconstruction of the Pithos Hall within Building X at Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, ca. 1300 bce (drawn by Lisa McClean, courtesy of Kevin D. Fisher and the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments Project) [68] Stele of Sargon II (Pergamonmuseum, Berlin VA 986) [77] Map showing upper and lower pillow lava formations (pink) around the Troodos massif and historical polities. 75 m DEM (adapted from Kassianidou 2013: 51, fig. 1) [79] Cross-channel wall in a detached alluvial channel, west of the Vasilikos River [87] Distribution of major Late Bronze Age urban centers [115] The radiocarbon curve (black line) for 3000 bce–1950 ce, showing section 1000–500 bce in more detail, as well as radiocarbon content decay (magenta) and residual radiocarbon (aquamarine) records. Number 1 points to the cooling episode ca. 750 bce (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning) [124] Pollen diagram summarizing data from Söğüt in southwest Anatolia and the estimated boundaries of the Beyşehir Occupation Phase (figure courtesy of Neil Roberts [2019: 55, fig. 3]; pollen diagram data from Van Zeist et al. 1975) [128]

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List of Figures

4.4

4.5 4.6

5.1 5.2

5.3 5.4 5.5

5.6 5.7 5.8

5.9

5.10 5.11

5.12 5.13

Onset (a) and endings (b) for the Beyşehir Occupation Phase, showing number of sites per century (figure courtesy of Neil Roberts [2019: 58, fig. 7]) [129] Outlines of surveys mentioned in southern Cyprus [137] Cemetery groupings around the site of Palaipaphos (village of Kouklia), showing Late Bronze Age tomb areas (black stars) and the shift to extramural Iron Age burials (black circles). 75 m DEM (adapted from Janes 2013: 152, fig. 5; Iacovou 2019: 218, 226, figs. 13, 24) [146] Amphoriskos, Amathus, ca. 520 bce (British Museum C855) [155] Amathus positioned between Limassol and the Late Bronze Age urban sites of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and the Maroni complex. 75 m DEM [160] Survey findings in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys for the Late Bronze Age, later Geometric, and Archaic periods. 75 m DEM [162] Iron Age sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys categorized by estimated area in hectares (Appendix) [163] Survey findings of the Geometric and Archaic periods from the region of Amathus and the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, categorized according to temporal phasing and continuity from earlier occupations. 75 m DEM [164] Survey findings showing tombs or cemeteries (red stars). 75 m DEM [172] Distribution of metal weapons in Iron Age tombs, Amathus (adapted from Janes 2013: 158, fig. 9) [176] Distribution of mentioned sanctuaries or shrines as well as figurine survey finds (yellow triangles), showing Archaic settlements and tombs (red stars). 75 m DEM [178] (a) Map of Vasilikos Valley showing location of ancient mines and Kalavasos Skouries and (b) Photograph of small stone-built structure at Kalavasos Skouries. 75 m DEM [180] Dancers in ring composition, Kalavasos Skouries (courtesy of Vasiliki Kassianidou) [181] Maroni Vournes, Ashlar Building, with Archaic sanctuary walls and remodeling shown in orange and inset of drone photo of remains (adapted from Ulbrich 2013: 33, fig. 1) [182] Rivers and known ancient anchorages along the south-central coast. 75 m DEM (adapted from Andreou 2018: 3, fig. 2) [187] Three Archaic shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey (adapted from Greene et al. 2013: 23) [191]

List of Figures

5.14 Examples of Cypro-Archaic ceramic fragments found in survey in the Vasilikos Valley, showing range of pithoi and plain wares, basket-handled amphorae, and painted table wares [192] 5.15 Commercial Levantine amphora with incised markings, Asgata Kambos (drawing courtesy of Anna Georgiadou) [194] 5.16 Map of the southern Troodos massif and foothills showing Roman road network in black and survey area in green box, with possible local routes in yellow dotted lines. 75 m DEM [197] 6.1 The Kalavasos Formation (yellow) shown over geological zones, with photographs of local gypsum outcrops [209] 6.2 Geological map of Kalavasos Vounaritashi showing interface of gypsum and limestone formations (Lefkara and Pachna) with the site of Kalavasos Mitsingites, and inset showing location on the Vasilikos River. 5 m contours [210] 6.3 View of the site of Kalavasos Vounaritashi (looking north) [211] 6.4 Topographic map showing outlines of estimated site areas at Kalavasos Vounaritashi and ascribed periods, identified by the Vasilikos Valley Project (adapted from Todd 2004: 58–60) [212] 6.5 Satellite image of Kalavasos Vounaritashi showing survey grid and relic cross-channel wall system in red with inset photograph of one wall [212] 6.6 Excavation of Building I at Kalavasos Vounaritashi, showing probable continuation of walls [214] 6.7 Mortaria fragments found in survey, Kalavasos Vounaritashi (drawing courtesy of Anna Georgiadou) [216] 6.8 Photograph of Building I with plaster adhering to southwest-facing wall [217] 6.9 Situation of Kalavasos Vounaritashi around other Archaic settlements west of the Vasilikos River. 5 m contours [220] 6.10 Presumed copper mines (black circles) and metallurgical sites (black stars) associated with the control of Amathus, with upper and lower pillow lavas and basal groups shown in pink. 75 m DEM (after Kassianidou 2013: 66, fig. 10) [222] 6.11 Interface (yellow line) between igneous geology and copper-bearing pillow lavas (left foreground) and sedimentary chalks (looking southeast across Kalavasos Petra) [223] 6.12 Situation of Kalavasos Skouries and copper mining area with geological zones and contemporary Archaic settlements and tombs (red stars) [226]

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List of Figures

6.13 Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project survey findings and hotspot analysis for the Iron Age, with names of recorded sites and square showing 2017 survey grid. 5 m contours (data courtesy of Georgia Andreou and MVASP) [233] 6.14 Photograph of excavations at Maroni Aspres, Trench 4, showing Walls S1 (left foreground) and S3 (perpendicular wall in center) associated with Iron Age reuse of an earlier Late Cypriot structure (seen in Wall S4) (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning and MVASP) [234] 6.15 Plan of Trench 4 at Maroni Aspres with remains of large Iron Age structure in blue (Walls S1, 2, 3, 7, 9) and multiple phases of earlier Late Cypriot structure underneath in yellow (S4, 5, 8) (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning, Sarah Monks and MVASP) [235] 6.16 Geological map showing estimated area of Tochni Petreli North and Petreli at interface of alluvium and marine terrace deposits. 5 m contours (adapted from Todd 2004: 139–141) [237] 6.17 Situation of Tochni Petreli among other mentioned Archaic assemblages. 5 m contours [240]

Tables

1.1

Current periodization of the late second and first millennia bce on Cyprus [page 38] 4.1 List of analyzed survey projects and their representative publications [136] 5.1 Estimated population and household numbers for survey sites in the Vasilikos Valley, listed in relation to possible site size [168] 6.1 Published radiocarbon dates from charcoal in slag heaps in the Kalavasos area (from Kassianidou 2013: 75, Appendix I) [222]

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Preface

Two sketches: in one, someone doctors a poster board map of the southeastern United States with a permanent marker to extend a projected impact area of Hurricane Dorian around southeastern Alabama. The correction followed the personal tweet of the then-President of the United States in early September 2019, which claimed that Alabama, along with Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, would “likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever.”1 Intervening between the bombastic tweet and the visual prop of the hurricane’s altered “zone of uncertainty” were various contradictory official statements from the local Birmingham division of the National Weather Association (NWA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), caught in the optics of a struggle over weather prediction involving the White House, meteorologists, the media, and various publics, especially those vulnerable to storm damage and dislocation. Embattled NOAA head Neil Jacobs, at an annual NWA meeting, called for his colleagues to remember that “weather should not be a partisan issue.” In the second sketch, photographs of icicles hanging from ceiling fans and videos of pipes bursting through the floors of homes in Texas circulate on social media during the days following a vortex of dangerously low temperatures in February 2021. This icy rupture of household things caused numerous deaths and wide-scale property damage, chiefly because vast sections of the region were subjected to rolling power blackouts from the lack of energy supply in the state’s privatized electrical grid. After people spent days without running water, or resorted to burning furniture for warmth, and with public and state tensions erupting, we could read in news headlines that “even the weather is polarized now.”2 This book argues that weather has always had the potential to be political, because of how we humans experience it and perceive it as climate, unevenly, in material and ideational ways. The infrastructural conflict or failure in these sketches emerges not only through our unequal preoccupations and motivations, or through our fumbling to respond to unfamiliar weather events, but also through the volatile propensities of water, ice, or natural gas, and our expectations of their activity and force. Behind these

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vignettes are mounting pressures to address global climate change and the increasingly great effects that greenhouse gases and carbon emissions are having on the frequency of hurricanes or the severity of Texan winters. The sketches prompt us to ask questions of who the “we” is or ought to be in the stories we tell about climate change: politicians, capitalists, scientific authorities, regulatory bodies, or diverse and unequally precarious communities. The weathering of our everyday experiences and material environs catalyzes new political relationships and opens up places for unruliness, made legible in a Sharpie-covered poster board or iPhone photos of bottom-up, community efforts to provide clean water, clothes, and food amid storm wreckage and state negligence. While the media presentations behind such sketches would suggest that deleterious climate change and heightened scrutiny of disasters are politicizing weather in novel, modern, and even neoliberal ways, this book seeks to acknowledge the deeper histories of the political and social dimensions of weathered surroundings and to examine these relationships in one series of ancient landscapes across south-central Cyprus. Rural landscapes, the “sedimentations” of history and sociology that Henri Lefebvre (2016 [1956]: 68) urged us to analyze, invite inquiry into the ways that materials and climatic changes spur on new political relationships. In this book I put forward several arguments about studying the places and environmental engagements of smaller settlements together with the growth of what we would call urban sites, but key to all of them is the claim that landscapes like these were, and are, weathered and made political through the actions of humans, their norms and institutions, and the other-than-human soils, waters, airs, and things around them. Writing a book on ancient rural landscapes is a challenge – not just to sustain a long-form argument using a notoriously patchy dataset, but to accept and admit that the established scope may falter as more data are explored, synthesized, and interpreted in new ways and with different frameworks in the future. In committing these arguments to the genre of the monograph, I stitch together several close and interrelated examinations of ancient town and countryside formations in south-central Cyprus, but I do not aim to produce definitive conclusions or to finish conversation. I offer this book, in the spirit of what Rosi Braidotti (2006: 115) has called epistemological humility, as a provocation for more research on environments and ambient things through a close study of small Iron Age sites. Satisfying answers are few and far between; I focus more on posing questions and presenting plausible patterns and hypotheses from conjectural, and even speculative, footings. It goes without saying that I dearly hope that more evidence, more posthuman approaches, and new archaeological

Preface

insights appear in the coming years on non-urban sites and environmental change that unsettle and greatly expand on some of the evidentiary claims made in these pages. I finished writing this book with the generous support of a Loeb Classical Library Fellowship as well as a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies on a year of teaching leave. Its origins, however, grew a bit more haphazardly from years of fieldwork in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys on Cyprus, conversations over Keo with mentors, colleagues, and friends, and presentations for critical audiences in which I tried to make scholarly gains for all the other avenues of interpretation that seemed to dead end. I am deeply grateful to Sturt Manning for encouraging a project on Iron Age settlements and for pushing me to undertake it, even if it meant spending those hot afternoons walking through maquis with me that he could likely have used more productively. Bernard Knapp has been a tremendous help and I am very grateful for his taking the time all those years ago to listen to my ideas about landscape and to support and edit my writing. Sturt and Bernard pushed me early on to contact Maria Iacovou, of the University of Cyprus, who graciously let me tag along with her field project at Palaipaphos/Kouklia Laona and whose commitment to understanding the Iron Age of Cyprus has been a guiding force for my own efforts. I am indebted to colleagues and friends who took the time to read parts or all of this manuscript, especially the valiant efforts of Bernard Knapp, Sturt Manning, and Nathan Meyer, and dear friends Georgia Andreou, Peregrine Gerard-Little, and James Osborne. These last three I owe special acknowledgments not just for reading the entire thing but for the cherished comradery forged over chats in rented pickups, at wobbly taverna tables, or in the classroom hashing out archaeological thought. Hervé Reculeau, a gracious interlocutor on ancient environments, and Kathryn Morgan also worked through more grisly iterations of these arguments. Two anonymous reviewers provided generous and critical feedback as the final manuscript took shape, and I thank Michael Sharp who took a chance on reading my initial proposal and facilitated its publication with Cambridge University Press. I have been very lucky to receive numerous opportunities to research and write about Iron Age ruralization and environmental change. My departmental home in Classics at the University of Chicago has provided an encouraging and intellectually stimulating base for pushing my ideas beyond a dissertation. I especially thank Jonathan Hall for being a steadfast mentor as well as Cliff Ando, Emily Austin, Alain Bresson, Chris Faraone,

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Sarah Nooter, and Kathy Fox for their support and inspiration. Beyond these colleagues I am grateful for the vibrant scholarly community in and around Chicago, especially Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Elizabeth Chatterjee, Patch Crowley, Mickey Dietler, Seth Estrin, Ömür Harmanşah, Morag Kersel, Young Kim, Matthew Knisley, Sarah Newman, Yorke Rowan, David Schloen, and Alice Yao. At Cornell, where this work first took shape, I benefited from the critical guidance of Lori Khatchadourian, Adam T. Smith, Kurt Jordan, and Kathryn Gleason. I am also very thankful for and inspired by rewarding conversations on landscapes at pubs or in conference hallways from Palo Alto to Ithaca with Anne Austin, Andrew Bauer, Jesse Casana, Grace Erny, Elizabeth Fagan, Lin Foxhall, Kathryn Franklin, Dominik Hagmann, Emily Hammer, Mac Marston, Eva Mol, Ruben Post, Melissa Rosenzweig, Günther Schörner, and Jason Ur. Audiences at several American Schools of Overseas Research, Society for American Archaeology, and Archaeological Institute of America annual meetings and at Stanford, Berkeley, Duke, the Oriental Institute, the University of Western Ontario, Universität Wien, St. Andrews, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) listened to and gave important feedback on these ideas. In the field, I have received grants and funding from the US State Department and Fulbright Program, the Mellon Foundation, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell, and the College of the University of Chicago. The Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments (KAMBE) Project provided the home base for this research and I am lucky to have had the team support of Carrie Atkins, Georgia Andreou, Kevin Fisher, Amanda Gaggioli, Rachel Kulick, Jeff Leon, Brita Lorentzen, Sheri Pak, and Tommy Urban, as well as the numerous students who helped me collect and record data. I would like to thank especially Larry Carrillo, Grace Erny, Olivia Hayden and Kathryn Morgan for their assistance and collegiality. Ian Todd and Alison South have been wonderful guides and supportive of my project from the beginning, and I am hopeful that this work continues the foundational reconnaissance and interpretations of the archaeology of the Vasilikos and Maroni region that they helped initiate. My heartfelt thanks also go to Zomenia Zomeni, for letting me join her geomorphology road trips, to Anna Georgiadou for agreeing to work with me and for her expertise, and to Athos Agapiou, Agata Dobosz, Marina Faka, Artemis Georgiou, Lina Kassianidou, Giorgos Papantoniou, Thierry Petit, Harry Paraskeva, and Anna Satraki, for their technical support, help, and encouragement over the years. I feel lucky to have spent a year at CAARI with Vathoulla Moustoukki and to have benefited from the

Preface

support of directors Andrew McCarthy and Lindy Crewe. I also thank the Cyprus Institute, the Geological Survey Department, and the Department of Lands and Surveys for logistical support and access to data and materials, and the Department of Antiquities, especially directors Despina Pilides and Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, for permitting this work to happen. All maps and images that I created for this book in ESRI ArcMap used data and satellite images generously provided by these institutions. Between the two sketches above, in 2019 and early 2021, came the devastation of the novel coronavirus pandemic. I thank my friends and family for supporting me, and the writing of this book, while the world raged around us. Tessa Burke, Madigan Burke, Adam Lovallo, Tim Lovallo, Susan Williams, Frana Allen, Vinni Hall, Alex Puliti, Mary Galeani, and Joe Kearns kept my spirits up and cheerfully asked about this project (but not too much). This book is for Alex Lovallo, who persistently and affectionately gives me the space to set my goals and go for them, and for Francesca, whose wit, curiosity, and humor keep us going.

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Introduction

Around the middle of the fifth century bce, royal authorities in the inland town of Idalion, on the island of Cyprus, commissioned a large bronze plaque to be placed in the sanctuary of Athena, a prominent section of the civic and ideological center (ICS 217). The inscription, forged with a side handle, was written on both sides in Greek using the local Cypriot syllabic script and found near the acropolis of Idalion during the nineteenth century (Figure 1.1).1 It records the deeds of a doctor, Onasilos, who, along with his brothers, was conscripted to give free medical relief to the wounded during a siege of the town by the Medes, or Persians, and by Kition, a prominent town on the eastern coast.2 As compensation, Idalion’s king, Stasikypros, along with the city (polis), decided not to give the customary monetary prize, a silver talent from the city’s treasury, the “house of the king.” Instead, this authoritative collective granted productive agricultural land outside Idalion in a district called Alampria to Onasilos and his extended family, for posterity. In the provisions associated with the land, the king and city outline the rights to exploit it and its produce, the entitlements associated with its tax-exempt status, and the purview of enduring ownership (lines 1–13). When the Medes and Kitians had the city of Idalion under siege, in the year of Philokypros, son of Onasagoras, King Stasikypros and the city (πτόλις) – the Idalians – called physician Onasilos, son of Onasikypros, and his brothers, to treat people who were wounded in battle, without payment. And so, the king and the city agreed to give Onasilos and his brothers, instead of payment and additional gratuity, a talent of silver from the house of the king and the city (ϝοίκωι τῶι βασιλῆϝος). But instead of that silver talent, the king and the city gave to Onasilos and his brothers land of the king which is located in the district of Alampria: the piece of land (χῶρον) that is in a swampy meadow (ἕλει) – that which adjoins the vineyard (ἅλϝω) of Onkas – and all the new plants (τέρχνιjα) there, to possess them with absolute right to sell, forever, without taxes. If ever someone evicts Onasilos or his brothers or Onasikypros’ children’s children from that piece of land, then, he who will expel them shall pay Onasilos and his brothers or their children the following amount: a talent of silver.

1

2

Introduction

Figure 1.1 Idalion Tablet, (a) Face A and (b) Face B (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. 2297)

In the following sections the contract continues, this time gifting land in a nearby valley solely to Onasilos and his immediate family. It borders the productive plots of someone named Amenia, the Drymios River, a sanctuary of Athena, and a garden in a field of Simmis, potentially another place name (lines 14–31). And for Onasilos alone, without his brothers, the king and the city agreed to give, instead of additional gratuity, besides payment, four silver pelekeis and two double mnas of Idalion. But instead of that silver, the king and the city gave Onasilos land (γᾶ[?]ι) of the king which is in the plain (πεδίjαι) of Malania: the piece of land that adjoins the vineyard of

Introduction Amenia and all the new plants there, (land) that reaches the river Drymios until the sanctuary of Athena and the orchard (κᾶπον) that is in the field (ἀρούραι) of Simmis – the one that Diweithemis the Armaneus had as orchard, contiguous with that of Pasagoras, son of Onasagoras – and all the new plants there, to possess with absolute right to sell, forever, without taxes. If ever someone evicts Onasilos or Onasilos’ children from that land or that garden, then, he who will evict them shall pay Onasilos or his children the following amount: four silver pelekeis and two double mnas of Idalion. And this cartouche, which is inscribed with these words, the king and the city submitted it to goddess Athena, she (who protects) the area around Idalion, with vows not to violate these terms, ever. If someone violates these terms, may the curse fall upon him. These lands and these gardens, the children of Onasikypros and his children’s children will own them forever, those who shall stay in the area of Idalion.

The inscribed contract locates the land donated to Onasilos and his brothers among a constellation of private plots, landscape features, sacred groves, and royal properties, providing a detailed window into the intersections of the state and its control of the surrounding agrarian landscape. The terminology reflects this diversity, a kind of literacy of place: while plot shapes and sizes are unclear, segments of land are described as choros (plot, field, or ground), ga (land), and aroura, distinguishing the latter as arable or ploughed land, as well as alwos and kapos, vineyards and orchards or gardens (Van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994: 136; Georgiadou 2010: 180–181).3 The representations of the land not only mark its location within a territorial administration, but also its capacity for productiveness, particularly for young trees and plants (terchnea), which Onasilos and his male household could use or perhaps sell. The first parcel of the king’s land intended for the larger extended family would be situated within marshlands, near water, and adjacent to a private plot of someone named Onkas. The naming of the Alamprian district further signals a larger aggregation of administrative regions that Idalion organized through networks of transaction in land holdings beyond its immediate countryside, or chora (Satraki 2019: 233; see also Georgiadou 2010: 179).4 In this book, I argue that rural plots, plains, and perimeters such as those of Onasilos emerged through the interactions of different social groups, their land use and resource practices, and shifts in climate and ecology, and that they in turn shaped novel political institutions and forms of inequality in tandem with the growth of the Cypriot urban polity. Towns such as Idalion were dynamically interrelated with the communities

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4

Introduction

living and working in diverse landscapes around them. In its discursive mapping of a political landscape, and as one of the few extant texts about Cypriot land use in antiquity, the Idalion inscription raises fascinating questions about the development of these forms of authority and economy during the early first-millennium bce. How did the polity of Idalion come to create and institutionalize these royal, civic, and private places, and how were their conditions of economic productivity measured or evaluated? How did ownership or management of property in productive fields, orchards, or extractive industries instigate or mediate forms of social difference, and how did the state help protect property claims? How did these countryside places become integrated in political and cultural ways with those of the town? And which subjects and landscape features of the polity’s oikoumene, its “known inhabited world,” does the Tablet exclude? To answer questions such as these, we need to push back before the fifth century bce, to ask how fields and countrysides grew alongside, and helped define, centers of authority such as Idalion or Kition in the horizon of major social, cultural, and political transformations commonly called the Iron Age (ca. 900–475 bce). This book contextualizes the historical processes that established the local and regional changes in household structures, communities, and investments in agropastoral settlements evident in more consolidated political form by the fifth century bce. The social actors and groups instigating these transformations were, I argue, differentially experiencing and making sense of the precarity and dynamics of Cypriot environments. Amassing a range of archaeological, textual, and scientific evidence, this book uses new interpretive lenses on landscapes, environmental history, and rural communities to argue for their collective instrumentality in the processes driving novel political formations. Positioning the Idalion Tablet as an opening frame, I fashion questions for Mediterranean archaeology that seek landscape developments outside the central place or town (polis): the lived and worked chorai, the oikoumene, and rural and wild extremes, or eschatiai (Snodgrass 1987: 73). I theorize environmental changes as important aspects of the interactive formation of societies and meaningful places – relationships that were uneven and fostered unequal social change. The Idalion Tablet emphasizes these politics by braiding the privileged position of Onasilos and his family within the spatial concerns of the state. The doctor’s personal estate, for example, was circumscribed within a social and economic field full of inherent value to the royal household, the civic body, and the broader authoritative scope of Idalion’s landed interests, from the polis to the farther plains. His family would own plots bound

Introduction

by institutions vital to the polity: fruitful orchards and arable fields managed through royal and inheritance property laws and surrounded by ritual spaces connected to the central acropolis through processional routes, festivals, and border features such as rivers and valleys. These conditions reproduced Onasilos’ family as an important intergenerational asset of the  state, which could promote its rule beyond the events of the siege into the security of land for Onasilos’ future descendants. The properties and the productive crops granted to Onasilos’ kin would be tax-exempt and protected by the regime – but also guarded by curses enacted against anyone who might try to take possession of the fields in the future. Moreover, the intentional placement of the inscribed decree within a central sanctuary of Athena, and its shape fashioned with a handle to be hung for viewing, made public and legible these values of territory to Idalion’s citizens. It also enveloped Onasilos and the wider citizen body within the care of Athena, whose divine protection operated in “the area around Idalion.” Beyond Onasilos’ new farms and orchards were of course numerous other rural actors, from Alampria and elsewhere, who lived and worked within the polity and whose less privileged land use and environmental practices are much harder to identify and interpret but no less integral to the making of Idalion’s landscape. Read as an object of political history, the Idalion Tablet has largely served to anchor scholarly interpretations of state organization, dynastic sovereignty, and even the historical contexts of doctors during the firstmillennium bce (Stylianou 1989: 402; Georgiadou 2010; Lejeune 2010; Cannavò 2011: 92–96; Hatzopoulos 2014; Papasavvas 2014; Pestarino 2022: 48–77). This Iron Age period witnessed the rise of Phoenician city-states, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the Greek polis following a context of apparent settlement displacement, population change, and increased mobility after the close of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1050 bce; Killebrew 2014; Lemos and Kotsonas 2020; Knodell 2021). As the longest Cypriot syllabic inscription, the Idalion Tablet has illuminated institutions of Cypriot politics whose origins scholars trace back to this Iron Age horizon. In the repetitive conjoining of a magistrate king and city, as a decision-making collective, the Tablet attests to a complex governing structure that accommodated the agency of the civic body in tandem with the royal house (Lejeune 2010; Fourrier 2013: 104). The Tablet has also provided evidence for the legitimation and dating of the rise of Kition and its domination over inland centers such as Idalion during the Classical period (ca. 475–330 bce; Satraki 2019: 233). Consequently, the histories of these cities have guided scholarship, linking evidence such as the Tablet to arguments for political topography and

5

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Introduction

structural continuities from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and later Classical period (e.g. Iacovou 2007, 2008). But the Tablet also makes compelling claims to fix a newly honored member of the civic community within the established transactional powers of the state. In doing so, it offers ways to move beyond particularist history into new theoretical and comparative approaches to ancient landscapes. Landscapes – the places, practices, and materials through which people dynamically and differentially experience and perceive their environments, which connote the living things and geophysical phenomena that create their surroundings – were vital to the making of towns such as Idalion, and archaeologists have become adept at studying the traces and spatial distributions of settlements, work sites, monuments, or other socially constructed features that made them up. But archaeologists generally follow these traces to explain urbanism.5 Small rural sites or villages may be the more stable forms of inhabitation that we find in the archaeological record, the “‘workhorses’ of any settlement pattern,” but towns and cities tend to fascinate us and shape our research (Fletcher 2020: 41). In Cypriot archaeology, a preoccupation with detailing the spatial extent of independent polities such as Idalion and Kition has privileged the study of first-millennium bce towns. There are several reasons for such an imbalance, including the history of archaeology on the island and the methodological difficulties in finding and identifying evidence of rural settlements (e.g. Given and Smith 2003; Janes and Winther-Jacobsen 2013). Scholars also cite the problem of an “urban palimpsest,” in which the continuously occupied settlement formations of the Iron Age sit beneath the island’s current urban fabric (Brown 2011: 5, 138). For these reasons, the study of Iron Age landscapes on Cyprus has typically leaned towards urban history and topography. The later Geometric (ca. 900–750 bce) and early Archaic periods (ca. 750–600 bce) signal a watershed in such settled landscapes across the island. Scholars posit that during these centuries, towns such as Idalion consolidated into autonomous powers, so-called city-kingdoms, in a segmented arrangement around the island (Iacovou 2002a, 2005a; Satraki 2012; Fourrier 2013; Cannavò and Thély 2018).6 Consisting of a series of capital centers, positioned mostly along the coasts and with hierarchical settlement networks stretching inland, a prevailing city-by-city vision of Cypriot Iron Age geography has tended to obscure the complexity of interstitial, non-urban landscapes (cf. Sørenson and Winther-Jacobsen 2006; Toumazou et al. 2015; Figure 1.2). Archaeologists regularly presume that dependent hinterlands, the productive areas tied through trade to urban centers, were controlled by ruling

Introduction

Figure 1.2 Map of Cyprus showing its position in the eastern Mediterranean, the central Troodos massif, and major historical sites. 75 m DEM

authorities (Iacovou 2005a; Satraki 2012: 333–334). The Idalion Tablet’s near-cadastral recording of districts and histories of land ownership confirms, in these interpretations, the centripetal power of the city and its dominance and administrative grip over smaller-order villages (e.g. Hatzopoulos 2014: 225). This interlocking of the constitution of the classical polities with the “very stable urban topography” of capitals, some of which stretch back into the fourteenth century bce, has cleaved the surrounding countrysides from the interrelationships that generated landscapes, economic growth, and political power (Fourrier 2013: 113). This book examines how the rural infrastructure of these landscapes might have developed alongside the substantial social and political transformations of urban authorities across the ninth to fifth centuries bce, what I will call a long Archaic timescale. It further advocates the study of the region’s environmental history as recursively shaping those changes. For the plots that Onasilos was to acquire and pass on to his descendants were shaped not just by land use technologies and forms of resource management, but by shifting environmental constituents such as soils, rivers, vegetation, and drought and storm frequencies. Those who commissioned the Tablet were focused on property transactions and yields, but also on

7

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Introduction

longer-term environmental practices and knowledge of land tenure. How did communities with unequal access to “good land” and freshwater or stable soils help condition these systems? Taking the Idalion Tablet’s urban history at face value and reading it only as an event of political patronage risks an approach that regards Cypriot landscapes as unchanging. A common scholarly concession that Mediterranean environments are largely the same as they were four millennia ago can render any “natural” or environmental changes as gratuitous for understanding historical progression (Rackham 1996; Kearns 2013: 109; Manning 2022b). Within studies of the regeneration of social complexity on Cyprus during the Iron Age, scholars tend to conceive of the island’s economically valuable natural features as immutable (sensu Iacovou 2013a), or, constrained by systematic irregularities in semiarid soils and water availability. In this view, resources such as copper from the central Troodos massif provided lasting and “inexhaustible” opportunities for economic control over metal production, even as political boundaries may have changed (Georgiou and Iacovou 2020: 1134; see also Kassianidou 2013, 2014). The compelling longevity of several sites and cemeteries established in the centuries surrounding the collapse of the Late Bronze Age system, around 1200 bce, and persisting in various forms until the Roman and Late Roman periods (first centuries ce and on), can further make the surroundings of these towns seem like stagnant backgrounds (Counts and Iacovou 2013). As the fields of archaeology and ancient history have turned in recent decades to reassessing past climatic shifts, through increasingly available scientific data and proxies, it is becoming clear that the environments of the first-millennium bce were not only dynamic, and more fitful than previously assumed, but are key to a more robust understanding of historical transformation (e.g. Blouin 2014; Izdebski et al. 2016; Haldon et al. 2018a; J. G. Manning 2018). Idalion’s transactional landscapes formed through human investments in and relationships with the soils, marshes, and settled places of communities, as well as through shifts in water availability and drought cycles and the growth and reduction of forests and vegetation. The environmental history of the Idalion Tablet, in other words, hints at the fissures and underlying tensions in the seemingly stable semiarid terrain we often assume for ancient Cypriot polities. What were the economic, social, or political costs of maintaining such a lively landscape? What were the processes and landscape interventions through which some in Idalion came to control more land? How were the intergenerational claims of households integrated within its political economy, and who might have been left out?

Introduction

In the wording of the inscription, the king of Idalion and his citizen constituents acknowledged the probability of a changed agricultural landscape and its implications for the kin network of Onasilos. The sovereign authorities allowed for the possibility of commercial use of crops and land, or even the forcible removal of Onasilos, and accounted for such future events by prescribing fines. Indeed, the redistribution of these plots to Onasilos and his family tacitly implies prior ownership of the land, whether royal, public, or private, or more directly references previous contracts with the field of Simmis, earlier owned by someone called Diweithemis. Together, the land is defined not through fixed boundaries but through the dynamic interests of the state and the flexibility of property claims (Mackil 2017; Foxhall 2020; see also Ludden 1999: 73). Most provocatively, the prescribed gifts are directed at “those who shall stay in the area of Idalion,” anchoring Onasilos’ new lands and gardens through his household’s service, intergenerational stability, and long-term affiliation with Idalion, perhaps in his duties as a local doctor (Georgiadou 2010: 181). Through such control over who owned or managed what, the polity could foster allegiance by catering to the privileged and could inculcate collective beliefs in the values that sustained their social order. The Tablet imagines a landscape of change, captured as a performative and likely public episode of joint royal and civic concession. It speaks not just to a viable arable possession, but to a fifth-century evaluation of land planning, property boundaries, sacred spaces, and collective decision-making, at least in appearance. The flexibility and historical textures of these features created what J. B. Jackson (1984) called a vernacular landscape, one shaped over generations by communities living, moving, and working within the material environments of the region of Idalion and central Cyprus. This book privileges the study of landscapes in order to access more fully how rural groups engaged with and experienced the social and environmental changes driving political formations. Our urban frameworks tend to highlight instead the official, utilitarian nature of the Tablet, which can externalize rural landscapes and their temporal and spatial complexities. Looking at the city also usually emphasizes the language of power, the Idalion king and his sovereignty, rather than the vernacular: the locally grounded practices of those who may have lacked certain kinds of power yet who participated in, reproduced, or resisted political change. Biases towards understanding authorized, top-down urban narratives of course predominate in our twenty-first “century of cities,” when just over half of the world’s population resides in urbanized places and when globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and transnationalism among developed and developing countries have pushed rural

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Introduction

matters, and their associated environmental changes, to the background. Yet non-urban communities and social groups, many of them indigenous, are increasingly proximate to and impacted, oppressed, or challenged in diverse ways by ecological and climatic disturbances related to industrial development, resource extraction, pollution, and sea level rise, among myriad others (Nixon 2011). When people living along Pigeon Creek, West Virginia (USA) woke up to disastrous flooding in their homes one day in May 2009, for example, they knew that the material destruction was somehow related to the strip-mining of coal in the surrounding hills of Appalachia, not just the bad luck of sudden storms.7 Lawsuits pitting these rural communities against coal mining companies such as Alpha Natural Resources, as well as associated research into the causes of the flooding, would point not only to the complex hydrology of the larger Ohio River watershed and the Appalachian mountain range, but equally to the effects that the slow destruction of mountaintop removal coal mining can have on stormwaters, which are increasing in frequency and severity with global climatic changes (e.g. Pericak et al. 2018). Thunderstorms had dumped several inches of rain that swelled creeks, caused flash floods, and released inundations polluted by acid mine drainage. The waters seeping into the households and communal built environments of rural settlements along Pigeon Creek were thus intertwined in varying ways with residential histories, local, state, and federal economic policies of resource use, the profit maximization and deregulatory practices of mining companies, and the actions of soils, chemicals, and storms. They were also grounded in the pasts and futures of the interaction between villagers, workers, and coal in these valleys. The material legacies of coal mining will indeed impact these places long after the industrial companies shut down operation. The stories like these playing out today in forms of land tenure and environmental policy, resource sustainability, and industrial production among smaller-scale rural communities offer important insights, and counternarratives, to the dominant lens of urban socioenvironmental dynamics. These narratives reveal the interacting ways that power, difference, and social complexity materialize and historicize rural spaces and landscapes in ecological flux, in an era of seemingly fast-moving and anxiety-inducing climatic shifts. They also highlight how we experience, perceive, and imagine environments in highly contingent ways, relative to scales of personhood, family, community, and broader political belonging. Where stormwaters could mean huge loss for some families along Pigeon Creek, devastation to the plant, animal, and biotic life along the waterways, and justification

Introduction

for raising costly legal action, the same weather could be inconvenient to those in the mining corporations. With the Idalion Tablet, and the questions I pose in this book about the legacies of land use beneath its text, I aim to make parallel arguments for the study of histories of landscape in the ancient world. I do not equate the Iron Age past to the twenty-first century present, which would romanticize a sense of timeless ruralism and unethically map neoliberal inequalities onto antiquity. Rather, I push the evidence to make claims about the uneven power relationships and interactions of multiple forces driving landscape transformations and settlement histories, and to call for more attention to studying diachronic patterns to contemplate our contemporary anxieties about climate futures. In this way I am interested in the convergence of social and environmental history in understanding how relationships to environmental changes can create and shape new inequalities (Taylor 1996: 11–15). Understanding the environmental and social changes as well as the political economies that intersected and created these kinds of histories of landscape, and the contributions their archaeology can make to current conversations on societal relationships with environments, serves as a primary goal of this book. I center on the later ninth through fifth centuries bce, which specialists identify through the presence of later  CyproGeometric (CG, ca. 900/850–750 bce) and Cypro-Archaic (CA, ca. 750–475 bce) ceramics. According to the most recent evidence, explored in more detail throughout Chapters 4 to 6, an apex of dry and arid conditions in the eastern Mediterranean occurred during the early first-millennium bce, followed by an interval of wetter contexts with varied effects from the eighth to the mid-sixth centuries bce (Finné et al. 2019). Colder temperatures peaked around the eighth century bce and average temperatures would have gradually warmed until the Roman period of the first few centuries ce (Manning 2010, 2013a: 113). These findings come from ongoing work that reveals significant transitions in precipitation and temperature operating at multiple regional and temporal scales across the eastern Mediterranean. We can connect these transitions to natural physical processes as well as to human-led changes in land use during the Holocene, the term given to the geological epoch beginning after the end of the last interglacial period, around 11,000 bce. Even with the coarse resolution of the currently available evidence, the eighth and seventh centuries bce were marked by progressively wetter environmental conditions, which consisted of fewer interannual droughts and more reliable water availability,  likely in  the form of rainfall, springs, and seasonal streams, in semiarid places such as

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Introduction

Cyprus (Kearns 2019). For an island with long-term records of droughts and struggles with water accessibility, these shifts would have had attendant material effects on plants and crops, minerals and sediments, and soils (e.g. Christodoulou 1959; Griggs et al. 2014). More rainfall, moister dirt, fuller streams, thicker spring and summer vegetation, and higher-yielding crops, such as olives and grapes, would have transformed the environmental experiences of varied social groups, creating new ideas of climate, a term I use to refer to the durable ways that humans make sense of weather (Hulme 2016: 2–7). Centuries after the Idalion Tablet was commissioned, the writer and geographer Strabo captured this environmental history of the island, as it became altered not just by public investments and technological change, nor least of all by the new interventions of the Roman Empire, but by the growth of forests (Geography 14.6.5): In productiveness (ἀρετὴν), [Cyprus] is inferior to none of the islands, for it is rich in wine and in oil and has enough grain for its needs. At Tamassos there are abundant mines of copper in which chalcanthite (copper sulfide) is produced, and also the rust of copper, which is useful for its medicinal properties. Eratosthenes says that in antiquity the plains were thickly overgrown with woody vegetation so that they were covered with woods and not cultivated; that the mines helped a little against this, since the people would cut down trees to burn the copper and the silver, and that the building of the fleets was further added, since the sea was now being navigated safely, with naval forces, but that because they could not thus prevail [over the growth of forests], they permitted anyone who wished or was able to cut down the timber and to keep the cleared land as his own property and exempt from taxation.

His description reveals insights into the shifting and active materials mired in Roman preoccupations with this province in the early first century ce. There is the cluster of olives, grapes, and grain, which familiarized Cyprus within a Mediterranean topos of virtuous agriculture (Kearns 2018: 55–56). There are also, importantly, minerals such as sulfur-bearing chalcanthite whose weathering created the means to recognize copper ore deposits around the island’s mountains, also exploited for medicinal practices.8 For Strabo’s purposes, the arable, mineral, and vegetal things of the island together mediated the imperial expectations of the new province’s output and commodified wealth. They also served to historicize the island’s landscapes. He cited a time, according to the earlier Greek writer Eratosthenes, when environmental change upset the

Introduction

prevailing system – when unruly trees were growing so out of control that they threatened the island’s productivity, arête.9 Strabo does seem to domesticate a commercial understanding of Cyprus’ climates, by outlining which attributes lent themselves more to economic investment and imperial understandings of prosperity. Scholars tend to concentrate on copper, for example, as the resource that substantially drove the island’s ancient economies, emphasizing its commodity status (Kassianidou 2004; Knapp 2008: 76–78; Iacovou 2014a). Yet copper existed within a relational material world and gained or changed value alongside the workings of other things, such as trees and imported tin. Indeed, the productivity of Cypriot environments has always been intertwined with the actions of human groups and their technological choices and practices, as well as with the shifting expectations and challenges of environmental matter such as water, soils, minerals, and trees. To underline resources and shipping networks critical to empire, Strabo described copper’s entanglements with these surroundings: the burning of trees to fire kilns, the distribution of men and goods through maritime trading networks and the wooden ships and naval forces keeping seas safe for transit, the human labor necessary for turning minerals into metal products, and the local authorities responsible for managing and taxing forest resources. He left out other, no less important relationships, particularly in the supply of imported tin to make bronze, the necessity of water, or the values of other metals for strengthening or changing copper alloys.10 The spatial and environmental imaginations at work in the Idalion Tablet and Strabo’s geography of empire aptly open this book, which offers a starting point to examine the landscapes and environmental history of the Cypriot city-state and to situate its political economies, especially those generated by rural actors beyond the city walls, in greater historical and social contexts. Expanding out from the ideological and prosaic programs of these texts, the book reviews the material records of Cyprus to explore how environmental change, shifts in rural and town settlement, and developing vernacular landscape practices underwrote the apparent growth of marked social differentiation and inequality.11 How might a critical landscape archaeology of these textual renderings of place and environment begin? What are the methods and theoretical tools available for investigating the emergence of such landscapes during the ninth and eighth centuries bce, and their modifications and stabilization over the following three centuries? I present such a framework, pressing a suite of evidentiary

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categories  into service to build up a holistic approach to the shifting, complex environments and landscapes that co-constituted ancient social worlds.

Unruly Landscapes In this book I use an analytical focus on rural spaces and places and their instrumentality in social life as an entryway not just into elucidating the often forgotten smaller spaces or “emptyscapes” of typical settlement pattern analyses, but also into creating an alternative to the predominant archaeological framing of questions about politics, chronology, and social organization as urban (Campana 2018: 15). This kind of work involves grafting together several trends on the integration of town and country and human–environment interactions. I draw upon conversations among geographers, sociologists, and historians on ruralism and its material dynamics, cultures, and spatiality, especially in relation to state structures.12 The archaeological survey records of non-urban lifeways on Cyprus, as the empirical backbone for the book’s discussions, offer a compelling line of inquiry into the processes by which Archaic urbanizing landscapes took shape. I especially consider their contingencies in comparison to ways of analyzing and theorizing ancient agrarian landscapes in other cultural and chronological contexts, such as Mesoamerica, the Near East, south Asia, and the wider Mediterranean.13 I also look to important work in the environmental humanities and social sciences on the varied ways that humans interact with, perceive, and live with climate and material environments, as well as in political ecology and its archaeological applications.14 As Timothy LeCain (2017: 127) has put it, recent materialist approaches to history have opened up environmentalism “in the older sense regarding how our environments help to make us who we are.” Taking this critical approach to environments and ruralism, I work to provide a complementary perspective to existing scholarship on pre-Classical political and economic organization on Cyprus, and to propose a landscape-oriented accounting of highly transformative periods such as the first-millennium bce. Insights from fields such as political ecology help reposition rural and urban landscapes as historically contingent relations that include people, things, and environments. I focus on their messy complexities, rather than the well-worn binaries of town and country or nature and culture. These are difficult concepts to work with, however. How archaeologists talk about landscapes as shaped by climatic change, for example, is particularly

Unruly Landscapes

challenging. Do some semiarid landscapes become drier through shifts in global temperatures and solar activity, and/or through human-led practices such as deforestation, over-grazing, or irrigation? The flood of information coming from scientific advances in the study of past climates and environments over the last few decades has been revolutionary, but has the potential to keep our focus on merely discerning the anthropogenic or climatic causes of certain high-profile historical episodes, such as the collapse of the Roman Empire and the ensuing effects of what many call the Late Antique Little Ice Age of the sixth and seventh centuries ce (Harper 2017; Harper and McCormick 2018; cf. Sessa 2019; see also Büntgen et al. 2011; Haldon 2016). A chief goal of this book, then, is to carve out an analytically productive middle ground between theories of landscapes as naturally produced resource zones on the one hand, or as socially constructed groupings of places on the other (Ashmore 2004; Kosiba and Bauer 2013). Variably tied to the positivist and processual models of archaeology at work in the second half of the twentieth century, the former grouping tends to ask econometric questions of ancient landscapes: How large were settlement zones? How might they have conditioned the collection and management of resources, daily life, movement, or regional interaction? Such analyses are important to material histories but can flatten landscapes into natural systems whose permutations leave less room for human agency, and they risk attenuating a landscape’s social dimensions. The archaeological work influenced by postmodern thought emerging in the latter decades of the twentieth century has framed landscapes as products of human cognition, conception, and will, and has utilized social theories of spatiality and power to understand how past landscapes activated human memory, became tools of political control, or embodied community distinctions and subjective identities (e.g. Alcock 1993; Tilley 1994; Johnston 1998; Ashmore and Knapp 1999; see also Anschuetz et al. 2001). But these studies can eschew environmental data, amassing a growing number of theoretical frameworks that often divorce ancient landscapes from the non-living matter and biota that made them up, privileging instead their human-made monuments and artifacts. These divergent archaeological inquiries into landscape, between the more environmental or human-focused, do not make a rigid binary, but they do make it hard to understand where environments, climates, and weather reside within various interpretations. As others have noted, the semantic ambiguity of the term landscape and its contingencies in diverse historical contexts discourages an all-encompassing conceptual definition

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Introduction

(Anschuetz et al. 2001; Smith 2003: 5–11; Johnson 2007). The field and methods of landscape archaeology, moreover, as Matthew Johnson (2012: 516) has written, constitute an “area of research that is full of woolly thinking.” The methodologies for studying climates and ecologies further complicate work on society–climate interrelationships at multiple and often incommensurable scales, from the collapsing empire to the self-sufficient farmstead (Haldon et al. 2014). The availability of more paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental evidence has, indeed, pushed the impasse between approaches to landscape into new light. In this book, I begin to bridge the gaps by investigating the entanglements of environmental materials, climates, and social formations through concepts of weathering and unruliness, introduced briefly here. Archaeologists who study historical climates and their impacts on human society tend to define climate as a catch-all term, used to encompass geophysical, atmospheric, or earth-systems processes recorded in aggregate through scientific measurement, representing an average set of conditions for an area or region. But as a construct, climate means more. It structures how we think about weather, the events and processes “of a restless and constantly changing atmosphere” (Hulme 2016: 2, 3). Humans perceive and physically experience meteorological shifts and episodes, through bodily and material encounters, and create ideas of climate to facilitate and familiarize themselves with sudden downpours in spring, blizzards in winter, or scorching heat in the summer. Everyday encounters with weather become integral to local knowledge and daily practices, informing when and where to harvest or collect resources, how to anticipate weather shifts, and what material assemblages – clothing, tools, shelters, safety measures, and other infrastructure – might be necessary or desired for different conditions. Encounters also shape our affective relationships with the world around us, in building up individual and cultural ideas such as nature, wilderness, or the sublime. Such experiences and ideas of weather further shape senses of place and come to structure how people identify or affiliate themselves with the elements and rhythms of their surroundings – locales marked by fierce seasonal winds, months of continuous, pouring rain, or midday rhythms of intense heat. When normalized understandings of weather break down, ideas of climate and expectations of environmental phenomena shift, are unsettled, and in turn can catalyze social and cultural change. In 2021, for example, new climate “normals” can seem dystopian: Arctic temperatures reaching 50ºC, increasingly deleterious wildfires, or hurricanes of greater frequency and magnitude. I use “weathering” and “weathered” to capture how landscapes take on new

Unruly Landscapes

characteristics and sociopolitical dimensions through this nexus of mutable and unstable environmental materials and human actions. Weathering is an active process that connotes how individuals, things, and places are altered through various kinds of exposures to changing atmospheres. It accounts for how humans come to make sense of and alter their surroundings through daily, seasonal, or more long-term experiences, perceptions, habits, and memories (Ingold 2010; Pillatt 2012; Vannini et al. 2012). Physical matter, an example being the copper listed by Strabo, can also weather through exposures and change propensities and attributes in distinctive ways (Hall et al. 2012). The concept helps us consider more critically an archaeology of human–environment relationships that includes not just disasters or catastrophes, but also the mundane experiences driving daily practices which frame social life, such as patching a leaking water cistern or observing budding fruits. While recent interest in climate-society interactions throughout human history has almost invariably sought out the abrupt climate event, occurring in years or decades, equally important to stories of weathering are the slow, looping, or rhythmic changes of eroding soils or accumulating debris, annual droughts, or forest growth made familiar through everyday practices of cultivation, herding, quarrying, logging, mining, crafting, or housekeeping (Rosen and Rosen 2001; Given 2013; see also Ingold 1993). Weathering thus has both material and immaterial dimensions and centers inquiry into the terrains that condition and are conditioned by human practices: dried out soils in the field or walls built into hills to stop mudslides, for example.15 Rather than solely trying to discern “anthropogenic” or “climatic” landscape change, weathering helps us think about the perceptible and material interactions between human societies and their unstable surroundings. The politics in tension within these weathering processes and the power dynamics that they generate need scrutiny. “Unruliness” has gained rhetorical currency in fields such as political science, anthropology, archaeology, and history to symbolize irregularities, unevenness, or disorder (Tsing 2012; Khanna et al. 2013; Olsen and Pétursdóttir 2016; Weber et al. 2016; Alexander and Jarratt 2018; Doughty 2019). This book puts forward unruliness as a mode for theorizing how humans, weather and climate, and things can co-create uneven landscapes that forge social change. For the case of Archaic Cyprus, this framework emphasizes marginal and rural places with patchy connections with the state, in a period when landscape formations engineered new modes of social stratification and upset prevailing expectations of power and authority. On metaphorical grounds, unruliness

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Introduction

conveys how ancient landscapes resist being labelled passive stage settings or relatively inert natural backgrounds. This sense aligns with attention in materialist studies of political formations as “not a formed thing or fixed entity, but as an unruly activity or indeterminate wave of energy” (Bennett 2010: 106). The landscapes under study in this book are relational: lived and perceived entanglements of peoples, things, and weathering phenomena that generated social differences during a period in which communities established new norms and conventions of authority, power, and inequality. In further exploring unruliness as an analytical tool for landscape research, the book engages landscapes through comparative work at multiple scales, from terrace walls to settlement networks, to consider how instabilities took shape on the ground and from the top down and bottom up (Taylor 2005; Bawden 2007; Krishnan et al. 2015; see also Smith 2003). I use unruliness to provoke engagement with ideas and assumptions of state regulation and organizational structure in studying the landscapes of past political formations. To avoid making unruliness so expansive that it loses any specificity, I can account, by way of introduction, what the term is not meant to signify. By claiming landscapes as unruly, I do not wish to label archaeological records with colloquial synonyms such as mob rule and disorderly chaos.16 While I explore the available evidence for rural communities operating in parallel to and potentially disjoined from Archaic and Classical kingships, I do not seek to condense these analyses into the singular framework of local resistance, which is often so difficult to discover archaeologically and tends to render landscapes immobile (Given 2004; Khatchadourian 2016: 44). “Unruly” is moreover not intended to reify an opposite pole of “ruliness” as a transparent, rule-bounded system. The importance of taking environmental conditions and materials seriously necessitates that even our imaginaries of the most ordered or “ruly” landscapes of empire – Roman military topography (Dey 2011), Neo-Assyrian planned hinterlands (Parker 2003; Ur 2005; Harmanşah 2012), or Aztec provincial infrastructure (Garraty and Ohnersorgen 2009) – were brimming with unstable and unsettled constituents such as water, soils, vegetal matter, minerals, and organisms entwined with human communities and their technologies and interventions. Unruliness is not a passive character trait, an intrinsic or essential stable property that a landscape might possess. It is instead produced and reproduced by social formations, everyday practices, environments, and cultural innovations. When unruly agents and terrains coalesce, such as I argue happened at diverse times during the Iron Age in the semiarid landscapes of Cyprus, wide-ranging and significant historical transformations occur.

Unruly Landscapes

“Unruly landscapes” is not meant, additionally, to sequester the study of ancient environmental history to that of catastrophic challenges to human resilience, nor to bond it to the overwhelming focus on disaster, maladaptation, and impact-mitigation of “bad” climates in studies of historical societies (Middleton 2012; cf. Thommen 2012; Hughes 2014).17 Unruliness, as deployed in this book, does not represent the outcome of the inability of a society to tame its wayward or unpredictable climate, or its failure to exert some type of regulatory scheme over climatic change, as the subtitle of Jared Diamond’s (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed might suggest. On the contrary, unruly landscapes can envelop conditions of so-called “favorable” climates, when ideas of climate become unsettled by seemingly beneficial material conditions such as more rainfall and longer growing seasons, with their attendant and diverse social and political repercussions (Kearns 2019). Questioning unruliness indeed interrogates the agonistic language we often use to frame humans as overseers of a reified, “misbehaving” environment, as well as the norms and conventions that prefigured what “favorable climate” meant for a given society, and for whom (see also Rosen 2007; Degroot 2018). The scales of these unruly landscapes are not predefined but appear between emerging state and subject, between town and country, and among raw materials, commodity, and market. Looking for unruliness places the interpretive lens on the interface of communities and their landscapes, to attend to both momentous changes and quotidian forces of human–environment interactions, land use practices, and systems of power. I do consider the more idiomatic connotations of unruly disorder and the possibilities of unmanageable subjects in one register. By foregrounding unruliness, I want to hypothesize that first-millennium bce Cypriot communities were not inherently meant to be ruled, as might be inferred from the scanty and biased textual sources about kingship on the island that survive (Serghidou 2007). Instead, these actors lived in and worked landscapes that enabled the conditions for novel politics and made rules alongside the appearance of royal sovereignty and foreign suzerainty. In the archaeology of Iron Age Cyprus, the mechanics of rule and subordination – the basileus (king) and the demos (people) of Idalion, for example – remain opaque. We can surmise elite practices of office-holding especially through later sources of the fifth and fourth centuries bce, which point to hereditary as well as achieved forms of authority, but we tend to envision the rural landscapes of each polity as settled with undifferentiated royal subjects.18 The processes of development and rupture that made them landscapes overseen by kingly power, in other words, are given less examination. What new questions arise if we reject the premise that there

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were predefined relationships between rulers and ruled, or between urban power and rural subjugation? If we consider how the unfolding of social and political change took place in marginal terrains and through different landscape encounters on the “unruly edges” of the state (Tsing 2012)? If, in other words, we take the decentered subjects living on the seams of the polity as the analytical focus, instead of the centralizing rule of urban authorities? Here, unruliness is intended to strip away our assumptions and predetermined notions about the apparatus of rule and rule-making and to think more creatively about other emergent modes of political action, especially local, in a period of dramatic socioeconomic transformation. The creation of so many new places and kinds of engagement with fluctuating environments by Iron Age settlers was, in other words, impactful for the growth of these Cypriot states. For these reasons, I forward the vernacular landscapes outside the city to connote the locally grounded experiences and place-making practices of people beyond the ruling class, who still participated within formal and informal structures of difference.19 The relationships between these people and the multiple political centers around the island forged unruly landscapes conditioned by local concerns, traditions, and histories. The theoretical arguments drawn from empirical evidence in this book are not intended to yoke a landscape archaeology of unruliness to the island of Cyprus, nor to create an overarching theory for all human–environment relationships. I aim, rather, to scrutinize how we might investigate the intersections of social and environmental change in diverse configurations of power and social complexity. But the ambiguities of history and culture on this island, located amid the bustling maritime thoroughfares of the eastern Mediterranean and between the more arid contexts to the south and east and the temperate conditions to the north and west, make it an especially rewarding place to question our approaches to landscapes in flux. These landscapes surfacing across the island during the late ninth and eighth centuries bce provide an understudied but stimulating record through which to examine how budding communities and town centers began establishing more permanence, endorsing institutions of social and political control, developing forms of status and economic wealth, and interacting with other networks across the Mediterranean.

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus This book investigates a critical era marked by new patterns and relationships of settlement, trade, and production that arose after the political

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

and economic collapse of urban centers in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of what scholars call the Late Bronze Age (Knapp 2008: 280–297; Georgiou and Iacovou 2020). Following the abandonment or renovation of Late Bronze Age settlements on Cyprus during the twelfth and eleventh centuries bce, new forms of political association, centered on monarchies, were founded by the ninth century bce and sustained their rule until the Ptolemaic conquests of the fourth century bce. By the early seventh century bce, records attest to the incorporation of these “strange poleis ruled by kings” as vassal states to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, a large Near Eastern polity ruling from what is today Iraq and Syria (Whitley 2020: 180; see also Cannavò 2010; Radner 2010; Körner 2016). Subordination under Egyptian control briefly followed towards the end of the seventh century and by the fifth century, around when Onasilos received his plots of land at Idalion, Herodotus (3.91) referenced Cypriot kings as subjects of Achaemenid Persian imperial rule, another Near Eastern macropolitical formation (Reyes 1994: 69–97; Raptou 1999a; Zournatzi 2005). And after the fourth century bce, the Ptolemaic kingdom controlling Egypt annexed Cyprus as a province, followed in the first century by Rome, ending the island’s pre-Classical histories of independent rule. Beneath this sketch of longterm oscillations in autonomous governance and imperial entanglement, however, sit formations of social change tied to punctuated episodes as well as everyday practices, gradually emerging inequalities, and economic development whose spatial contours remain underscrutinized (cf. Iacovou 2013a; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). I argue that these novel systems developed out of a series of landscapes that stitched together towns and countrysides, in different ways and tempos, through shifts in local and regional environments, claims to land, and community affiliations. As many others have noted, there exist persistent gaps and blind spots in our knowledge of the critical centuries between the end or closing of the Late Bronze Age and the height of power among the polities of the Archaic and Classical periods (Rupp 1997; Knapp 2008: 281–297; Brown 2011: 5; Iacovou 2013a; Knapp and Manning 2016). The array of apparently autonomous polities that solidified during the early Archaic period is chiefly known through several built settlements with various ties to, or discontinuities with, the urban topography of the preceding Late Bronze Age (Iacovou 1994, 2008; Satraki 2012; Figure 1.3). These settlements included new social and political uses of monumental architecture such as built tombs and administrative structures, royal symbolism and iconography, especially in the production of life-size sculptures, and the scripts and epigraphic habits of statecraft (Satraki 2013; Iacovou 2013b; Georgiou and Iacovou 2020;

21

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Figure 1.3 Kingdoms and hypothetical boundaries ca. 673 bce (adapted from Rupp 1987: 166, map 4)

Pestarino 2022). By the sixth and fifth centuries bce, royally minted coinage and elaborately decorated stelae and sarcophagi attest to a ruling king and aristocratic elite with well-developed genealogical, aesthetic, and ritual claims to authority (Stylianou 1989; Satraki 2012; Papasavvas 2014). The so-called Royal Tombs at Salamis, a polity on the eastern coast, are often invoked as early Archaic markers of kingship, for their opulent contents included inlaid ivory furniture and bronzes manufactured in the Near East, numerous items made of precious metals, and chariots with sacrificed horses, among other prestige offerings (Karageorghis 1969a: 76–98; Coldstream 1989; Rupp 1989; Gunter 2009: 21–28; Blackwell 2010). But the tombs also held dozens of plain storage and grinding or processing vessels of local manufacture with contents of agricultural production, such as olive oil (Karageorghis 1969a: pl. 35). Though less evocative of interregional status, these items nonetheless suggest a conspicuous display of landed wealth and control over agricultural or industrial labor. With similar material assemblages in high-status tombs across the island, it is possible to argue for a developing regime of values linked to semi-luxuries of arable and pastoral production such as olive oil and wine, limited in availability and more valued than everyday staples, as

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

Lin Foxhall (2007: 17, 89–95) has argued for comparable contexts in Greece (Rupp 1989; Vonhoff 2011; Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012).20 Various archaeological projects undertaken across the island have also documented a considerable rise in the number of settlements and other activity areas by the eighth and early seventh centuries bce, alongside evidence of renewed maritime trade (e.g. Rupp 1987: 150–151; 2004; Petit et al. 1989; Given and Knapp 2003; Todd 2013: 99–100). Numerous sanctuaries and shrines were constructed, in urban contexts, near towns and trade routes, and in rural areas, in more frequency and variety than in earlier or later periods (Papantoniou and Vionis 2017: fig. 2). Research at several of these non-urban sanctuaries has revealed considerable complexity in the kinds of architectural spaces created, in their contexts of ritual and required materials, and in their diverse worshipping audiences (Karageorghis 1977; Loulloupis 1989; Smith 1997; Ulbrich 2012). In addition, evidence of plural languages and multiple writing scripts recovered from different sites as well as new forms of burial, feasting, craft production, and ritual practice suggest novel social inequalities and regional identities (Reyes 1994; Aupert 1997; Janes 2010; D’Agata and Hermary 2012; Amadasi Guzzo and Zamora López 2016). Craftsmen in this Archaic period continued some of the island’s long-term production of narrative art but achieved new levels of sophistication and imitation of Aegean and eastern styles, especially in the production of coroplastic ceramic figurines and scenes of people engaged in everyday tasks: hunting, bathing, grinding, baking, fishing, and feasting, among others (Karageorghis 2006: 116–208). Evidence points to Archaic society being androcentric and patrilineal. Inheritance and property rights passed through male kin and women were acknowledged primarily for their achievements as mothers or wives (Bazemore 2002). Undoubtedly, population growth, schemes of landownership, and efforts to create surplus for local and regional consumption generated complexities outside the major settlements that restructured social networks (Kiely 2005). In other words, urbanization and ruralization spurred economic developments as well as changes in household structures and social and gendered relationships, creating new spheres of work, family, status, and religion. Evidence of smaller sites begins to weaken in some surveyed areas during the Classical period, suggesting that the revitalizations sparked sometime during the later ninth and eighth centuries endured for several generations in some areas or persisted in different form in others. The subsequent imposition of Ptolemaic governance by the late fourth century bce would incite widespread and significant alterations in settlement, ideology, and economy (Papantoniou 2013).

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Introduction

What made Idalion a city during the seventh or fifth centuries bce? Even with the amount of field research conducted at the known town centers, we know little about their spatial extent, residential areas, or population densities (Iacovou 2005a; Papantoniou 2012a: 34; Hermary 2013: 83). Intriguing information on the lower town of Idalion, for example, with evidence of domestic structures, workshops, and ritual spaces, remains largely unpublished (cf. Gaber 1992, 2008; Bartusewich 2019: 14–22). At sites such as Kition and Idalion, excavations have focused instead on large structures with monumental or ornate features, perhaps the “house of the king,” positioned on acropoleis and in proximity to sanctuaries, and including their own storage facilities, workshops, and religious assemblages (Hermary 2013).21 The overwhelming attention to these kinds of remains and to sanctuaries, tombs, or other religious places, or to industrial operations such as mines or metallurgical workshops, has produced less fieldwork or scholarship on the archaeology of Iron Age households, domestic spaces and crafts, and their material culture. As such, distinguishing what an Archaic or Classical village might have looked like is just as difficult as discerning urbanism. Beatrice Pestarino (2022) has recently argued that the Cypriot polities likely shared similar administrative systems by the fifth century bce, with regional particularities in political status and aristocratic or royal titulature. Yet with the analytical spotlight fixed on the material culture of various kinds of high-status individuals and their built places, be they mortuary contexts or putative palaces, we understand much less about the everyday realities of non-ruling political subjects who may have inhabited the residential areas of towns: various working classes of immigrants, the non-wealthy, or slaves. Inscriptions and markings from objects throughout the Archaic and Classical periods include job titles, such as scribes, sculptors, bronzeworkers and bakers working for the royal family, hinting at a diversified economy but in need of more data to understand their class relations (Karageorghis 2006: 227–235). Given the fragmentary state of evidence, even distinctions of intra-elite status are difficult to parse. Indeed, the singular evidence of the Idalion Tablet seems to homogenize the polis’ inhabitants as “the people,” in complement to the king; whether there were internal divisions of citizenship or status remain opaque (Cannavò 2011: 167–180). We also struggle to understand distinctions in gendered or age-related practices outside of a few iconographical representations, such as terracotta figurines that arguably represented elite women, found in sanctuary deposits, as well as the special marking out of infant and child burials throughout the period (Papasavvas 2016; Fourrier and Georgiadou

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

2021). While there are tantalizing inscriptions that bear the names of some presumably high-class Iron Age women, for example, particularly from tombs at the town of Marion during the sixth to fourth centuries, there is limited evidence for family structure, kinship, or household or clan organization (Bazemore 2002; Vandervondelen 2002; Budin 2016; Smith 2016). We know even less about life outside the town. Rural settlements have not received much systematic investigation (cf. Sørenson and WintherJacobsen 2006; Toumazou et al. 2011), nor have Iron Age political economies, particularly of agriculture and pastoralism (cf. Rupp 1985, 2001; Iacovou 2012, 2014a). We lack much empirical data for the plant and animal husbandries of the various polities, or for the technological advancements in practices such as farming or irrigation that undoubtedly helped spur population and economic growth into the fifth and fourth centuries bce.22 This poor resolution makes it difficult to study changes in intensive agricultural practices as well as foodways and the presumed shifts in culinary practice and food preparation that would have been associated with Archaic transformations (Fourrier 2010). Scholars have tended to study craft production from the perspective of regional styles, rather than of the political economy of sourcing materials and workshop infrastructure (cf. Bartusewich 2019). Labor is thus also enigmatic; how rural households relied on family labor or on slaves, or rented seasonal or year-round workers, is unclear. As for rural social class, we have to rely on comparative estimates. We can surmise, as others have for contemporary histories of rural Mediterranean landscapes for example, that the countryside included the properties and holdings of wealthy, free landowners with enough surplus labor or stored goods to take risks, as well as those meeting subsistence needs who worked smaller holdings using predominantly family labor (Jameson 1994; Scheidel 1995). Equally opaque are the institutions and infrastructure that guided regional or interregional exchange systems or systems of taxation. Most likely, private landowners like Onasilos could pay taxes in kind, or in silver coins after the introduction of monetary economies during the sixth century bce (Pestarino 2022). Although the Idalion Tablet speaks to how authorities came to intervene in rural property claims, our lack of legal codes or inscriptions for the Iron Age period makes land ownership an equally nebulous (if foundational) mechanism driving state formation (Mackil 2017). This lopsided picture, certainly a product of insular histories of practice as well as broader trends in archaeological thought over the twentieth century, has until recently relegated the landscapes of rural or agrarian practices as largely epiphenomenal to understanding the period’s transformations (Cannavò 2015; cf. Toumazou  et  al.  2011; Papantoniou

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2012a; Iacovou 2013a, 2018; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). As a result, discussions of the rise of social complexity tend to fall back on functionalist narratives and structuralist topographies that relegate hinterlands as the economic underbelly of the town (e.g. Steel 1993). To bring current, updated evidence and interpretive frameworks to the study of urban and rural landscapes, we must start by decentering the urban status quaestionis. In this book I interrogate the growth of a range of settlements and landscape constructions to forward “seeing like a village” (Herzfeld 2020: 44). As Raymond Williams (1975) famously noted, there is variation within the “country” way of life that complicates the trope of the stock rural background. Yet particularly in economic history, a long line of thinkers from Adam Smith to Fernand Braudel have conceptualized economic ingenuity and innovation as urban, relegating past countrysides to a quasi-natural stage of agrarian self-sufficiency, what scholars call autarky from the ancient Greek (e.g. Finley 1973; see also Horden and Purcell 2000: 112–115; Bresson 2005). In recent years, conventional understandings of rural inertia have been challenged by research on industrialization and market economies, which make the town–country dynamic more dimensional. Comparative analyses have increasingly revealed the institutional complexity and diversity of actors in rural areas, their regional variation, and the historical production of their landscapes (e.g. Pahl 1965; Just 2000; Woods 2007; Lefebvre 2016[1956]; Garrison et al. 2019; Bowes 2020). On an island such as Cyprus, for example, with its celebrated ecological and geological complexity, landscapes built through agropastoral investment could support numerous other crafts and industries: mining, stone and mineral quarrying, forestry, textile and dye manufacturing, and ceramic production, among many others such as household horticulture (Rupp 2001; Knapp 2008: 342–343; Iacovou 2019). As Astrid Van Oyen (2019) has argued for the ancient Roman countryside, such diversification afforded rural communities opportunities for forward-thinking economic practices and social competition, enacting new fault lines of status and class within small-scale networks. Such reorientations help ascertain the possibilities for autonomy and political agency generated through the complex integration of emergent cities, towns, villages, farms, quarries, and mines. To examine these local possibilities at different scales, I utilize archaeological data drawn from two river valleys along the south-central coast of the island. The region of the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds, a zone now positioned along the administrative edges of the Limassol and Larnaca districts, provides unique insights for three key reasons (Figure 1.4).

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

Figure 1.4 Position of Vasilikos and Maroni river valleys on the south-central coast, east of Amathus, showing geomorphological zones

First, its multifaceted geological and geomorphological context – grouping together the rich copper deposits and igneous formations of the balsaltic Troodos foothills (reddish browns in Figure 1.4), arable soils and chalky and marly terraces of sedimentary plateaus (beige), and coastal plains (light orange) in a tectonically dynamic catchment area – provide a compelling cross-section of Archaic landscapes in which to explore the interactions of shifting climates and weather with emergent social formations (Christodoulou 1959: 16–18; Pantazis 1967; Gomez 1987, 2003; Murray and Robertson 2020). Second, during the Iron Age, these valleys apparently lacked a major settlement or town, and instead seem to have consisted of a thriving small-scale system on the eastern edge of the polity known as Amathus. At roughly 20 km from Amathus, this area was too far for daily walking commutes of urban workers to plots and sites. The interrelationships forged between these countrysides and Amathus, a regional center with its own interesting long-term histories, thus offer a case for theorizing unruly landscapes in relation to the town. Finally, the region’s important prehistoric sites have long been of archaeological interest, given the field’s tendency to focus on these periods, and there exists a rich archaeological survey and rescue excavation record for the ninth through fourth centuries

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Figure 1.5 Survey findings for Geometric and Archaic sites around Amathus and in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, showing an outline of survey grids, and inset of central acropolis and surrounding necropoleis at Amathus. 75 m DEM

bce that has until now gone largely understudied (cf. Georgiadou 2016, 2018; Kearns 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022a; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). Amathus has received significant attention as the anchor of an “unusually centralized” city-state (Given 1998: 24). On and around its acropolis sat impressive monumental buildings and a storeroom complex called the palace, as well as grand necropoleis and interregionally known sanctuaries, chiefly to Aphrodite, the Great Goddess of the island (Petit et al. 1989; Aupert 1996; Blandin et al. 2008; Petit 2019; Figure 1.5). Although the lower town has not been fully investigated, the remains of fortification walls reveal some of the town’s planned spatiality as constructed by the sixth century. Underwater surveys and excavations have also exposed a large harbor, likely established during the fourth century bce, which presumably occupies the place of an earlier Iron Age port (Empereur and Koželj 2017; Empereur 2018).23 Amathus’ territory and extent beyond the city walls, however, remain obscured. Amathus both shared in the cultural practices marking the Archaic horizon across the island and cultivated its own peculiar urbanism. It was known in later Greek and Roman

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

textual sources as an “autochthonous” Cypriot town, evoking a sense of antiquity and perhaps local claims to land.24 A corpus of inscriptions from the area further attests to multiple languages and scripts in simultaneous use: the Greek language with its alphabet, Phoenician with its alphabet, as well as a non-Greek language spoken, or at least inscribed in the island’s local syllabary script, by the seventh century but mostly evident during the fourth century bce (Steele 2013: 105–121).25 What makes the multilingualism of Amathus particularly compelling are the examples of scripts used to write in other languages, for example using the Cypriot syllabary to write in Greek, or using Phoenician letters to write non-Semitic names on locally made Cypriot objects (Cannavò 2011: 298). Bilingual inscriptions with official stately proclamations using the local language and Greek also survive, as well as a mixture of alphabetic and syllabic graffiti from the town, which present a picture of social complexity at work among diverse linguistic communities (Petit 2007). Mythic narratives located the beginnings of the town with the local Cypriot hero Kinyras, further marking it as special compared with the other attested kingdoms, which claimed association with Greek or Phoenician foundation stories. While Amathusian kings publicized their dynastic names in Greek through inscriptions and coins, they furnished a rich mythic complex for their town, and the additional conspicuous presence of an unusual local language found in pieces around Amathus points to an idiosyncratic history of multicultural encounters.26 Scholars have debated the placement of the polity’s boundaries using later Greek and Roman textual sources, natural features such as river valleys, and archaeological finds. Amathus itself sits on the coast between the Amathos (Germasogeia) River to the west and the Pyrgos River to the east, which undoubtedly provided resources for the surrounding chorai of the town. Many delineate one territorial edge of the polity somewhere to the east of the descending alluvial terraces of the Vasilikos and Maroni region (Masson and Hermary 1992; Fourrier 2007; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018: 14–15; Petit 2019: 46–47). Farther to the west, Amathus engaged with and likely also controlled parts of what is now the city and periurban extent of Limassol (Alpe 2015; Georgiadou 2018). But such reconstructed boundaries, often presume that polities such as Amathus ruled over contiguous, subjugated territories. In studies that conceive of rural landscapes as politically vacuous, the eastern hinterlands of Amathus are a backwater, ebbing but passively transfixed to the sovereignty of the capital (Todd 2013: 120). Yet these regions have yielded evidence of dozens of variously sized settlement and activity areas, copper mining and production sites,

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and coastal harbor activity for the ninth through fifth centuries bce (Todd 2013: 97–104; Andreou and Sewell 2016; Georgiadou 2016; Kearns 2016). A closer look at the material so far recovered from the Vasilikos and Maroni region, including my own pedestrian and geophysical surveys and excavations, exposes some of our assumptions of how a dependent periphery ought to have functioned. It further challenges models of space that scholars have conceived for the kingdom by considering the long-term and complex processes of urbanization and ruralization from which Amathus emerged (see also Kiely 2005: 177–199). The south-central region transitioned from a Late Bronze Age network hierarchically centered on two urban settlements, Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and the Maroni complex, to an Iron Age network of seemingly village-scale politics and outlooks (South 1995, 2002; Andreou 2016; Manning and Fisher 2018). Amathus, on the other hand, has been called a site “without prehistory,” which connotes the lack of Late Bronze Age remains and the purposeful inmigration of initial settlers from elsewhere during the early first-millennium bce (Iacovou 1994: 155–156; Papantoniou 2012b: 304).27 These disparate temporalities of settlement and practice, explored throughout the following chapters, foreground the mediations of urban and rural components, at numerous constructed scales and in altered spatial and social formations. In doing so, this book aims to expand the scope of study to the edges of states where typical assumptions of rule are less clear. In Mediterranean contexts, many studies focus on the immediate chorai of ancient towns, within the daily commutes of urban farmers to their plots (0–4 km), and less work has articulated how farther “backwaters” of rural production and inhabitation were tied in complicated ways to the demands or interests of urban seats of authority (Attema 2018a; Koparal and Vaessen 2020). A call to explore rural complexities and to muddy the binary of town and country is not new in Mediterranean archaeology. After some early if irregular interest in ancient economic and agrarian organization, especially in studies building upon rich traditions of topographic research around Greece and Italy and in Soviet classical scholarship, literary-based historians had begun thinking more seriously about ancient rural practices during the mid-twentieth century (Davies 2005). The rise of archaeological survey methods in this period, especially in projects that began to utilize archaeological ethnography, thrust the material conditions of the rural landscape front and center (e.g. Barker 1985; van Andel and Runnels 1987; Cherry et al. 1991; Alcock 1993, 2012; Jameson et al. 1994; Barker et al. 1995; Bintliff et al. 2002; Watrous et al. 2004; Forbes 2007; Foxhall et al. 2012; Attema 2018b). Because pedestrian survey is considerably more difficult

Town and Country on Iron Age Cyprus

in urban and periurban or suburban areas, or in upland and mountainous biomes, survey projects have pragmatically sought out large expanses of lowland agricultural territory in which to begin patterning social processes, such as demography and household organization (Campana 2018: 9–11). From these studies, and the substantive growth in Mediterranean landscape archaeology over the last few decades, has come the recognition of the agency and complexity of rural actors in historical processes and the social, economic, and cultural movements of rural life that traditional archaeological and historical methods have elided or failed to capture (e.g. Snodgrass and Bintliff 1991; Rautman 2000; Pettegrew 2001; Foxhall 2004, 2005; Carter 2006b; Haggis 2015; Zuchtriegel 2017). For the Classical and Hellenistic periods, for example, studies of rural settlement patterns have raised compelling interpretive links between the dispersal or nucleation of settlements and the development of ancient Greek political formations, such as intensive small-scale farming as a backbone of Athenian democracy (e.g. Alcock 1993: 96–105; Bintliff 2006). In the Greek polis case especially, scholars have argued persuasively that cultural divisions between town and country were muted or invoked for highly contextual reasons, given how much of the citizen population worked nearby fields and how the astu, town center, and its chora were a unity (Alcock 1993: 117; Snodgrass 2015).28 Significant and ground-breaking work continues to appear, moving beyond normative town–country or rural site classification models to expose the breadth and variability of material conditions outside urban centers and their interrelationships, in various time periods and regions (e.g. Ghisleni et al. 2011; Halstead 2014; Foxhall and Yoon 2016; Attema et al. 2017; Attema 2018a; Campana 2018; Andreou 2019a; Bowes 2020; Koparal and Vaessen 2020; Belarte et al. 2021). Many studies, however, have retained a transhistorical conception of rurality, one in which contemporary Mediterranean peasant groups could, through their “traditional” agricultural or domestic practices, analogize ancient populations. As Van Oyen (2019) cogently explains, early survey projects and the data they provided have adopted and perpetuated a conception of “rural time” first established in antiquity: one of almost motionless activity, little inherent progress, and largely unchanging, essentialized populations, often homogenized as peasants, whose aims and motivations were tied directly to those of the urban state (e.g. Finley 1973; see also Osborne 1987; Carter 2006a). As survey projects gained more understanding of rural patterns, scholarship started to ask “what is the countryside” through descriptive if sometimes static framing: “what did it look like, what was its condition in environmental terms, how far was it diversified, how

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far was it inhabited, and what went on there besides farming?” (Snodgrass 1987: 69). Many of these kinds of questions still predominate. Beyond these measures, Van Oyen encourages us to question “when is the countryside,” probing the multitemporality conditioned and produced by rural practices and their interconnections with larger sites and cities. As this book will argue, these are critical questions to ask of survey data and rural populations whose senses of time, space, and place-making practices have long been sidelined in the pursuit of defining and understanding classical urbanism (Purcell 2005). They are also pertinent to rising interest in studying the resilience of rural communities, which requires scrutiny of the iterative rhythms, cycles, and durations of particular land use practices as well as countering the assumptions of a timeless Mediterranean agrosystem (e.g. Bintliff 2002, 2012; Bintliff and Howard 2004; Fisher et al. 2009; Bevan and Conolly 2013; Snodgrass 2015; Bowes 2020). I push further by posing more questions that do not take rurality as a self-evident spatial, temporal, or material context of the Archaic period: how is the countryside formed? I ask what countrysides do, how their practices and processes of becoming and unbecoming recursively shape and are shaped by their integration with towns and sites of different sizes and densities. That is to say, I seek to analyze the processes by which “rural communities are made rural” (Yoffee 1995: 547; see also Cronon 1991). This co-constitution of town and country predominates in the influential work of Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell (2000: 89–122; see also Horden 2000), The Corrupting Sea, which theorized Mediterranean historiography via the mutability of ancient landscapes. In their focus on criteria of ecological fragmentation and societal approaches to risk, they provocatively urged scholars to move attention from binaries of ancient town and country to a spectrum of settlement practices linked to physiographic and environmental conditions that necessitated and encouraged human interaction and exchange. They implored scholars to analyze the demands of large and small sites in complex and variegated fabrics of labor, production, and the mobilization of resources, in order to seek out the integrated spaces of practice and cultural production between urban and other-than-urban actors (see also Garrison et al. 2019). “There is at least scope,” Horden and Purcell argue, “for a history of the region which starts from the countryside and looks inwards to the town” (2000: 91). Such a perspective, as taken in this book, is not meant to deny the importance of towns and cities. Urbanism condenses and compresses institutions and salient practices into built environments, and it creates new mentalities for those living or moving within its diverse, extensive spaces (Shaw 2001: 427–428; Algazi 2005: 33;

A Map

Osborne 2005: 13; Yoffee 2009; Fisher and Creekmore 2014; Pauketat 2020: 1; cf. Horden and Purcell: 2000: 90). Significant archaeological work on the remarkable array of structures and densities of past urbanism has indeed greatly informed our understandings that “urbanism need not be synonymous with compact, bounded, and permanent places distinguished by dense human populations” (Pauketat 2020: 5; e.g. Manning et al. 2014; Chesson 2019; Fletcher 2020; Ur 2020). This book joins scholars in arguing that unruly landscapes come into focus when urban and other-than-urban mechanics are examined together and comparatively, not qualitatively or quantitatively isolated, and their material interrelationships taken seriously (Cronon 1991; Garrison et al. 2019; Brenner 2019: 347–350).29 At stake in underscoring the unruliness and weathering of the rural landscapes of this period are not just new interpretations of Cypriot statehood or regional political economies between town and country. I aim in addition to lay out substantive critiques of our ways of discussing, analyzing, and studying human–environment relationships in the past and present. I focus on unruly complexity and environmental materials to build a critical approach to past landscapes that sees them as a mediation of human experiences with their environs, and that eschews renderings of monolithic societal responses to environmental change or of undifferentiated and impoverished settlements outside the town. Such an approach to landscapes can, as others argue, be relevant to current conversations on the social and political dimensions of present and future climatic scenarios (Morrison 2021). Our contemporary moment in the twenty-first century, however, buzzing with the anxieties and mounting tensions spurred by ongoing global warming, mass migrations, demographic crises, and increasing social inequalities, risks making a project such as this seem presentist. In a speculative Anthropocene age unsettled by and uneasy with the hazards of climate change, and ever more wary of the fragility and finitude of our ecosystems, is our burgeoning focus on past human–environment relationships more fad than fundamental to a robust archaeology (Dawdy 2009: 140–141; see also Kintigh et al. 2014)? Advocating the latter, I use the cases of Archaic Cyprus to help investigate our human (pre)history of uneven entanglements with our surroundings and to attend more closely to their dimensionality.

A Map The chapters that follow provide a scaffolding for an environmentally oriented landscape archaeology, using the material and textual records for

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Introduction

Cyprus to foreground several examinations of unruliness on the edges of a first-millennium bce polity. They are organized into two parts. In the first, two chapters parse and explicate theoretical interventions into current archaeological thought on the intersections of social and environmental change in landscapes. In the second part, I chart a multiscalar approach to Cypriot landscapes using in-depth analyses of available data. The framework interpolates evidence at several spatial and temporal scales not only to gather as much as possible from fragmentary datasets, but also to assess how rural practices were themselves constructed at dissimilar scales and rhythms (Gorman-Murray et al. 2008). It also aims to avoid the pitfalls of proceeding too broadly, into overly generalizing and often reductive claims, or too narrowly, into the weeds of particularities. Although the arguments that result can be conjectural, these attentions to scale are necessary to descend beneath the macroscalar signatures of global climate change to the weathering of peoples and their meaningful places on the ground. Chapter 2 provides a review of archaeologies of landscape and outlines where environmental studies reside within these discussions, particularly in the recent rise of climatic and environmental histories of the ancient Mediterranean. Through an evaluation of the challenges of environmental determinism and the interpretive problems of studies of the historical forcing of climatic events in human history, I follow calls for integrated methodologies that look critically at varied scales of evidence and interpretation.30 In advocating the study of weathered materials and their instrumentality within ancient landscape studies, I build upon recent archaeological scholarship on materialism that analyzes how things act and effect historical change.31 I argue that differentiated entanglements of communities and their physical, changing surroundings contributed to transformations in social and political evaluations of land, place, and status. Chapter 3 builds upon this foundation to theorize unruly landscapes through the relations of polities, peoples, and shifting ecologies. While Chapter 2 argues for more nuanced approaches to society-environment interactions, Chapter 3 questions how to analyze the politics of those relationships. I emphasize the benefits of probing unruliness to understand the myriad ways in which human–environment relationships are forged relative to a given social and political order.32 Threaded within a critique of existing conceptions of the political geography of Iron Age Cyprus are arguments for taking seriously the dynamic resources, places and community boundaries, and temporalities of urban and rural terrains. The chapter utilizes arguments drawn from rural studies, anthropology and political

A Map

ecology, and environmental history to investigate settlement hierarchies and resource control, territoriality, and social time. As the book shifts to empirically based arguments in Chapter 4, I address debates for the close of the Late Bronze Age and the rise of Iron Age towns and call for more attention to environmental histories. I deliver an updated synthesis of existing evidence and arguments for climatic shifts across the eastern Mediterranean from the twelfth to fourth centuries bce. Although the available data are uneven, this summary serves to ground an islandwide comparative analysis of ruralization and urbanization apparent by the mid-first-millennium bce. Focusing on legacy and recent survey evidence, the chapter argues for oscillations in sedentism across the island as communities experienced environmental changes and cultivated weathering practices. It situates the re-emergence of social differentiation in the relationships between households and land and new spaces for public gathering at tombs and shrines. Chapter 5 traces the novel politics and communities developing in the neighboring Vasilikos and Maroni river valleys. Their commonly described position as a marginal hinterland of Amathus provides an opportunity to explore and question rural dynamics at multiple registers. Survey data and rescue excavations form an evidentiary dataset with which I interrogate the generative ties between clusters of settlements and Amathus that produced unruliness across variable and interconnected scales. One critical theme is continuity and impermanence, and the differentiated patterns of access, appropriation, and management taken up by groups returning to sites of prehistoric and protohistoric occupation. Another is social stratification, which entails the development of potential community leaders or members with elevated status. Some actors advanced special relationships with Amathusian authorities and local groups through the construction of gathering places, such as cemeteries and shrines. I situate these dynamics in habitation, non-quotidian activity, and land use within a framework of a small near-shore world connecting rural sites with Iron Age maritime economies. In Chapter 6, I adopt a more granular view to examine places within the Vasilikos and Maroni region that illustrate the complexities of emergent rural landscapes. Three vignettes center on assemblages of environmental materials, site-level processes, and land use practices, from the copper mines and gypsum outcrops of the Vasilikos Valley to the littoral soils of the Maroni watershed. I argue that these landscapes mediated the shifting society–environment interactions taking shape alongside the associated growth of rural networks and the town of Amathus. Several sites afford

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Introduction

opportunities to lay out the methodological integration of survey data, excavated materials, paleoenvironmental data, and spatial analyses that build a holistic picture of emerging vernacular landscapes and their historically contingent ambiguities and complexities. Finally, Chapter 7 synthesizes these arguments in a concluding discussion that brings the world of Archaic Cyprus into more substantive conversation on approaches to human–environment relationships writ large, from the horizons of eighthand seventh-century bce transformation across the Mediterranean to our contemporary struggles to conceptualize future modes of social and environmental change. My goal in this book is to intervene in the study of ancient Mediterranean landscapes by situating environmental matter and ecological shifts within human place-making practices, and I hope that the arguments outlined and expanded upon in the following chapters appeal to diverse audiences. While I am certainly not the first to notice divergences between studies of landscapes as socially constructed or as circumscribed by natural forces, I aim to provide a robust mediation between the two that might be applied to other archaeological and historical contexts. For those well versed in the archaeology of Iron Age Cyprus, this book sets out to complement the decades of established research and scholarly consensus on these polities by amplifying the social and economic processes beyond the town. It is not intended as an exhaustive or comprehensive survey of the archaeology of the Archaic period, but rather poses a series of questions related to landscape, settlement, and environment.33 In doing so, I focus much more on the local workings of a state such as Amathus than to its interactions and connectivity with the rest of the Mediterranean, the latter of which some might expect in a book on the island’s post-Bronze Age material culture. While I consider structural changes in transregional exchange impactful on rural Cypriot landscapes, there are other studies that center those interconnections in greater detail (e.g. Kourou 2012). In looking outside the acropolis, The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus foregrounds the mechanics by which a town such as Amathus might extend its power, accommodating social differentiation in smaller settlements while taking advantage of rural access to desired commodities such as gypsum, wood, or copper. To do so, I strongly advocate studying legacy survey data, a category of evidence underutilized in Iron Age studies on the island (cf. Rupp 1987; Iacovou 2004; Papantoniou and Vionis 2018; Satraki 2019). For audiences interested more in theoretical interventions, an additional goal is to introduce Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean as a vibrant field of analysis worthy of interdisciplinary attention (Kearns 2018). Beyond its

On Chronology

position as what many uncritically call a “crossroads” (Hadjisavvas 2010; cf. Georgiou and Iacovou 2020: 1133), Cyprus appears in these pages as a case study for examining unruly complexity. My contextual analyses and discussions celebrate the rich combinations of excavations, surveys, art historical and textual analyses, and environmental studies conducted on the island that provide fruitful material for comparative analysis of Mediterranean social and political organization (Whitley 2020: 180). Similarly to cases such as Etruria in central Italy, north of the Tiber River, Cyprus is often left out of treatments and analyses of Iron Age state formation, and this book makes one step towards introducing its landscape histories into those conversations (e.g. Stoddart 2020; cf. Iacovou 2005a). In privileging the period of the ninth through fifth centuries bce as a series of important oscillations in settled practices and lived places on the island, I am also committed to advocating this period as a compelling timescale within which to explore the emergent intersections of environments, humans, and their meaningful places enrolled in novel social and political worlds. As I discuss in the next section, however, the limitations of the data and chronology preclude a direct comparison to such events as the “revolution” in the Aegean between 750– 650 bce, which scholars such as Anthony Snodgrass sought to understand through rapid changes in structures of demographic growth and social conflict (1980: 15–84; see also Hagg 1983; Whitley 2001: 98–101; Morris 2009; cf. Rupp 1989). My goal is to suggest that similar structural changes were happening on Cyprus in different generational moments and to bring environmental changes and landscapes more fully into the discussion.

On Chronology For those uninitiated in the strange rituals of Cypriot periodization, a brief final note is warranted on the chronological terminology undertaken throughout these discussions. Table 1.1 outlines the relevant periods with the current understandings of their chronologies, produced largely through the seriation and analysis of ceramic styles.34 In Cypriot archaeology, the Late Bronze Age, or what A. Bernard Knapp (2008, 2013) has proffered as the “protohistoric Bronze Age,” peaked during a phasing known as Late Cypriot (LC) IIC, between the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries bce. Major socioeconomic and cultural disruptions end this period sometime in the twelfth century, around 1200 bce, during LC IIIA. This period is followed by the transformations in economy, settlement, and polity from the LC IIIB period onward that serve as the impetus for the analyses in this book.

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Introduction Table 1.1 Current periodization of the late second and first millennia b c e on Cyprus. Period Name

Chronological range (bce)

Middle Cypriot III Late Cypriot I Late Cypriot II Late Cypriot IIIA Late Cypriot IIIB Cypro-Geometric I Cypro-Geometric II Cypro-Geometric III Cypro-Archaic I Cypro-Archaic II Cypro-Classical Cypro-Hellenistic

1750/1700–1680/1650 1680/1650–1450 1450–1200 1200–1125/1100 1125/1100–1050 1050–950 950–900 900–750 750–600 600–475 475–325 325–30

The Iron Age periodization for the island appeared in the foundational work of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition (SCE) during the 1920s and 1930s, which adopted its framework from the existing chronological system for the archaeology of Greece (Gjerstad et al. 1935). Adhering to this nomenclature, Einar Gjerstad and the SCE labelled ceramic material culture with four main phases of the first-millennium bce: Cypro-Geometric (CG), Cypro-Archaic (CA), Cypro-Classical (CC), and Cypro-Hellenistic (CH). Each period has its own number and duration of subdivisions, determined by archaeological finds and serialized through stylistic progression derived predominantly from objects from mortuary contexts. While I focus on describing social and environmental changes by their absolute dates in centuries, certain artifact categories are discussed throughout the book using these cultural phases. Recent work studying the ceramic corpora of individual cemeteries or site assemblages is providing new and important insights into the spatial differentiation of workshops and the distribution of regional styles, such as those of Salamis, Amathus, and Kition (e.g. Georgiadou 2011, 2014, 2017; Waiman-Barak et al. 2021; see also Nys 2008). Cypriot scholars as well as others working across the Mediterranean have called for studying the transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages as an integrated, macrohistorical timeframe, instead of treating the two eras as separated by an arbitrary fault line (e.g. Iacovou 2007; Papantoniou 2012b, 2016; Fourrier 2013; Papadopoulos 2018; Lemos and Kotsonas 2020; Knodell 2021). Following the influential arguments of scholars such as Maria Iacovou (2018), this book explores the fuzzy temporal links

On Chronology

between the Archaic period and the earlier urbanized and ruralized landscapes of the Bronze Age that preceded it, as well as the colonizing practices that followed it during the Hellenistic period. While I work synchronically in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, the continuities and discontinuities with earlier periods provide rich analytical grounds for examining the diachronic making of unruly landscapes. In doing so, I want to examine the Archaic timescale, “composed of jostling and unstable temporalities, defined by processes of assembling and unravelling, ruptures and contingency” (Fornoff et al. 2020: xiii). I do not employ the term Archaic rigidly, and I lump the CG III and CA I and II periods of ceramic production together, as the ninth to fifth centuries bce, which aligns more closely with the recovered survey evidence. This perhaps awkward “long Archaic” pays attention to the centuries of state constitution, environmental transformation, and landscape investment before the Classical period and their generational changes. My goal is not to claim, however, that dramatic developments in household and state economies unfolding in this period were a steady, gradual process of over four centuries in length. Throughout the book, I explore episodes and shorter windows that punctuated this period, particularly within the scope and perspective of generations, which greatly impacted how people were settling and experiencing different environments. One of the most conspicuous of these windows is the later ninth and eighth centuries bce, when CG III and early CA I material becomes more visible in survey records, followed by the significant changes in wealth accumulation and display of the later eighth and seventh centuries bce. These shorter frames shift the focus from discerning broader, regional social and environmental contexts to thinking historically about Iron Age transformations at the scales of households and communities. For some, quotidian rhythms and environmental interactions were more gradual while for others, the rise of monumental places and forms of authority instantiated abrupt yet long-lasting social change. By necessity, however, our abilities to discern and address reorientations or changes such as these depend on the methodologies available, which as already noted, have created pertinent divisions between the ceramic repertoires of the LC, CG, and CA phases and which come to stand in, artificially, for time periods themselves (Knapp 2013). At several points I discuss these methodological concerns and the messiness of the data, but the problem remains that without more attention to chronologies with more high-resolution analyses, our capacity to trace the contours of single generations or of episodic “revolutions” is limited (Kearns 2022a).

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Introduction

Prosaically, my choice of a long timescale acknowledges the almost entire lack of evidence for settlement activity on the island, especially small or non-urban sites, between the eleventh and mid-ninth centuries bce, whose archaeological invisibility would make for an even more circuitous narrative of social and environmental history. We can merely infer, as I argue in Chapter 4, patterns of impermanence and less rooted sedentism. Epigraphic, literary, numismatic, and archaeological materials are simply more abundant and accessible for the following periods, which this book situates and contextualizes alongside the growing data for significant climatic shifts during the eighth and seventh centuries bce.35 Consequently, my discussions do not invest in definitively answering the much-debated questions of political organization or ethnic makeup of the island during the LC III-CG II periods, which, as in other parts of the Mediterranean, are caught in struggles between models of disruption and continuity (e.g. Rupp 1987, 2001; Iacovou 2018; Petit 2019; Georgiou and Iacovou 2020; cf. Knapp and Meyer 2020). As I discuss in Chapter 4, there are clear signs that some settlement patterns have deeper rhythms and continuities with the Late Bronze Age, suggestive of the kinds of political segmentation that would mark the territories of the Iron Age kingdoms. But with the evidence we have, I am more interested in understanding how particular urban and non-urban settlement fabrics took shape during the horizon of the ninth and eighth centuries bce, through human engagements with fluctuating environments. We must await, and hope for, more data on earlier periods with which to extend the analysis. Finally, as a convenient term for the transition to the first-millennium bce, the “Iron Age” has become a frustrating choice for its clinginess to the problematic Three Age System of temporal reckoning (Khatchadourian 2011; Kotsonas 2016, 2020). For Cyprus, well-known as a source of metals from the fifth and fourth millennia bce onward, “iron” is a fitful substance with which to herald a new age sometime after the twelfth century bce, as its production, use, and distribution were entangled with much earlier copper technologies (Sherratt 1994, 2000; Kassianidou 2013). The island’s important cross-craft technologies, as well as the diverse local, regional, and interregional modes of mining and metalwork can thus resist arbitrary schemes of periodization. I use the term Iron Age only when acknowledging the period of disciplinary attention given to the centuries following 1200 bce, to connect the trends and practices of Cyprus to a broader conversation on eastern Mediterranean landscape histories.

part i

On Environs

2

Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape Environments, Climates, Weathering

Introduction An abrupt climatic shift to heightened aridity during the seventh century bce is an enticing causative force in arguments about what led to the final stages of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the unprecedented macropolitical formation that reigned over large swaths of the ancient Near East beginning in the tenth century bce. Scholars have combined paleoclimatic data and ancient evidence from administrative and other textual documents, as well as archaeological material, to claim that a rapid change to drier conditions in an already semiarid to hyperarid hydrological zone created extended droughts, which had a series of interlinked impacts on the empire (Schneider and Adalı 2014, 2016a, 2016b; Sinha et al. 2019). In this narrative, the concentration of growing populations in new urban capitals such as Nineveh overextended the agricultural economy. The inability to keep up with a series of drought-induced failed harvests then drastically affected food supply. With administrative institutions weakened by attempts to feed and maintain the people, and with exchange networks with neighbors threatened, the empire would have been unexpectedly vulnerable to civil wars as well as to external attacks from polities such as Babylonia. These studies theorize the enigmatic end of an immense and powerful imperial project through causative links between shifts in temperature and precipitation, weakening internal and external structures, and military defeat. Despite criticisms of the methods and conclusions of such studies, this seductive linking of climatic change with historical collapse has regained considerable traction in academic and public spheres (Sołtysiak 2016; see e.g. Weiss and Bradley 2001; Weiss 2017). To be sure, work such as this takes advantage of the available scientific data to bring much-needed attention to the environmental contexts of historical processes (e.g. Haldon et al. 2014; J. G. Manning 2018; Scheidel 2018). It also lends itself to public research for wider audiences curious about, and perhaps persuaded by, the replicability of environmentally induced disaster. In the International Business Times, for example, a 2014 headline on this research read “History repeating: ‘overpopulation and drought’ led to Assyrian Empire collapse.”1

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Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape

Appearing more regularly over the last decade, narratives such as these form a trend that could be called “clickbait climate history,” snapshots of ancient or historical climate-related events presented in media for public consumption at a time of increasing anxiety and fears of global warming and associated climate change. A few more examples: In National Geographic in 2012, “a cautionary tale” for civilization stems from a study arguing for “why the Maya fell: climate change, conflict—and a trip to the beach?”2 A tagline for a New York Times article on research postulating that the genocide of the New World during the sixteenth century instigated massive declines in methane production, and hence global cooling, quipped that “Colonists brought climate change to the Americas.”3 In similarly sensationalist language, National Geographic wrote that “Genghis Khan’s secret weapon was rain” as his army swept across the steppe during the fourteenth century ce.4 Reports in 2015 publicized recent research that theorized how the Mediterranean Bronze Age experienced “global societal collapse” through the intersections of drought and conflict, with the website Quartz wondering, “Is it happening again?”5 Of course, these and other science communication headlines drawn from climatological and historical research are produced for popular websites, and they embellish academic scholarship with positive framing for clicks. As a point of departure, however, the scholarly work behind clickbait reports, and the research funding that these posts help generate, frame how past environmental changes and long-term records are marshalled to make climate change and its potentiality seem human and legible. Their progressively popular claims invite more inquiry (Sessa 2019: 212; see also Carey 2012). Chiefly, these analyses often reduce human–environment relationships to equations of breakdown or transition via coincidences in time, what the historian Jason Moore (2016) has called green arithmetic: the simplistic idea that society plus nature adds up to change or catastrophe. Studies seeking the climatic causes of the Neo-Assyrian downfall belong to this trend or genre of scholarship, called by some the “history of climate and society,” which takes advantage of increasingly abundant paleoclimatic and environmental evidence (Degroot et al. 2021). One consistent feature of the trend is an episodic temporality, measured in years, decades, or centuries, which anchors the contextual synchrony between interdisciplinary lines of evidence. The equation ultimately hinges upon correlation. Without the ability to prove empirically that large-scale droughts weakened Neo-Assyrian food supply or economic reserves, for example, researchers instead overlay proxy evidence of climatic change onto interpretable and (usually) more precisely dated historical material. Beyond an overt

Introduction

attraction to stories of chaos and catastrophe, moreover, the genre’s core assumption is that our twentieth- and twenty-first-century understandings of climate change or environments map relatively squarely onto ancient ones. The focus in this type of work is not just the descriptive reconstruction of past climates but the analysis of social impacts of something we understand as and call climate or climatic change. While we tend to think of climate as average weather conditions produced by scientific measurements and extrapolations of aggregated data, premodern perceptions of environs, climates, or weather would have been socially and culturally distinctive. To put it another way, these histories find purchase in a familiar vocabulary of scientific earth systems records and neoliberal constructs of human resilience or vulnerability in the face of sudden tacks of environmental forces (e.g. Diamond 2005; cf. Butzer 2012). Scientific investigations have proven invaluable for understanding past environments and their mutabilities, but in many syntheses, the overemphasis on the impact of physical changes can elide the ways in which other societies understood, managed, constructed, or perceived their surroundings and the spaces and places they inhabited and within which they moved (Rosen 2007). In other words, the landscapes driving such kinds of historical transformation are sidelined by the alluring power of green arithmetic. In archaeological thought, “landscape” has become a predominant site for conceptual struggles on the closely knit conjunctions between society and nature. At its most basic, landscape connotes the physical spaces and place-making practices by which human groups come together through activities and interactions. Scholars tend to agree, moreover, that landscapes are configurations that mediate between individuals, their surroundings, and larger social structures through the experiences of daily life (Hirsch 1995; Feld and Basso 1996; Johnston 1998; Ashmore and Knapp 1999; Anschuetz et al. 2001; Smith 2003; Ashmore 2004). As the last three or so decades of research taken up by the “spatial turn” across the humanities and social sciences have convincingly shown, landscapes and society are co-constituted through practical and ideational relationships, and the spaces, places, and environments – constructed and imagined – that human groups perceive and create are instrumental to the reproduction of their own social, political, and economic orders (e.g. Tuan 1974; Lefebvre 1991; Alcock 1993; Bradley 2000; Smith 2003; Wilkinson 2003; Franklin 2014: 94; 2021). But the widely contested and richly ambiguous semantics of the term have created diverse frameworks of history, materiality, or spatiality that co-exist and overlap one another (Olwig 1996). From earlier painterly notions of visually perceived nature to catch-all terms for space

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Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape

and region, landscape has afforded archaeologists both a means to explaining social worlds and an end in itself, encouraging the reconstruction and description of the territories, environmental niches, or spatial fabrics and interactive webs of the past. This conceptual diversity has emerged over the course of twentieth- and twenty-first-century developments in different ways. Scholarship responds to epistemological shifts and methodological advances in archaeology, to the work of influential individuals, as well as to theories of space, place, and temporality in several disciplines (Bintliff  2005). Landscape studies have also become distinguished along regional and sub-disciplinary lines with their own debates and commitments, from Mesoamerica and southwestern North America to the British Isles and the Near East (e.g. Wilkinson 2003; Johnson 2005, 2007; Ashmore 2009; Fowles 2010; Liebmann 2017). Some of these divergences are methodological. The intensity of Mediterranean survey methods, for example, is known for drawing out small-scale features often to the detriment of asking big-picture questions (Blanton 2001, 2004; Wilkinson et al. 2004). This chapter explores how archaeological work can assess historical and environmental mediations by examining several of the claims of recent approaches to human–environment relationships and archaeologies of landscape. In trying to avoid the weaknesses of narratives that too readily synchronize societal responses to environmental conditions, how would a landscape archaeology of emergent Archaic polities on Cyprus think more critically about the spaces, places, and environments that recursively constituted social transformation? An important first step is to acknowledge the give and take through which landscapes shaped diverse and unequal collaborations between human and non-human agencies (Franklin 2014: 96). In a first section, I provide a rough overview of archaeologies of landscape and outline several themes and debates that shape the integrative work of this book, with attention given to studies conducted in the Mediterranean region. In doing so, I point to places where more attention to environments and climate can intervene. In the second section, I turn to the growing scholarly and popular interest in histories of climate–society interactions and summarize key concerns for ancient Mediterranean landscape histories (Haldon et al. 2018a). These range from the well-known weaknesses of privileging either maximalist or detail-oriented, particularist interpretations, to poorly resolved and sketchy data, to the lack of attention to the social, political, and cultural dimensions of ancient human–environment relationships, and to the frictions caused by research crossing (or skipping over) disciplinary divides of science and humanism.

Archaeologies of Landscape

Thinking robustly about these intersections of communities and environments sheds different light on the uneven interactions between actors, human and non-human alike, at the heart of landscape archaeologies. The third section synthesizes current advances in archaeological theorizations of things to better account for the materials that co-create landscapes. The concept of weathering, and the weathered materials of landscapes, draws these ideas within a critical landscape archaeology that looks not just at the social construction of places through manufactured objects and their networks, but also at the unruly terrains that co-constituted them: soils, minerals, waters, vegetation, ores, animals. It brings much-needed attention to the materials and geophysical, climatic processes enrolled in the making of landscapes and follows similar calls from political ecologists and environmental historians for broader historical research to “pay attention to dirt” (Stroud 2003: 76; Hulme 2016; see also Wilkinson 2004; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Parrinello and Kondolf 2021). Weather and weathering help to rebalance landscape studies that have become more focused on the “scaping” of place and space towards the physicality of “land” and its constituents.

Archaeologies of Landscape Archaeologists have been thinking about landscapes for a long time. As field practices became more systematic and empiricist during the early twentieth century, scholars plotted an increasing array of things at larger spatial scales for descriptive reconstruction and analysis. Influenced by the cultural geographies of the period (e.g. Sauer 1969 [1925]), these efforts tended to focus on the categorization and investigation of culture areas and local histories (e.g. Hoskins 1955). By the mid-twentieth century, landscape had surfaced mostly as a container for a set of questions related to settlement structures and patterns, both within a culture area and beyond its borders (e.g. Willey 1953). Proponents of the so-called processual or New Archaeology, arising in the 1950s and 1960s, began to focus on how cultural changes in past societies grew from adaptations to changing environments (e.g. Binford 1962). Others expanded around this central focus on environments to view landscapes as surrounding and ecologically constraining human social systems held in equilibrium. These conceptual shifts were part of a broader reactive position heavily influenced by contemporary advances in the natural sciences, such as ecology and systems theory. Archaeologists applied scientific insights and methods to studying landscapes as the largest scale of environmental and anthropogenic forces

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that shaped human settlements and material culture, but they tended to produce synchronic descriptions instead of diachronic explanations and left less space for theorizing humanity’s agency. In response, and in concert with the late twentieth-century postmodern and poststructuralist turns to contextual analysis, “post-processual” archaeologies rejected the generalizing models of the New Archaeologists by examining landscapes as texts, representations, symbols, and discursive strategies. Many privileged the ideational work of constructed places over measurable but asocial space, and were heavily influenced by geographers and social theorists (e.g. Tuan 1974; Lowenthal 1985; Jackson 1984; Lefebvre 1991; Harvey 1996; Casey 1997). These studies began to eschew empiricist or rational economic models of ecology or environment in favor of socio-symbolic and philosophical theories, such as phenomenology, which embed human meanings within their material surroundings (e.g. Tilley 1994; Johnston 1998; Stark 1998; Ashmore and Knapp 1999). Most recently, landscape archaeologists have taken on concepts of relationality and practice to foreground what landscapes do (e.g. Bourdieu 1977). In doing so, they highlight the complex and recursive interactions between humans, places, and non-human things that produce and reproduce social, cultural, and political structures at different rhythms and scales (Smith 2003; see also Ingold 1993; Bauer 2010; Franklin 2021).6 This coarse sketch necessarily flattens different contours of landscape archaeologies, but it points to a particular conceptual and practical wedge, as others have noted, between “ecological” and econometric analyses and those favoring “interpretative” modes for discerning human meaning embedded in physical places (Ashmore 2004; Bauer 2010: 15–18; Kosiba and Bauer 2013). If the former often downplay the cultural and ideational aspects of landscapes and spatiality, the latter have also tended to eschew climatic or environmental processes, and could benefit from more dialogue with fields such as political ecology and environmental history (Whatmore and Hinchliffe 2010; Given 2013; Kosiba and Bauer 2013). In what follows, I look more closely at some of these important developments to parse where human–environment relationships reside within current Mediterranean landscape archaeologies (e.g. Leveau 2000; Athanassopoulos and Wandsnider 2004; Bintliff 2012; Walsh 2014). Several themes, guided especially through the rise of archaeological survey and rural settlement studies in the second half of the twentieth century, inspire and help to guide the approaches to past landscapes employed in this book. An important, overarching theme of human–environment interactions concerns the relationships between settlements and their ecological and

Archaeologies of Landscape

climatically shaped environs, and there have been different entryways to examining and elucidating those relationships. One set of issues relates to causation and how we can discern landscape evolution along lines of human or natural agency. As archaeological survey projects began to increase the spatial coverage of their data collection, experimenting with more intensive techniques and designing collaborative methods with scientists and environmental specialists, landscapes and their long-term ecological changes complemented archaeological interpretation of settlement trends and regional economies (Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985; Jameson et  al. 1994; Given and Knapp 2003; Given et al. 2013a). Fieldwork and more sophisticated scientific analyses thus brought archaeologists closer to reconstructing environments and to interactionist models of anthropogenic and natural ecological change, driven by man’s role in shaping his environment (e.g. Bottema et al. 1990; Leveau 2000). For many projects, reports on local soils, geological or hydrological structures, vegetation, and climate provided data for models of resource exploitation within a settlement’s ecological catchment (Bintliff 2014). An undeniably strong tension emerged in these studies between natural and anthropogenic causes of landscape change (Bintliff 2002). Claudio Vita-Finzi’s (1969) groundbreaking work on the impact of alluviation and erosion in Mediterranean landscapes, for example, became a catalyst for understanding broad shifts in climate and land use since the Neolithic and inspired other survey projects to detail local geomorphological dynamics (e.g. Gomez 1987; van Andel and Runnels 1987). The crux of many of these investigations was a search for understanding ruptures in settlement patterns and their causation, whether by environmental disruption or by the technological adaptations of agricultural systems that spurred processes such as erosion, soil degradation, and deforestation (Butzer 2005). The focus on causes tends to produce interpretations of linear processes and time, and perpetuates an unhelpful, if convenient, binary of nature and culture. Yet these studies have been beneficial in not only promoting the integration of cultural artifacts with other kinds of data, such as soil profiles, vegetation histories, and hydrological systems, but equally in situating settlements in broader contexts of local and regional environmental change. A focus on human practices shapes another set of issues related to how landscapes recursively come into being through perceptive, subjective, and willful individuals and groups. Since the 1990s, growing interests in the spatial dimensions of social life in postmodernist and poststructuralist studies across the academy have highlighted the social and cultural aspects of human spatial practices, particularly in the creation of meaningful,

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constructed places. Susan Alcock’s (1993) Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece, a “classic almost from the moment of its publication,” is an especially influential project in such Mediterranean landscape archaeologies (Bintliff 1996: 109). In this work, Alcock systematically and rigorously studied regional surveys in the Peloponnese and Greek mainland to foreground the social construction of lived places and landscape reorganization as formerly autonomous villages and cities became colonized and provincialized through Roman imperialism. Countering the debated image of a weakened province of Achaea preserved in Greek and Roman writers, Alcock adeptly revealed compelling signs of landscape development, especially in local investments in rural sanctuaries, land use, and market activity. Her working conceptual framework accounted for what is now a foundational mode of understanding landscapes as humanly perceived and built (1993: 6–7): a social product, the consequence of a collective human transformation of the human environment. Human activity, human involvement forms the key element  … landscapes are inherently dynamic and historically sensitive, altering to accommodate change in the political and social order. At the same time, they serve as an active force in promoting and perpetuating cultural change, through their ability to structure and control human activity. (my emphasis)

This definition takes direction from cultural geographers such as J. B. Jackson (1984) and also nods to the contemporary influence of prehistorians and archaeologists working on landscapes, such as Richard Bradley (1984) and J. Malcolm Wagstaff (1987). Alcock’s work has been revolutionary and has served as a standard for robust analysis of settlement activity and features such as sacred landscapes through evidence from intensive survey, published archaeological reports, and textual records (e.g. Papantoniou and Vionis 2017). This integration of multiple data sources convincingly revealed the histories of Greeks “without history,” a lacuna obliquely created by the biases of ancient texts, but it was most effective in emphasizing how landscapes were not only altered by human interests and actions, but actively shaped them through recursive interactions. These multitemporal landscapes were full of ruins, feasting spots, tombs and sanctuaries, monuments to power and border markings, routes, and settlements of peoples differentiated through their own place-making practices and worldviews. While Alcock acknowledged the physical environment, however, it was a background to the machinations of Greek social, political, and economic practices as well as cultural and ideational attachments to place. Throughout Graecia Capta, the few discussions of environments mostly serve to

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introduce generic variability in ecology or climate (e.g. 1993: 21, 227). Other influential archaeological statements from the period followed similar lines, preoccupied with the subjective nature of human knowledge and wary of progressivist and reductionist models. Many scholars working at the turn of the new millennium grew to conceive landscape as an “entity that exists by virtue of its being perceived, experienced, and contextualized by people” (Knapp and Ashmore 1999: 1–2). These were spatial interrelationships conspicuously framed in terms of ideas, meanings, sacred practices, and memories, not climate or ecology. Cognition and ideation were paramount, while the matter of landscapes and their objective appearance lacked significance “independent of the beholder” (1999: 7). In the interpretive shift to taking seriously human cognition and agency in shaping salient places, these powerful approaches to landscape histories frequently elided environments and climates and instead centered human-made vestiges and representations. An additional set of frameworks has sought to balance the research focus on environments and geophysical processes, on the one hand, and human cognition and agency, on the other. Those derived from historical and cultural ecologies have become popular, using terms such as “settlement ecologies” to invoke the dialectic between humans and their environments (e.g. Anschuetz et al. 2001: 177–178). A particularly vibrant field of landscape archaeology embracing many of the advances of historical ecology developed through the work of Near Eastern archaeologist Tony Wilkinson (2003) and grew out of earlier regional landscape analyses by scholars such as Robert McC. Adams (Adams and Nissen 1972). Combining analysis of geomorphological processes and ecological change as well as studies of power and society, these perspectives aimed to build more holistic approaches to the ways that human interactions with environmental processes co-create physical landscapes (e.g. Alizadeh et al. 2004; Wilkinson 2004; Ur 2005; Casana 2008). Wilkinson’s influential studies are indeed grounded in materialist lines of inquiry. Paying attention to soils, rainfall regimes, and taphonomic processes – such as erosion, flooding, and alluviation – helps to trace the landscape signatures of temporal horizons or agricultural economies at different sites (Wilkinson 2014). Often employing multiscalar perspectives of settlement hierarchies, especially through the tools of extensive field survey and remote sensing, such studies have advocated much-needed synthesis of shifting environmental features and archaeological records for tracing and interpreting landscape patterns. The rise of geospatial analyses in archaeology over the last two decades, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications, has further capitalized on many of the methodological insights of this work, especially

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in the cartographic layering of data such as satellite images, hydrological and geological information, and artifacts. What results is often a top-down, masculinist, and colonialist gaze that renders ancient life into geometric form, even as it acknowledges the inherent and sometimes massive transformations of twentieth- and twenty-first-century land use. As others have argued, geospatial analyses can equally appear to diverge in epistemological modes. There are econometric ones that seek to understand functional differentiation through quantitative analyses, some that privilege the largely visualized and ideational experiences of landscapes, and others that try to use GIS to discern how ancient societies situated themselves in historically rooted and meaningful places (Franklin 2020; see Kosiba and Bauer 2013; Arponen et al. 2019). Attending to the complexities of ancient landscapes through geospatial and computational analyses, as undertaken in this work, entails the identification of these kinds of biases and methodological limitations, as well as transparent efforts to showcase how analyses are taking into account ancient perceptions and experiences. This book seeks to understand landscapes by building upon these different lenses – the interdisciplinary methods that aim to understand how environmental changes articulate with settlement histories, the emphasis on social and political constructions of meaningful places and their instrumentality in human life, and the diachronic and multitemporal rhythms of place and environment examined through holistic spatial analyses. In addition, I view landscapes, particularly in semiarid contexts such as Cyprus, as dynamic and in flux, taking a cue from the arguments for microregional fragmentation and variability explored in Horden and Purcell’s (2000) The Corrupting Sea and earlier by Fernand Braudel (1972). With a focus on historical ecological theories of resource variability, Horden and Purcell (2000) have argued that unpredictable environments and intense geophysical variations afforded certain opportunities to acquire resources, labor, and other commodities.7 And while not an archaeology of landscape per se, the powerful resonance of this work operating “under the sign of the microecology” has become influential to historians and field practitioners aiming to understand smaller regional landscapes and their interconnections with larger processes, instead of in isolation (2000: 2, 54; e.g. Bevan and Conolly 2013; Broodbank 2013; Caraher et al. 2014; Gordon 2018). The rich multiscalar analysis of the small island of Antikythera, for example, has adeptly foregrounded patterns of persistence and precarity in land use over the last several millennia (Bevan and Conolly 2013).8 For the project leaders (10), an emphasis on short- and longer-term investments in environments “sees the emergence of culturally mediated ‘places’ as they manifest themselves above

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and beyond the general affordances of the environment, and thus strike an attractive analytical balance between environmental determinism and historical relativism.” We should caution the implicit rendering of an environment as the rudimentary system “above and beyond” which humans create meaningful places, for its subordination of materials and things (e.g. Walsh 2008, 2014). The Antikythera project has shown, however, how careful analysis and integration of the constituents of landscapes can reveal the shifting durability and dynamism of uneven human–environment relationships. This admittedly selective précis has aimed to highlight some of the trends in archaeologies of landscape and their antecedents to establish the interventions of this book. The skewing of approaches to landscape that favor ecological datasets and quantitative or functionalist questions or those that seek out the human conditions that make places meaningful are not mutually exclusive but have nevertheless forged dichotomous kinds of research questions. For some, the rise of climate–society histories is revealing the endurance of maximalist historiographical modes that favor implicit determinism, while for others, relational understandings of socially constructed place tend to elide the physical and material stuff of environmental surroundings, or render them static (Whatmore and Hinchliffe 2010: 441–445; Given 2013). A way forward urges more concern for examining the relationships between humans and their surroundings in schemes that do not subordinate nature to culture, or vice versa, but seek out “peopled” environments generated by the historical constitution of social and natural processes (Crumley 1994; Wilkinson 2003; Bauer et al. 2007: 7; Rosen 2007; Morrison et al. 2021). Recentering the substantive and material constituents of these processes, and their instrumentality in social and political life, entails moving beyond the flows of people and goods and their built environments to include the interfaces of soils, waters, rocks, or trees weathered by cultural as well as environmental and climatic phenomena. Climate is a sticky problem, however, which I turn to in the next section. It is abstract and can resist identification in numerous proxies at varying scales of analysis. If past landscapes were not just residues or imprints of cultural meaning but consisted of a lively assembling of humans and non-humans, how do we think seriously about the interventions of climate in those dynamic histories?

Environments, Climates, Histories “So far as climate is concerned, Greece appears to have enjoyed unusually favorable conditions throughout most of the period from perhaps 1000

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to 300 B.C., and especially about 400 B.C.” (Huntington 1924: 22). This picture of “favorable climate” fostering the efflorescence of Greek culture in Ellsworth Huntington’s Civilization and Climate appeared at the tail end of a period when environmental and geographical determinism were rigorously studied and used to interpret human social evolution across the colonial world. Such determinism, defined broadly, seeks to understand or explain how climate, ecology, or physical geography can push, predispose, or constrain human societies towards certain outcomes or developmental trajectories, and usually deemphasizes human agency. Huntington’s ideas built upon late nineteenth-century work in anthropogeographie, the study of the geographical distribution of societies, of imperialists such as Friedrich Ratzel. These theories helped historians associate stages of the social evolutionary ladder – savage bands, tribes, civilizations – to particular climatic zones, with the most complex and prestigious centered in the cooler, temperate latitudes of western Eurasia. This kind of environmental determinism has a very long western pedigree (e.g. Glacken 1967; Livingstone 2012; Kennedy 2016). By the appearance of the third edition of Huntington’s overtly racist take on global history, strong reactions had already been circulating among anthropologists such as Franz Boas, geographers such as Paul Vidal de la Blache, and historians such as Lucien Febvre, who critiqued its reductive determinism and replaced it with the logics of cultural relativism and possibilism: human cultures differed greatly and adapted in their own ways to the same biomes, and climate alone could not cause trajectories of social change (see also Sauer 1969 [1925]). Roundly discarded for its generalizing interpretive mode, not to mention its contextual baggage as an academic tool of imperialism and racism, environmental determinism has become an anti-frame for those conducting historical and archaeological analysis related to environments, climate, or geography throughout the twentieth century (Hulme 2011; Livingstone 2012). Indeed, many historians and archaeologists have been eager to disavow their work from this kind of determinism (Braudel 1972; Horden and Purcell 2000: 44; e.g. Broodbank 2013; Harris 2013b; Bevan and Conolly 2013; Sessa 2019: 219 n. 32). Roughly a century after the determinist Ellen Churchill Semple (1911: 591) could write that “the broken relief of ancient Greece produced the small city state,” one could read that “a historian is not allowed to say that a climatic event ‘marks the beginning of the Greek Renaissance’” (Harris 2013a: n. 22). But determinism is rarely dissected, its conceits largely assumed to be analogous to generalizing and hyperbolic claims that dictate how climates produce human achievement, often eschewing any discussion of the material

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and perceived impacts that climatic changes can and do have on human decision-making or strategies (cf. Middleton 2017; Arponen et al. 2019; Govier 2020). Huntington’s sketch of the late Holocene climate of the first-millennium bce was also – as we now know, and discussed more in Chapter 4 – not as smooth as he reconstructs nor as representative of an “unusually favorable” climate, as he vaguely puts it. The breadth and ongoing advancements of climatological research now afford scholars more precision for contextualizing past geophysical and climatic phenomena. Yet the underscoring of “favorable” (or conversely “bad”) climatic conditions linked to cultural or historical transitions, and the causal language of determinism surrounding it, has resurfaced over the last few decades across the academy and public spheres in studies such as the clickbait ones that opened this chapter (Hulme 2011). There are a number of reasons for the return  to  neodeterminism, undoubtedly led by renewed attention to contemporary global environmental change, catalyzed during the 1960s and 1970s by scholars such as Rachel Carson and subsequent political movements (Meyer and Guss 2017; Warde et al. 2018). There is certainly merit in studying oscillations in historical ecological change caused by wider meteorological and climatic phenomena or in land use technologies and associated concerns of sustainable practice (e.g. Roberts et al. 2019). Another reason stems from our current and presentist concerns to avoid repeating humanity’s previous mistakes and be better prepared for future scenarios, leading scholars to reach back into “climate history” to not only produce better modeling for future climates, but also to understand society-climate encounters, usually of the collapse or disaster kind (Degroot et al. 2021; Tierney et al. 2021). Mike Hulme (2011) has additionally and helpfully framed much of the recreation of determinist questions against the future-oriented modeling of current climate science, which produces a kind of epistemological slippage of “climate reductionism” wherein all future societal changes are interpreted and schematized through climate events. Arguably, similar developments have intervened in the study of the past, where everything from imperial breakdown (e.g. Harper 2017) to nomadic hordes (Pederson et al. 2014) can be explained through the prism of climate events and their associated impacts.9 Additionally, macroscalar arguments that use “big data” and cliometrics and that make generalizing claims through coarse comparative analysis are in vogue. The turn to global approaches to history, for example, has made abrupt climate episodes – hypothetically evident for example in Greenland ice cores with annual resolution and relative to hemispheric and planetary levels – attractive for comparing and

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explaining various kinds of cross-cultural structural change (McCormick 2011: 254; Haldon et al. 2014; J. G. Manning 2018). As noted earlier, the outpouring of more refined and more diverse kinds of scientific evidence for past climates and environments has spurred historians and archaeologists to look more closely at the intersections of past environmental and social change, and to call for more attention to quantitative and scientific data. The so-called environmental fall of Rome, for example, has become one vibrant arena for the testing of hypotheses on the climatic factors generating instabilities in agricultural systems, disease and epidemiological regimes, and landscape changes that conditioned the major demographic collapses associated with the end of the western Roman empire (Sessa 2019; e.g. McCormick et al. 2012; Haldon et al. 2014; Harper 2017; Grey 2019). Moreover, the Mediterranean inhabits an entrancing if paradoxical space for neo-determinist scholarship and its opponents, not only for its rich textual and archaeological archives marked by a complex nature-culture dichotomy, but also for the assumption that despite its inherent variabilities, it has persisted as a relatively unchanged and “utterly anthropogenic landscape” since the Neolithic (Pyne 1997; see also Rackham 1996; Grove and Rackham 2003). Take Snodgrass (1987: 72–73), for example: “we should assume the rural landscape of ancient Greece to have resembled, in environmental terms, that of Greece today … the reader who is prepared to share this assumption can then turn once again to classical literature and, if he looks widely and closely enough, find many features that will not be unfamiliar.” The basin serves as an exemplary imaginary of essentialized climate and ecosystems that tends to invite arguments for either extreme: entirely man-made disasters, such as those stemming from ancient deforestation (e.g. Thommen 2012; Hughes 2014), or the natural exogenous forces of climate, bringing with them humidity and disease vectors or aridity and famine (e.g. Harper 2017). As the correlations between climatic and historical change in ancient contexts such as the Mediterranean have gained more scrutiny, and have been critiqued along theoretical and methodological lines, scholars working across disciplines have advocated frameworks that seek to bridge the gaps of natural and social scientific research (McCormick 2011; Walsh 2014; Izdebski et al. 2016). The concept of consilience, for example, urges the integration of methodological commitments and evidentiary datasets from epistemologically distinct frameworks of study to unite human and physical history (McCormick et al. 2012; Izdebski et al. 2016). At stake are not just more robust analyses of climates intersecting with episodes of social change, but also efforts to think in, and communicate across, the

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language of separate bodies of inquiry, such as paleoclimate science and political history (see also Pollard and Bray 2007, 2014). These endeavors have capitalized on some of the similarities between the methods of history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past, owing to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist and their generally similar narrative presentations. One obvious consequence is that analyses focus on historical contexts with the most available chronological precision, such as Western Europe during the past two millennia (McCormick et al. 2012). More problematic, however, are the ways that consilience thinking tends to privilege scientific approaches over humanistic ones or one type of data over another (Sessa 2019: 227–228). That archaeologists should be more scientific is indeed a trope, and as Kathleen Morrison (2021: 1072) has argued, “our social and cultural insights are at least as important as the numbers we can generate.” While the case of the drought-induced disintegration of the NeoAssyrian Empire mentioned at the outset of this chapter makes for an exciting example of cross-disciplinary research, this form of ancient socioenvironmental history has exposed the numerous methodological, analytical, and interpretive problems of studying past climate–society interactions (Manning 2013a, 2022a; Knapp and Manning 2016; Haldon et al. 2018b; Sessa 2019; Degroot et al. 2021). Perhaps the most obvious limitation is the issue of scale, and how synchronizing climatic and social history usually remains in the fuzzy register of maximalist, generalizing claims (Grey 2019). What most often results is the “pseudo-ecology” critiqued by Oliver Rackham (1996) as perpetuating factoids with little connection to material records. The scalability of environments, from entire regions or biomes to geomorphological forms such as tells or ravines, to the microscopic movements of soils, minerals, or seeds, makes them conceptually difficult to compare with human activities (Rosen and Rosen 2001). Whereas most records of past climatic shifts hover stubbornly at the scale of centuries, if not millennia, for example, human conceptions of changing environments happen on daily, seasonal, yearly, or generational timescales (Grey 2019). When syncing physical archives with human testimonies or material culture, we can achieve matches on one level of analysis but create misleading oversimplifications on another. It is, moreover, simply difficult for us to imagine the environments of two, four, six thousand years ago – conservationists refer to the problem as “shifting baseline syndrome,” in which we tend to retroject our own conditions onto the past (Svenning 2017: 68). As others have started to argue, microregional approaches that offer case

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studies with feasible scales of data and evidence are more profitable when situated within multiscalar interpretations of social and political change (Haldon et al. 2018b; Bonnier and Finné 2020). While we are at the forefront of compelling advances in modeling ancient climates and ecological changes, the paleoenvironmental records available and continuously generated are often poorly resolved temporally and spatially. Although advocates of consilience perhaps optimistically call natural archives analogous to historical materials, such as texts, there is a risk in focusing on how these widely different kinds of record sync rather than on their incommensurable characters and interpretive challenges (Degroot et al. 2021). Finding evidence of impactful human-climate interfaces within ancient texts is already a difficult enterprise, given the varying and often opaque ways in which past societies thought about, imagined, named, and chose to record certain ecological effects or phenomena within their prosaic and ideological forms of writing (Reculeau 2011). Natural archives on the other hand are usually deposits or accumulations of matter, such as sediment cores, ice cores, tree rings, or speleothems, each with their own histories of becoming evidentiary categories for the natural sciences (e.g. Roberts 2013). Within these material records are the indirect proxies, such as isotopic composition or microbotanical assemblages, which scientists look for and quantify to understand changes over time in temperature, water availability, or even pollution. This work requires various kinds of analyses and laboratory equipment that come with their own challenges of sampling, preparatory work, and contamination. What thus becomes difficult is the disentangling of “noise from the signal” of climate variability (Izdebski et al. 2016: 5). Many processes and things working at different scales produce a given archive, let’s say a lake sediment core: meteorological phenomena, hydrological and geophysical processes, human interventions in cultivation, land use, or pollution, biological actors such as microorganisms, as well as geomorphological processes of erosion, alluviation, or siltation, to name a few. Some proxies, moreover, are more valuable for informing us about human interventions in the landscape, such as crop pollen remains, and are much less reliable for reconstructing paleoclimatic shifts. Many of the studies conjoining these types of challenging proxy records with evidence of human social change produce what Sturt W. Manning (2022a) calls the “smoosh” effect. In these cases, presumed environmental episodes are selected with known historical evidence for social change, a method which often smudges out the problems of chronological resolution on both sides. Correlating such imprecise data regularly results from the “conspicuous lack of close association and worked causative model”

Environments, Climates, Histories

in these studies, which tend to reproduce a black box of vague explanations and to focus instead on the compelling and even dramatic synchronization or coupling of natural and cultural forces (Coombes and Barber 2005; Haldon et al. 2018b). There are several problems that make synchronization messy. The imprecise chronological resolution inherent in many contexts, using current methods of calibrated radiocarbon dating and even with sophisticated statistical analysis, such as Bayesian modeling, is a particularly worrying problem. Some singular anomalies can become exaggerated into actual events, “smooshing” together surrounding but potentially unrelated factors and creating century-long phases of assumed transition or disruption. Additionally, it can be difficult to discern the drivers of high-frequency climate change or variability in natural archives that would match particular historical records (Plunkett et al. 2022). Another major problem is the lack of proxy records for many parts of the ancient world, resulting in studies claiming global or regional signatures from data hundreds or thousands of kilometers away in different bioclimatic zones. For the Neo-Assyrian case mentioned earlier, while the focus is on the imperial city of Nineveh on the Tigris River, scholars used paleoclimatic or environmental records from coastal Syria and Tecer Lake in Anatolia (Schneider and Adalı 2014, 2016a, 2016b) and more recently from the Kuna Ba cave in northeastern Iraq, still roughly 300 km away from Nineveh (Sinha et al. 2019). While the correlations in climate between regions such as these can be compelling and justified, the gaps in coverage can create methodological and interpretive problems. As the geoarchaeologist and scholar of human ecology Karl Butzer (2011: 13) wrote, “most of the more popular claims that climate has impacted history are deductive and based on data that are inadequate or misrepresented. Social resilience and adaptation are not considered, ignoring case studies of the ways in which people have confronted short- or long-term crises in the past.” Resilience has emerged in ancient environmental history as an often opaque, catch-all term for countering the disaster-heavy language of earlier work that pitted humans against domineering natural forces (Izdebski et al. 2018; Degroot et al. 2021). In the context of environmental precarity, resilience most often refers to “the ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances” (Adger 2000: 347). Derived from ecological systems theories of resilience, the term has been seductive for historical case studies that aim to counter or nuance the “bad climate leads to societal collapse” formula. For the Little Ice Age of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, for example, the Dutch states and their economic trading activity were arguably taking advantage of cooler northern hemispheric

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conditions, showing resilience to what was otherwise a period of often devastating economic downturn for much of Western Europe (Degroot 2018). Here, resilience signifies societal abilities to adapt to changes in environmental systems without loss of equilibrium, typically through shifts in political economy and technology that accommodate new realities and possibilities for action (see also Frankel et al. 2013). The argument for oscillations in pastoralism after periods of collapse in agricultural societies, for instance, works partly on assumptions about the greater resilience of less permanent, more mobile, and small-scale livelihoods (Butzer 2012: 3636). More exploitative complex political economies like the NeoAssyrian Empire, on the other hand, would be less likely to uphold conservative land use practices in the face of abrupt changes and hence would be more vulnerable to environmental impacts. These tensions between uses of landscapes expose some of the ambiguities in recent work on past environments that fail to move beyond large-scale claims of resilience or to consider the cultural or ideational factors behind changing perceptions and worldviews (e.g. Walsh 2014). They also tend to put the focus on the side of human actors who must adapt or recover, rather than discern the complex of factors – structural conditions, political systems, technological dependencies, in addition to natural forces – that create conditions of precarity (Pugh 2021). Moreover, what exactly was resilient often goes unstated. Societies or communities and their practices of solidarity? Household units? Land use practices, forms of production or consumption, technology, or the mobilization of labor? The elasticity of institutions capable of adapting to different demands and expectations? Despite calls for historical climate studies to avoid imposing postindustrial and neoliberal framings of the resilient citizen-subject onto the past, resilience theory tends to emphasize the reactive adaptabilities or impulses of social groups rather than their transformative or oppositional agencies. More importantly, resilience theory is still largely concerned with what I have been calling “bad” climatic changes – disasters, crises, conflicts, hazardous events or trends – which essentialize climate rather than analyze its diverse material and ideational relationships with communities on the ground and at numerous scales. More productive are the findings that combine geoarchaeological, archaeological, spatial, and ethnographic data on subsistence practices in marginally arable areas and during “bad years” of reduced harvests. Scholars have convincingly shown how agropastoral societies create numerous strategies for buffering their land use in conditions of diminished productivity (Halstead and O’Shea 1989; Wilkinson 2004; Marston 2011; Halstead

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2014; Manning 2022b). Moreover, sophisticated work relating these kinds of records to historical data reveal that two consecutive “bad years” of ruinous harvest, which would threaten the sufficiency of some subsistence regimes, are exceedingly rare in the Mediterranean region (Halstead and O’Shea 1989; S. W. Manning 2018). Something like resilience, in these studies, is grounded in the practicalities of decision-making for cultivation, harvesting, labor, and storage practices, which are all politically and economically contingent to given social orders (Marston 2015; Riehl 2015; Marston and Branting 2016). Similarly, work exploring the recent impacts of droughts on agricultural economies in Syria in 2007-2009 has shown how the common narrative that lack of rain caused resource stress, which led to political uprisings, is too simplistic and fails to capture the shortterm recovery of croplands and rural landscape practices before the outbreak of societal conflicts (Eklund et al. 2022). In addition, we should bear in mind that even something as seemingly pragmatic as surplus, as a material and economic reality related to security, is recursively shaped by social and political dimensions of storage, communal giving and exchange, and scales of production. As others have rightly noted, we can ask not only how a given community gathered and distributed its storage in times of vulnerability, but also, more critically, “for whom and who decided what was ‘enough’” (Hastorf and Foxhall 2017: 27; Van Oyen 2020). Everyday practices of accumulation can be altered depending on one’s status and goals, as can the modes in which stored things are controlled, seen, and experienced across social classes. A season of strained and underproducing harvests would have varying material and ideational impacts on households, for whom “enough” perhaps means food security for future years, or on governing elites, for whom the visual display of surplus to other elites acts politically. Critiques of catastrophist studies and of the increasingly popular if reductive use of resilience have indeed pointed to the impoverished way that many conceive of, or fail to account for, the sociopolitical dimensions of human–environment relationships (Coombes and Barber 2005; Butzer 2012; Izdebski et al. 2018). Many academic and popular studies, while acknowledging the biases of certain written sources or the social inequalities of the past, tend to treat human responses to or encounters with changing climates as monolithic or as simply class-based (e.g. Harper 2017; cf. Rosen and Rosen 2001; Rosen 2007; Haldon et al. 2018b). For many working within the broad field of environmental history, this bias is relatively familiar: since it is challenging even to understand how humans relate to ecosystems, scholars typically end up treating societies as homogeneous

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wholes (Taylor 1996: 7). Important work responding to these macroscalar generalizations has instead started to reveal how environments and weathering phenomena are differentially experienced, perceived, and historically configured by human groups, across cultures and between communities (Crumley 1994; Locher and Fressoz 2012; Wilkinson 2014; Bauer and Bhan 2016; McInerney and Sluiter 2016). Genghis Khan might have achieved certain ends with the possibilities for conquest engendered by greater rainfall and thicker steppe vegetation, but would we say those conditions were favorable for the conquered caught in his path? When applied to the synthesizing of scientific and historical evidence, these insights forward the possibilities of certain outcomes, not necessary ones (Haldon et al. 2018b). Lars Fogelin (2019: 49) recently and cuttingly relayed similar concerns, while discussing some of the problems in how archaeologists make inferences about past societies: I ask, however, how much more informative are statements such as ‘In the 11th century, Chaco Canyon was slightly wetter than it is today?’ By itself, this statement says little about past societies. It only gains significance when the implications of this statement are tracked through other social concerns, whether economic, political, religious, or whatever.

Merely syncing wetter conditions with population growth and rises in living standards offers little in the way of a critical analysis of the social and political actors and worlds involved. For the Neo-Assyrian case study that opened this chapter, the assumed agents are really institutions: the royal house and the apparatus of palace revenue, the grain repositories, long-distance shipping or trade networks, the army, the rural production regime. In the ancient or premodern world, we can take these institutions or structures for granted, framing their experiences as reactive impulses to external climatic hazards rather than as composed of the worldviews and motivations of diverse individuals, groups, classes, and authorities. Implicit in much of the early twenty-first-century scholarship on ancient climates is, additionally, the judging of climates as more or less “favorable” for certain social conditions, a through-line that connects the peak determinism of Huntington’s era to our contemporary moment. To varying degrees in this research, climates can be deleterious, hazardous, favorable, or ameliorating for the predominantly agropastoral economies of the historical periods of antiquity, with differently weighted potentials for causing human responses. For our capacity for explaining economic development, “bad” climates and their attendant harmful consequences can be more empirically legible and more suitable for cross-disciplinary analysis, and

Environments, Climates, Histories

feature much more prominently in ancient environmental histories (Harris 2013a; Degroot et al. 2021; see also Coombes and Barber 2005: 308). While the pushback against neo-determinism has rightly called attention to the fallacies of homogenizing ancient societies into solid blocks, less attention has sought out the mechanics of what favorability in climatic regimes meant in given historical contexts, and to or for whom (cf. Kouki 2013; Kearns 2019). Despite increasing recognition of the “precarious and transient alignment of favorable climate conditions” (Harper 2017: 25), for example, a “favorable” climate remains largely taken for granted. We encounter risk when we unproblematically essentialize climatic conditions through qualitative degrees of favorability. Similar ambiguity lurks behind the common conception of an environment as something to which resilient humans are always reacting and responding. The geographer Preston James (1971[1941]: 330) argued along similar lines: Regarding the relation of people to the physical environment, the point of view which seems most closely to harmonize with the findings of other social sciences, especially of anthropology, is that the significance of the elements of the environment is determined by the nature of the people. A land, therefore, cannot be spoken of as favorable or unfavorable for human settlement until it has been made one or the other by a specific group of people … No climate, no soil, no land, then, should be described as inherently favorable or unfavorable except in terms of specific human cultures.

While this mid-twentieth-century articulation of geography preserves the binary of “favorable” and its negative, James locates the evaluation of climates and soils within the differing technologies, practices, and habits of human groups and their cultural and historical contingencies. We should shift focus from moralizing about certain climate episodes to considering their dimensionality for historical groups. A “benevolent aftermath” of an abrupt cooling episode (Pratt 2021: 253) or a “hospitable alignment” of climate conditions (Harper 2016: 106; 2017: 167), for example, are generated for some through the choices, experiences, and entanglements of uneven social formations with environmental phenomena and landscapes. In all these concerns resides the western habit of separating environments and climate as reified things outside human culture, and by extension, viewing humans as bodies moving “in” an enveloping but detached external environment (Ingold 1993). Conceived as an external force, climate thus acts as the neutral mechanism driving cause and effect, itself “free of guilt” (Evans 2003: 96). This characterization leads to dramatic metaphors of willful climatic “protagonists” or capricious “wild cards” as exogenous

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forces (e.g. Harper 2017: 15). John Dewey (1922: 296), roughly a century ago, criticized this tendency: “human nature exists and operates in an environment. And it is not ‘in’ that environment as coins are in a box, but as a plant is in the sunlight and soil.” Astrid Neimanis and colleagues (2015) have also drawn critical attention to the compartmentalization of the environment, which in historical analyses of the ancient past has the inclination to produce agonistic images of humans battling or competing with climates or ecosystems as threatening opponents: societies win or lose, or deal with a packaged set of external problems called climate or environment. The singularity of “the” environment owes some of its power to the important conservationist messaging of such figures as Carson, during the 1960s, in bringing societal attention not to a vague outside world but to the real and increasingly threatened environments around us (Warde et al. 2018). “The environment” is thus helpful in creating a meaningful category for conscious discussions among publics and stakeholders, but equally sublimates the multitudes of more-than-human environmental processes and their permeability across different temporal and spatial scales (e.g. Nixon 2011). Environments are not totalities but are conditioned relative to social orders. Because we typically think of climate through overly scientific terminology as a data-rich aggregate of meteorological records, we tend to obscure the ways in which climate packages our expectations of environmental processes and events into recognizable shape so that we can pick out the abnormal. In the ancient Greek world for example, these expectations took the form of klimata, the ordering of peoples and places into zones governed by forces such as temperature and humidity that built rankings of civilization from the temperate center to the hot and cold extremes on the barbaric fringes (Kennedy 2016; see also Glacken 1967; Livingstone 2012). Such a worldview arguably deployed these ideas of climate as a tool for categorizing and suppressing inconceivable others, whose anomalous cultural quirks could be mapped onto normative beliefs about dry, uncultivable deserts or the grassy, city-less steppes of nomads and their livestock. Rather than functioning to detail what hot deserts looked or felt like, klimata provided an overarching system of reference, based on observable and anticipated seasonal shifts in temperature or precipitation, into which new encounters with disparate cultures could be slotted. What is missing from many recent attempts to understand the social burden or resiliency of human groups in the past are the discursive strategies that cultures created to think about and to anticipate plural atmospheric, geological, and biological surroundings (Kearns 2017; Sessa 2019; see also Kennedy and JonesLewis 2016; Bosak-Schroeder 2020; Schliephake 2020). An alternative

Weathered Landscapes

understanding of climate opens ways for exploring how ancient groups perceived their environs and constructed such mediations through the interpretive and contingent practices of creating their landscapes. It also reminds us that there is no single climate or anthropogenic impact, but a series of windows of expectations and anticipations that human cultures help construct, across generations (Tierney et al. 2021). For these reasons, we must think more critically when studying climate change, human societies, and processes of cause and effect. Rejecting concepts of causation and determination outright can deny the material and perceived effects that changing ecosystems and weathering surfaces had on human livelihoods in the past. But as I want to make clear, these combinations of climate, environmental materials, and human practices were unevenly intertwined at various scales, and we cannot separate climate as a singular, reified force that produced or determined a particular event or historical cycle. Climate is much more than a regional and temporal record of accumulated weather events. It is also a historically and culturally built idea that bridges our experiences of environments with our lived practices and comes to perform and imagine, relationally, what we expect of our surroundings (Hulme 2015). An American from the east or west coasts would likely expect that the winter months in the midwestern city of Chicago in the Great Lakes region are very cold, given the iconic images we have come to anticipate of frozen cityscapes (and would perhaps be less likely to expect that summers in the same area are uncomfortably humid). Ideas of climate work effectively when existing conditions seem stable, and their unruly potential for breakdown in periods of change compels recalibrations. Would a day of balmy 21°C temperatures and sunny skies in early February in Chicago be remarkable, strange, even raise suspicion? As Hulme (2015) has put forward, what such an observer perceives and experiences is weather, through bodily, sensory, and material interactions with emergent environmental and meteorological phenomena (see also Pillatt 2012; Walsh 2014: 282). Landscape archaeologies and histories attentive to environmental changes can utilize the processes of weathering as an inroad to understanding the material interactions that make up spatial experiences charged with unequal social, political, and cultural importance.

Weathered Landscapes When the US Republican senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, brought a snowball from the Washington DC streets into the Senate on February

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26, 2015 to claim that global warming was not real but in fact the “greatest hoax,” he was easily ridiculed by many in the mainstream media. Intuitively, others in the room and a majority of the American audience watching the broadcast of his speech could differentiate between weather and climate – a day of snowfall in the mid-Atlantic region does not repudiate the mounting evidence for the consequences of greenhouse gases and other carbon emissions on rising average global temperatures. Only a month before, the Senate had voted almost unanimously to approve a resolution that confirmed the reality of climate change, and Inhofe’s goals were to reject the follow-up resolution acknowledging that humans were responsible for contributing to those changes. As Andrew Bauer and Mona Bhan (2018) have argued, the approval of the first resolution and the failed passage of the second form a legislative embodiment of the nature versus society binary. The Senate could on the one hand accept that climates change, but on the other refuse to permit that humans might be instrumental in those transformations. Inhofe’s stunt, and his opinions on climate emanating from a rigid adherence to biblical scripture, reiterate how climate works as a mediation between human experiences and weather. His expectations of what cold temperatures and snowfall should mean for the DC climate, combined with the “unseasonable” cold day he claimed to have felt outside, proved to him, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, that records of unprecedented warm temperatures for 2014 were fake. While the snowball was undoubtedly a visual prop, its tangible materiality was crucial to achieving Inhofe’s ends. Its tactility made it both legible to Inhofe’s audience as an index of coldness, as well as an object that he could throw around the room for show. Albeit roundly mocked, the resonating affect of the Senate snowball likely gained him followers from those at least partially receptive to climate change denialism. On a more granular level, while snow formed from frozen water has a definite and homogeneous chemical composition, its spherical production altered it from naturally occurring medium to culturally recognizable implement that likely included tiny grains of soil, gravel, or other bits of stuff from the DC streets. The snowball became a key component of the day’s proceedings because of its relationality to the social field circumscribing American discourse on climate change: from its transformation from cloud cover to the ground from which Inhofe (or someone) presumably rolled it, to the Senate floor, its incongruous presence became fodder for political and cultural commentary. Inhofe’s pandering to climate change denialists graduated from mundane senatorial procedure to viral event because of the evocative and

Weathered Landscapes

imaginative work the snowball accomplished. He would have made the same arguments without it, but the snowball itself thrust his denialism into spectacle. The stunt exemplifies what Adam T. Smith (2015: 2) has recently theorized as the intersections of physical sensibilities, perceptual senses, and affective sentiments that bound political communities to the complex world of things. In highlighting the snowball’s affects, as a catalyst for examining the material dimensions of human–environment relationships, I argue that landscape archaeologies can engage more with current archaeological thought that probes how things effect social action (cf. Whatmore and Hinchliffe 2010; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Steel 2018). While the discipline of archaeology has always put materials at the center of analysis, from the classifications of artifacts to scientific measurements of bones to phenomenological interpretations of megalithic monuments, the last few decades have witnessed the agentive capacities of things become a footing for disciplinary reflection and analysis (Olsen et al. 2012; Harris and Cipolla 2017). The theoretical pluralism of “new materialisms” offers an entryway towards a vocabulary, as well as conceptual limits, for considering the relationship between weathered materials such as snowballs and humans that co-created meaningful actions through place. Without going too far into a review of archaeological contributions to materiality, whose confines are still mutable and under debate, I offer here a brief overview of some of the claims and frameworks germane to landscape archaeology and the work of this project (for reviews see Knappett 2012; Smith 2015; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Ireland and Lydon 2016; Khatchadourian 2016). At the heart of recent archaeological interest in materiality is a more relational approach to objects that ascribes them a capacity to act. To put it pithily, things make humans as much as humans make things. These claims have emerged not only out of fresh interest in the active roles of non-humans in human life, but also in longer conversations over the last few decades on agency and societal structure inferred through material culture (e.g. Dietler and Herbich 1998), on object biographies and life histories (Kopytoff 1986), on the commoditization and fetishization of things (Appadurai 1986, 2015), and on differences between material style and function (e.g. Gell 1998). Earlier frameworks for understanding the active roles of objects in past societies concentrated on their affective and symbolic powers and tended to perceive things as passive slates for human meaning, encoding messages or beliefs in physical forms that perform some kind of social function. What more recent concepts of materiality offer, instead, are ways to consider the physical properties of objects and how they achieve action and meaning. To make a massive ceramic storage

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Figure 2.1 Virtual three-dimensional reconstruction of the Pithos Hall within Building X at Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, ca. 1300 bce (drawn by Lisa McClean, courtesy of Kevin D. Fisher and the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments Project)

pithos characteristic of Late Bronze Age Cyprus, for example, required a specialized firing process and workspace for its production, particular ingredients, and trained craftspeople, and the finished vessel demanded a unique way of storing and staging it (Pilides 2005). Monumental pithoi such as these stood above ground on their own bases within a large room in the administrative Building X at the urban site of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, where their gargantuan size and valued contents, likely olive oil, provoked users to move around and treat the vessels differently from other storage containers (South 2002: 67–68; Fisher 2009; Figure 2.1). By considering these types of provocations of a ceramic vessel, we can shift attention from how humans used something like a storage jar to convey meaning, perhaps through its external markings, to what the pithos had the capacity to effect within its historical and cultural setting (Fisher 2009; Keswani 2018; see also Van Oyen 2020). As Lori Khatchadourian (2016: 54) has explicated: [T]hings are not everywhere and always the same. It may be the case that their abilities emerge in part from the inherent physical properties that allow them to stand up to us, to make a difference in the world, to invite some kind of tactile encounter, to conjure some kind of affective response, and to compel some kind of dependence. But the forms of those encounters, the substance of those affects and differences, and the strength of those dependencies arise from the particular political and social constellations that humans and things together create.

Weathered Landscapes

There are now disparate frameworks of social theory and philosophy operating in archaeological work that seek to locate the agency of materials within social worlds, from describing the metaphysics of things to employing “materialisms” as a posthumanist metaphor (e.g. Olsen et al. 2012; Alt and Pauketat 2020; see also Lemke 2017). These include the Actor-Network Theory (or framework) associated particularly with the work of Bruno Latour (2005), which maps human and non-human “actants” that continuously generate social relationships, as well as what Jane Bennett (2010: viii) has called vibrant assemblages of things “with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own” whose power derives from their ad hoc constituencies with humans and other things. Refocusing attention on these kinds of material congregations can open up inquiry into the dimensions of things in daily life, into the intrusions of certain objects into household practices or community structures, or into the material constitution of everyday practices. Of course, this interpretive shift should not erase the qualities that make humans human. Increasingly, the ethical implications of materiality theories are leading scholars to acknowledge the ultimately human power of will and morals that cause change at different scales (Khatchadourian 2016: 203–204). While objects can act, they do so primarily through the propensities and qualities of their substantive, material composition and their relationships with other things and humans, not through forces of intention. Instead, archaeologists have pointed out how the “thingly” features of materials, their physical properties, have been understudied in other fields (Hodder 2012; Bauer 2018). Where archaeologists have intervened is indeed in the consideration of material substances and their situational contexts, in the registers of physical composition, texture, color, shape, decoration, size, and object “biography” or “itinerary” – the important traces of an object’s production, uses, depositions, and possible reuses over the course of its history. Ian Hodder’s (2012, 2016) influential contributions to materiality studies are informative here, for the purposes of questioning how climate and environment are interrelated with social change, because he advocates studying agentive things alongside their physical contexts and dynamic material environments. At the core of what he calls a theory of entanglement resides the “unstable messiness” of things, from flows of energy, material, and matter in continual motion to society writ large, which are entwined with human existence through conditions of dependency and dependence. By dependency, he refers to the ways in which humans come to rely on things because of their properties and capabilities that constrain and

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entrap those interrelationships. Some things, with fickle durabilities, might demand more expenditure to secure their existence and maintenance, as for example our fossil fuel consumption for using and servicing cars and its global infrastructures of extraction, refinement, supply, and distribution. Ancient entanglements with copper, for instance, depended on an assortment of things working at diverse scales, conditioned not just by the cultural constructs of precious metals, but by the challenging propensities of copper itself: tools and equipment for mining ores from mineral matrices and charcoal collection, smelting and roasting facilities built to accommodate the metal’s melting point as well as to create particular standardized bulk shapes, roads, harbors, and infrastructure suited for its transport, and manufacturing kilns and workshops with their basins, flux, and tools such as molds and hammers for working metals into objects (Given 2018). Ancient copper production also exemplifies Hodder’s equally important theorization on the links of dependence between things, as the smelting kiln, for instance, relies on its collective constituent parts and interactions with sources of fire and water, air and steam, clay and wood. We can thus situate copper mining, smelting, and craftsmanship within a broader environmental and social field: “by thinking instead in terms of a holistic material environment of flows and interactions, we can better recognize the many ways in which humans are continually forming partnerships with or ‘domesticating’ dynamic things that demand our sustained attention” (LeCain 2017: 126). Thinking more deeply about these kinds of entanglements helps in reassessing transformations in settlement and economy, in technologies and ideologies of material production, and in articulations of bodies and identities caught up in the formation of novel social and political orders (Bauer and Kosiba 2016). Importantly, Hodder’s conceptualization of entanglement pushes us to examine these relationships as differentiated, as humans and things deepen their dynamic and asymmetrical interdependencies. Critical to the theory is a sense of the unruliness of things in these interrelationships that derives from their rates and rhythms of decay, erosion, breakage, and transformation: “things fall apart” (Hodder 2016: 146). These entanglements require particular investment and care to avoid breakdown as well as to secure the continuation of their use. In order to assess historical transformations in social orders, moreover, the concept acknowledges the irregular tensions that emerge out of unruly materialities, which often disrupt our attempts to work and order them, “so we work yet harder, and enlist yet more things, to help us manage them” (Hodder 2016:  2). But where these kinds of arguments have made inroads into theorizing

Weathered Landscapes

archaeological assemblages of materials across a range of artificial objects produced towards human ends – vessels, figurines, columns, wall plasters, tomb mounds – materiality theories have found less purchase in studies of landscape, writ large (cf. Whatmore and Hinchliffe 2010; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Steel 2018).10 There are of course the pragmatics of scale that partly confound such research (Harris 2017). While excavated contexts abound in the kinds of visible assemblages ripe for materialist analysis, landscapes present more difficult scalar problems for investigating the mediations of humans, things, and their surroundings, although scholars are starting to call for conceptual work on landscapes as compositions of organic and inorganic matter, humans, and weather caught together in dynamic processes (e.g. Given 2013). Out of these advances in how to approach the relational fields of humans and their material surroundings emerges a potent understanding of ancient landscapes as enmeshed with lively non-humans, with forces and capacities intrinsic to their own tendencies and propensities. If landscapes are no longer deserving of the theatrical metaphors of placid or inert stages, and if recent decades of archaeological work have convincingly shown that they are socially constructed and instrumental in social and political life, entanglement reminds us that these constructions are not just the work of humans. As Bennett has put it: Clearly, a landscape possesses an efficacy of its own, a liveliness intermeshed with human agency. Clearly, the scape of the land is more than a geo-physical surface upon which events play out. Clearly, a particular configuration of plants, buildings, mounds, winds, rocks, moods does not operate simply as a tableau for actions whose impetus comes from elsewhere (Bennett and Loenhart 2011).

Insights from feminist environmental and anthropological research on the material intersections of human bodies, social orders, and weathered landscapes underscore these mutual relationships (Ingold 2010; Neimanis and Walker 2014). These ideas adjust the emphasis from how humans agonistically respond “to” climate, to how they live materially and culturally with their weathered surroundings (Hulme 2016). Weathering, introduced earlier, can help theorize and inspect how shifting climates affected the movements, flows, and properties of the human communities, materials, and things that “collaborate in the ongoing formation and transformation of life and land” (Given 2013: 15). Weathering further emphasizes the situatedness of new experiences of fluctuating environments, how more moisture in the soils trapped behind terrace walls can lead to perceptions of wetter climates even without more rain (Ingold and Kurttila 2000). These

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place-based formations of humans with weather co-create cultural and social orders. Attention to the ongoing intersections of humans and weathered surroundings can thus assist in discerning the politics imbricated in landscape practices: which land use dependencies were maintained and supported to sustain social differences or generate cooperative ties and communality, which ones were left to decay and break down. Weather at first glance might seem a peculiar subject for archaeology, given the ephemerality of weather events, the methodological problems in identifying them in available paleoenvironmental records, and the lack of systematic meteorological records before the eighteenth century (e.g. Pillatt 2012). In a different register, however, the term’s productivity works to detail the material dimensions of changing meteorological, atmospheric, and terrain processes and conditions – the ways that ice frosts harden soils, damage crops, or freeze pipes, for example (Hulme 2016; Neimanis and Hamilton 2018). The semantic roots of weathering reaffirm these broader connotations, as Old English wederian denoted changes in time, weather, and storms. By the eighteenth century, weathering as a verb could mean to “leave in the open” or to wear away by exposure to material elements, resulting in its predominant geomorphological usage (Hall et al. 2012). Flexible and changing encounters with weathering surroundings give rise to new modes of relation and social practices and alter expectations of climate. Dynamic weather forces of varying energies and durabilities influence how physical materials with their own properties become weathered, and how their transformations are always cultivating new visceral experiences, sometimes familiar, sometimes uncanny. Seasonal shifts accompanied by the presence of more young plants or trees, or less dried out soils, or terraces “working” without the need for more intensive maintenance, would alter the daily experiences of those inhabiting and managing agricultural or pastoral landscapes. By noting the interconnective if often patchy tissue of humans and their weathered surroundings, these conceptual frameworks break down the siloing of focus on either humans or climates as forces of change. Discerning weathered landscapes ultimately requires paying attention to the qualities governing the uneven entanglements of humans and their environments (LeCain 2013: 40). Landscape archaeologies have increasingly looked at some of these matrices of soils, vegetation, rocks, and waters to explore how human–environment relationships materialize: from the microscales of early cultigens, attesting to human interventions in botanical structure and the dependencies of farming groups on seasonal tasks, to urbanized water collection or massive land use improvements or technologies,  such  as  terracing  and

Conclusions

mounds,  which reveal anthropogenic alterations on regional and even global scales (e.g. Erickson and Walker 2009; Morrison 2014; Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Steel 2018). The traces under investigation in this book, such as copper mines or field walls, suggest how Archaic landscapes produced and were produced through community experiences of acquiring and managing ores, stone, and water, cultivating soils, and cutting down trees, as well as their weathering as groups came to create and inhabit places with unruly social and cultural dimensions. The politics driving these practices reveal how privileged substances generated different social orders and afforded particular kinds of landscape maintenance (Johansen and Bauer 2018). But equally important are the differences between the materials that shore up institutional modes or social contingencies and the “missing masses” of mundane non-human things that keep social life moving, what Khatchadourian (2016: 74) calls “unnoticed affiliates” (see also Farstadvoll 2019). My interest in weathering as a productive window into the stuff of landscapes is not meant to raise every soil particle to the explanatory status of meaningful agent. Rather, weathering is intended to bring everyday environmental processes within the field of view of analyses on climates, landscapes, and unruly things and places, and their capacities to morph, break down, and incite unanticipated effects.

Conclusions One of the problematic conceits of the Anthropocene, the geological epoch proposed for our current era of human-driven global climate change following the “Great Acceleration” of the mid-twentieth century, is the material and ideational division it sets up between pre-industrial or pre-1945 histories as “natural” and those occurring after as anthropogenic (Chakrabarty 2009; see Bauer and Bhan 2018). In putting the causal and agentive weight of environmental change onto the shoulders of the “human,” anthropos, a poorly chosen and debatable monolith, the Anthropocene historiographical mode inherently posits that landscapes and geophysical changes over humanity’s long history before the age of the Manhattan Project are the remit of natural forces. Archaeologists have begun critiquing this built-in anthropocentrism and lopsided understanding of deep history, usually by pointing to the myriad and multiscalar ways in which humans have shaped the earth’s systems, and its landforms, water courses, forests, and even atmospheric content, through their land use practices and entanglements with non-humans (e.g. Morrison 2015; Ruddiman 2018). But for

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the recent scholarly turn to narrating ancient histories as “environmental dramas,” it seems that this Anthropocenic division has left ample space for the return of determinist language that pits societies such as Rome or the Neo-Assyrian Empire against protagonists such as “natural” pandemics and droughts (Sessa 2019: 213). While much of this historical work has ignored the Anthropocene debate altogether, the epoch’s conceptual arguments have justified the explanatory power of dramatized natural agents of the ancient world that threatened societal stability or resilience. The rise of interest in past climatic and environmental phenomena has so far not engaged as much with the contributions of landscape archaeologies for understanding the ways that environs reproduce social orders through their entanglements with human practices. In the effort to mark out landscapes as socially constructed and historically and culturally contingent, or as instrumental to processes of state formation, however, archaeologists have often obscured the dynamic strata that mediated and shaped the reproduction of those landscapes through daily experiences with weather and weathered environments. We should avoid compartmentalizing climate or environment outside of landscape as a rudimentary nature. Instead, landscape archaeologists can analyze environmental histories as integrated in past place-making by examining human social and material engagements with shifting non-human matter (Given 2013; Kearns 2017). These moves can help reframe big questions of historical change, such as the development of Iron Age polities, because they force us to ask how differentiated social practices and values came to insist upon certain expectations and requirements of humans, things, and environmental processes to work and to form new geographies of difference (sensu Harvey 1996). The politics mediating human–environment relationships, even mundane ones of everyday land use, have largely been sublimated in many climatic histories. Mediterranean landscape archaeologies, inasmuch as they have refashioned versions of historical and cultural ecology, have tended to neglect political ecology (e.g. Walsh 2008, 2014; Steel 2018). It is “not simply that archaeologists need political ecology… political ecology needs archaeology” (Morehart et al. 2018: 5). Who structured or authorized how people would alter land use practices, resource extraction, coastal movement, or participation in institutions of governance? Who was excluded? How did configurations of copper and trees and technologies of extraction, cultivation, and husbandry act politically (Bauer and Kosiba 2016; Rosenzweig 2018)? In Chapter 3, I explore how experiences and imaginaries of changing climates afforded new political relationships and landscapes on Cyprus, some of them unruly, through a review of approaches to the

Conclusions

triangulations of space, resources, and temporality. Beyond mechanistic perspectives of ancient landscapes, compressed into the economic geography of resource extraction and flows of commodities, lies space to think more about their instabilities and weathering.

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Unruly Landscapes Rural Resources, Territory, Time

Introduction At some point around 708 bce, during the reign of the Neo-Assyrian sovereign Sargon II (722–705 bce), the regime commissioned an “image of the king” – an inscribed stone stele showing Sargon’s garbed body – which would herald his recent accomplishments as well as stake claim to new territory (Radner 2010; Figure 3.1).1 Such proclamations of the king’s cosmos were common practice within the Neo-Assyrian state, and examples survive from the various royal complexes such as Khorsabad and Nineveh as well as in rock reliefs from the empire’s many frontiers (Harmanşah 2007; Smith 2011: 424). This stele’s biography, however, is a bit unusual. For the first time, according to this decree, a stele would stand at the westernmost edge of the empire, previously unfamiliar to the king’s predecessors: the island “Ia’a,” Cyprus, in the region of Adnana, far out in the Western Sea, an important spatial boundary with the Mediterranean since the transcriptions of the story of Gilgamesh (Cannavò 2010: 170–171; Broodbank 2013: 511).2 This particular stone stele was indeed found in the area of Larnaca, on Cyprus, in 1845, making it a singular and remarkable piece of evidence for Neo-Assyrian interactions with the island (Yon 2004: 345–354). At the end of Sargon II’s list of deeds, including his military achievements and victories over kingdoms such as Urartu, we learn of those concerning Iadnana, the “island of the Danunians,” a term associated with the eastern Mediterranean world of the Greeks (column iv, ll. 28–53)3:

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[(Moreover), seven king]s of the land of Ia’a, a region [of the land of (A)dn]ana – whose abode(s) [are situated] far away, at a distance of seven days (journey) [in the middle of] the Western Sea,4 (and) the name of whose land, [from] the distant past, When Assyria was taken over, [until now] none of the Kings, my ancestors, [who prec]eded (me), [had ever hea]rd – [he]ard [from afar], in the middle of the sea, [of the deeds I had been do]ing in Chaldea and the land of Hatti. Their hearts then pounded (and) [fear

Introduction sei]zed them. [They brought] before me [in] Babylon gold, silver, (and) [utensils of] ebony (and) boxwood, the treasures of their land, [and] they kissed my feet. [At that time], I had a stele made and I [engraved] upon it [image(s) of the] great [god]s, my lords. I had an image of myself as king stand before them (the gods) [constantly implor]ing them for the sake of my life. [I inscrib]ed upon it [the name(s) of the people] whom, from the east [to the we]st, I had subjugated [to the yok]e of my lordship with the support of the gods Aššsur, Nabû, (and) Marduk, my divine helpers. I had (it) erected [beside/facing Mount] Ba’il-HARri, a mountain [(that towers) abo]ve the Land Adnana ˘(Cyprus)]. I left [for] future [king]s, my descendants, [the praises of] the great gods, my lords, [with wh]ose firm [approval] I act and have no [equal].

As others have noted, this depiction of Cyprus speaks to the fabrication of Neo-Assyrian kingship through a heroic res gestae more than to any specific mechanism of statehood on the island during the late eighth century bce (Cannavò 2010: 173).5 Within this cartographic imagination of the Neo-Assyrian realm, Cyprus, known as Alashiya in mid- to late secondmillennium bce letters and documents, gained legitimacy in the eyes of Neo-Assyrian rulers (Broodbank 2013: 511).6 Sargon II claims as much by enumerating the first “seven kings” of Cyprus whom he compelled to travel to the capital to bestow gifts of tribute: gold, silver, ebony, and boxwood (conspicuously, not copper). Adding to the stele’s material history is the black gabbro (basalt) used to make it, perhaps from the island’s igneous central Troodos massif.7 Somewhere potentially near Mount Stavrovouni, the closest peak to the southeastern coast where the stele was Figure 3.1 Stele of Sargon II (Pergamonmuseum, Berlin VA 986)

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eventually found, or within the town limits of Kition, the inscribed image of the king was set up for posterity to commemorate one edge of the Sargonid worldview.8 Sargon II’s statement of geopolitical order has shaped the study of Cyprus’ landscapes and of the island’s early first-millennium bce sociopolitical narrative at the transition from Late Bronze Age polities to Iron Age ones. Scholars concede that there is little indication, within Neo-Assyrian inscriptions or in the material record, to suggest that the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered or exerted any military presence on the island (Reyes 1994: 49–68; Iacovou 2002a: 83; Knapp 2008: 344–345; Bombardieri and Marino 2009; Cannavò 2019; Frame 2021: 402). Rather than outlining a system of direct power, the inscription marks the demands of suzerainty and the negotiation of the Cypriot polities as vassal or mercantile client states (Rupp 2001: 136; Körner 2016). More indirectly, it preserves how Cypriot leaders or rulers were aware of Neo-Assyrian control and encroachment on Phoenician trading activities and, according to Sargon II’s view, wanted to remain in good relations by offering gifts, materials, or service. In a period with sparse documentary evidence, however, the mangled inscriptions of Sargon II’s stele act as a benchmark to which discussions of first-millennium bce polities consistently return (e.g. Collombier 1991; Fourrier 2002, 2013; Iacovou 1994; Satraki 2012: 333ff; cf. Kiely 2005). The seven kings have become metonyms for seven distinct political entities in the late eighth century bce. Later inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian rulers Esarhaddon (ca. 673–672 bce) and Ashurbanipal (ca. 667 bce) mention Iadnana, and list the names of ten Cypriot cities as well as ten kings, some with Greek names, some Phoenician (Yon 2004: 54–55; Iacovou 2018).9 The arithmetic results in a new seventh-century bce political geography: ten kingdoms for ten citykings (Iacovou 2002a: 81).10 The Neo-Assyrian inscriptions have catalyzed the study of Iron Age landscapes through the proxy of the capital city, but the territorial spaces of these emerging kingdoms have also proven to be alluring subjects of archaeological attention (e.g. Rupp 1987, 2001; Iacovou 1994, 2014a, 2018; Fourrier 2002, 2013; Kiely 2005; Papantoniou 2012a; Satraki 2012: 333–370). The linking of sites to microregional topographies is indeed one of the defining characteristics of Cypriot archaeology, extending back to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarian interests in mapping remains through the heyday of excavations and surveys of the later twentieth century (Kearns 2013; see also Gjerstad 1924; Bolger 1989; Iacovou 2004; Webb and Frankel 2013; Cannavò 2015). Indeed, to overlay Archaic

Introduction

Figure 3.2 Map showing upper and lower pillow lava formations (pink) around the Troodos massif and historical polities. 75 m DEM (adapted from Kassianidou 2013: 51, fig. 1)

territories as real expanses across the island helps situate recovered artifacts within familiar zones of bounded societal groups and conforms to cultural historical frameworks still pervasive in the island’s archaeology. At levels beyond descriptive analysis, the plotting of kingdom capitals and boundaries has aided macrohistorical studies that anchor Iron Age cities to the spatial distribution of key resources as well as to the segmented political geography assumed by many scholars for the Bronze Age (Catling 1962; Keswani 1996; Manning and De Mita 1997; Knapp 1997). While most of these Iron Age polities are known through their excavated town centers and surrounding necropoleis and sanctuaries, a considerable amount of work has gone into elucidating the topographical characteristics of their broader regal expanses, using above all the archaeological record for regional craft styles, the presence of border sanctuaries, and the configuration of economic commodities (Fourrier 2013; Iacovou 2013a). The distribution of copper ores encircling the foothills of the Troodos massif, for example, has been a key spatial entryway into discerning which territories had direct access to metals to support long distance trade, and which ones had to negotiate access (Kassianidou 2013; Iacovou 2014a; Figure 3.2). What

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results is an overt emphasis on transregional trade and cities, which tends to neglect smaller-scale social, political, and economic worlds (Horden and Purcell 2000: 89–122). As argued in Chapter 1, the overlapping of kings, cities, and territories has had some consequential implications for theorizing Cypriot landscapes as critical components of the fabric of the polity. First, scholarship has tended to focus on the stability of these urban forms, presuming long and persistent links between sovereignty and place. Some of the place names for cities present in ancient texts such as Sargon II’s stele or earlier Egyptian records, for example, become evidence of enduring Bronze and Iron Age locales (e.g. Iacovou 2018).11 This method typically elevates the city over a whole range of settlements and other places with different histories that can be excluded from analysis. Second, while scholars allow for the fluidity of kingdom borders through eventful histories of inter-polity conquest, appropriation, or commerce, they often presume a contiguous and hierarchical order of abstract political space, in which discovered or known settlements are ascribed to some city-king’s control through territorial subdivisions (Satraki 2012: 334; see also Iacovou 2013a). Prevailing interpretations thus tend to reduce countrysides or hinterlands to resource-rich peripheral zones, populated by political subordinates, and with less room for malleable affiliations or autonomy (Khatchadourian 2016: 37; Goodman 2019). Third, the economic focus of much work on territorial extents tends to put commodities first and people and their local social worlds second. The attention to the export of goods such as metal objects, agropastoral produce, or painted pots through maritime trade often grants harbors and ports outsized explanatory power and reinforces assumptions about the commercial nature of urban wealth and inequality. Finally, sacred landscapes, dotted with extra-urban shrines, sanctuaries, and ritual spaces of varying sizes and shapes, underline the religious and sovereign spatiality of the city yet tend to elide the local fabrics surrounding them (Fourrier 2002, 2013; Iacovou 2018; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). The locations of tombs, necropoleis, and other mortuary features, in other words, do heavy interpretive work for conceptualizing societal structures and historical change in the absence of robust settlement or household archaeologies. We can push beyond the view of Cypriot political space offered by Sargon II’s stele, of top-down understandings of territory, political economy, and landscape development, by refiguring our interrogations towards the rural and non-urban seams between emerging states. The now-familiar calls to study the “making” of landscapes, from W. G. Hoskins (1955) onward, which emphasize the processes and practices that drove the spatial

Introduction

production of ancient societies, leave open the possibility for conditions in these terrains catalyzed by unruly complexity. Peter Taylor (2005: xiii) has referred to such complexity as a “lack of clearly defined boundaries, coherent internal dynamics, or simply mediated relations with their external context.” This chapter foregrounds the intersections of social, environmental, and weathering processes operating at historically produced scales, which together generated novel complexities in Iron Age polities. On the edges of towns were settlements, industrial and communal practices, and economic investments sustaining their tentative and precarious development. As Chapter 2 underscored the challenges of studying past human– environment relationships, the following discussions take up their politics, by scrutinizing the conditions out of which unruly landscapes could coalesce, reproduce, and generate sociopolitical structures (Elden 2021). Who had the capacity to make decisions about landscape management, development, or ownership, and how did that authority reproduce certain material processes and political geographies (Massey 2005)? This chapter entertains ways for conceptualizing the “forces of difference and contestation, produced in the perceptible engagements of peoples, things, and places that make social life as it is lived rather more unruly” than conventional interpretations have allowed (Smith et al. 2016: 1). The following discussions posit unruliness as a question and not an answer, an open line of inquiry and not a closed definition or essentialized trait. I offer the idea as a means to highlight problematics in understanding landscapes that do not immediately conform to idealized expectations for historical contexts, and that seem to have shifted and generated new contours of distinction implicated in the actions of human and non-human communities (Johansen and Bauer 2018). In the rest of the chapter, I examine existing archaeological approaches to resources, territory, and time for Iron Age Cyprus. I argue the potential for unruliness emerging in the intersections of valued materials and human economic and social investments, in the building and marking out of salient political space, and in the fuzzy temporality of rural landscapes and communities. I first review a functionalist approach to Iron Age landscapes and bring attention to the relational fields of resources, environments, and human practices that produced powerful actors. The second section revisits these problems of commodifying Iron Age landscapes by urging that rural spaces be analyzed through their relations and not solely through the dominant lens of the town. In the third section, common preconceptions about diachronic landscapes, borrowed from earlier twentieth-century arguments for holistic history, are questioned to acknowledge the multiple temporalities and palimpsest

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aspects of rural lifeways, climates, and weathered landscapes. These discussions seek to lay out the stakes for reckoning with the interface between shifting climates and human societies, and the social, political, and cultural dimensions fostered by their unruly interactions.

Consuming Landscapes Roughly one generation after Sargon II proclaimed that Cypriot kings first came to him bringing tribute, his descendant Esarhaddon recorded the names of ten vassals of Iadnana mobilizing resources for the construction of his new royal palace at the Neo-Assyrian capital city of Nineveh (673– 672 bce; Yon 2004: 54–55). While the inclusion of ten kings in Esarhaddon’s inscription has attracted the most attention for reconstructions of Cypriot political history, especially the mixture of Greek and Levantine king names, the clay prism is equally compelling for the representation of insular matter and materials coopted for imperial building projects (Postgate 1997). Together with the “kings of the land of Hatti” and other Levantine states, the Cypriots undertook the transport of timbers, especially “large beams, tall columns, (and) very long planks” of cedar and cypress, as well as statues, thresholds, and slabs of different kinds of stones such as colored marble, brownish limestone, and breccia (Leichty 2011: 23–24).12 Whether acquired through commercial trade or gift exchange, these Cypriot things were ultimately intended for Neo-Assyrian audiences for whom the island in the sea was probably a loosely imagined buffer zone between the imperial heartland and other markets, “nothing more than a far western appendage, a source of precious materials and useful technical skills” (Cannavò 2019: 251). If Iadnana’s instrumentality for the Neo-Assyrian state mattered only in its woods, stones, and metals, however, the reverse was perhaps not true for the Cypriot city-states. Scholars have argued that entering the empire’s ambit allowed these polities to enact and impose new forms of institutional authority and economic development onto their territories (Iacovou 2018; cf. Rupp 1987, 1989). Accessed through Levantine, Aegean, Anatolian, and Egyptian middlemen, these trading activities engendered a regional commodity-system that “required better defined and more productive peripheries that would minimize resource fragmentation” (Iacovou 2018: 27–28). A goods-centered perspective on the consolidation of Iron Age polities has, in many ways, perceptibly shifted studies of political landscapes from descriptive history into comparative analyses of state formation, economic networks, and east–west interactions across the Mediterranean (Iacovou

Consuming Landscapes

2007; Knapp 2008). Yet the preoccupations with Iron Age mercantilism and copper exports have tended to produce teleological narratives for politybuilding, where Cypriot culture “was constructed primarily in order to maintain a potentially resourceful and dynamic system capable of redefining the island as a major international metals trader” (Iacovou 2005b: 125; see also Sherratt 1994; Smith 2009). Additionally, the assumed immutability of the resources that would have supported these Cypriot kings and their polities has sustained a static picture of geography: “a Cypriot kingdom is a territorial formula: the potential to carry out an independent economy is based on a geographically consolidated territory that provides access to mineral resources and to a port of export” (Iacovou 2013b: 148; 2007: 348; 2021: 235–236). Three specific “spatial ingredients” when combined create an independent polity: 1) territory to procure natural resources, notably metal and timber; 2) a coastal emporium; and 3) a self-sustaining arable hinterland to feed its population (Iacovou 2013a: 32). This scheme draws inspiration from earlier settlement models for the island’s Bronze Age, which also focused heavily on the spatial distribution of copper (Andreou 2014: 27; see Catling 1962; Keswani 1993; Knapp 1997; Steel 2018). Polities such as Palaipaphos, for example, with land that stretched into the western foothills of the Troodos and with a harbor on the southwestern coast of the island, were in prime position to produce metal and to take advantage of increasingly accessible Mediterranean trade (Iacovou and Peltenburg 2012; Iacovou 2014a; see also Kassianidou 2013). To be sure, metals are the kind of resources whose appraisals as substances of value and utility seem transhistorically stable, and Cyprus serves as an important case for understanding the continuities and changes in copper and iron production across the Bronze and Iron Ages (Muhly et al. 1982; Muhly 1996; Sherratt 2000; Kassianidou 2005, 2012, 2013). Located in the ore-rich upper and lower pillow lavas of the foothills surrounding the Troodos massif in the center of the island, copper is presumed an available substance, fixed in the face of changing political geographies, from the fifth-millennium bce onward. Indeed, by the later historical periods, when Greek and Roman authors started to mention Cyprus, towns such as Soloi and Amathus were associated with this principal substance of commercial wealth (Kearns 2018). But such visions of a metallic apparatus of political development for the Iron Age, interpreted through the aperture of commercial activity and trade, obscure the contingent ways that technological and cultural preoccupations conferred utility and value onto dynamic materials: “resources are not: they become” (Zimmermann 1951: 15). One particularly compelling avenue for research, for example,

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centers the subtle changes in alloys that Iron Age metallurgists chose for making certain copper objects through different additives, such as tin or lead, during the Iron Age (Charalambous et al. 2014). These craftsmen over time built up knowledge about the differences in ore composition across the Troodos foothills, including varying levels of substances such as iron, zinc, and arsenic. Other material changes in metals came from their specific environmental setting. From the intermingling of pine needles, resin, and metalliferous ores on foothill floors to the disturbances in rocks and soils by organisms, water content, and acidity, resources such as copper were often altering their makeup and accessibility (Brown 2011: 24, n. 17). Olives and grapes, as other examples of rural resources, similarly change shape, color, size, and texture in relation to shifts in temperature, precipitation, and seasonal climates: lower amounts of rainfall at certain times in the growing season can lead to premature growth and reduced fruit yields, which bear material properties that harvesters come to learn through experience and labor. Thinking about landscapes of resources as relational helps reinforce their entanglements with other components of terrain, weather, and human interventions. Variations in access, for example, conditioned not just by technological changes or the logics of metal production but also by environs, help situate copper sulfide minerals within diverse contexts of vegetation change, shifting precipitation and water access, eroding soils, and human technologies (LeCain 2017: 127). These landscapes are further entangled in the costs, human and environmental, of exploitative practices. Recent work studying the intersections of climatic changes on contemporary metal mining industries in Chile and Greece, for instance, has begun to detail the weathering of metal production. Increases in rainfall can flood pits and cause soil and water contamination while even minuscule reductions in precipitation can impact the accessibility to sources of water critical to the chaîne opératoire (sequence of technological choices and actions) of extraction, smelting, and refining (Damigos 2012). Prolonged or irregular drought cycles can facilitate dust emissions and threaten working conditions or the management of forest fires, and abrupt episodes of erosion, storms, and landslides have triggered erratic rock movement that affects mining operations and services related to utilities, settlements, and other infrastructure (Odell et al. 2018). This mining-induced weathering can equally create slower, more imperceptible changes in hydrologies and geologies that affect everything from tectonics to stormwaters, as noted briefly in the case of flooding along Pigeon Creek. Even as human commitments to extractive mining and metal production in the ancient world

Consuming Landscapes

may have responded to ecological or weather changes through technical developments or the reorganization of labor, the landscape matter itself was partly conditioned by these vagaries in shifting soils, water sources, and overlying vegetation. More attention to the mutability and variability of resources such as copper or water beyond their distribution can expand our reconstructions of the economic transformations of the early first-millennium bce that brought Cypriot stuff to Esarhaddon’s palace (e.g. Rupp 2001). How did resources come to lose or acquire value? How did environments condition reinvestments in copper mining during the eighth century, and how were these changes involved in the alterations of landscapes for agropastoral or other productive aims? Although the case of Archaic Cyprus has sparse empirical evidence for the operations and infrastructures of resource extraction and working conditions (Kassianidou 1998; Fasnacht 1999), recent work on the intersections of resources and landscapes in fields such as political ecology can open new lines of inquiry. As a sub-discipline, political ecology is concerned with how politics mediates human–environment relationships (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987; Peet and Watts 1996; Escobar 1999). It has offered compelling heuristic and analytical tools for archaeological research that seeks to examine the ways that power, inequality, and difference affected past environments and societies (Morehart et al. 2018). As with many loosely circumscribed fields of social scientific work, no singular epistemology drives political ecological research, which has included arguments ranging from traditional core–periphery models of environmental degradation driven by globalized capitalism to postmodern analysis of the discursive strategies of decolonizing formerly subjugated landscapes. For the purposes of critically situating rural landscapes within the Archaic polity, two conceptual frameworks warrant a closer look: resource materialities and landesque capital. The concept of resource materialities highlights the material and spatial dimensions of political relationships between groups and authorities invested in the extraction, uses, and control of resources (Bakker and Bridge 2006; Rolston 2013; Davidov 2014; Richardson and Weszkalnys 2014). Studies have examined the relational possibilities of materials and their unique and active properties and competencies in specific social and historical contexts, which instrumentally shape how they become valued as resources (Bridge 2009). In other words, this scholarship situates substances such as timber or sediments within the needs and values of a given social order and within its historical dimensions (Parrinello and Kondolf 2021). Analysis of copper, for example, would extend beyond its status as

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a kind of commodity to its agency as a resource: its complex interactions with environmental surroundings, social structures, discourses, politics, and everyday practices (LeCain 2017: 127). When analyzed in tandem with the technical practices of material transformation and structures of extraction, distribution, and production, resource materialities prompt us to explore the interventions that substances create between authorities and laborers (Johansen and Bauer 2018). Such a perspective also acknowledges that a substance’s variation and changes through time are critical to understanding how it produces and mediates diverse human social practices. For copper, a key question would concern the appearance and acquisition of iron as an accessible and commercially valued resource, and how it came to displace copper in some contexts of everyday use during the firstmillennium bce (Kassianidou 2013: 53; Papadopoulos 2014). These provocations can adjust our analytical approaches to landscapes as not just the distribution of materials extracted, consumed or used in preexisting social relations, but as developing unstable, and often unruly, entanglements of humans and things. An equally compelling concept to come out of political ecological work is landesque capital, stemming from mid-twentieth-century work on agricultural economics and resource management. At a basic level the term refers to investments made in a landscape with an anticipated life beyond a present crop cycle or season (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987: 9). Common examples found throughout the semiarid eastern Mediterranean are agricultural terraces or irrigation canals, or more mundane practices such as clearing fields of stones and manuring to manage soils (Wilkinson 2014: 186). Critical to understandings and applications of the concept is its fluid temporality, blending the present with the past and/or the future, as the investments in fields or soils persist through multigenerational utilization and maintenance. It also relies on Marxist positioning of land capital within the land itself, open to evaluation and devaluation through social and environmental changes. Viewing terraces through the lens of landesque capital highlights, for instance, how modifications on sloping terrain to create flat, well-watered surfaces and more sustained levels of production could create different perceptions, claims, and demands over several millennia of accumulated and incremental (even if intermittent or cyclical) use (Erickson 2006; Figure 3.3). Continuous investment in repairing walls can counter their geomorphological instability in order to reinforce arable conditions or to maintain the retention of higher slopes, as well as in some cases to preserve property lines (Moody and Grove 1990). Often, when land use practices change, labor pools can be reduced, field walls are abandoned,

Consuming Landscapes

Figure 3.3 Cross-channel wall in a detached alluvial channel, west of the Vasilikos River

soil erosion accelerates, and terraces variably lose their functional and productive power. The concept thus helps to reinforce how communities construct their surroundings materially to sustain certain valued practices over time, generating material signatures of varying persistence (Wilkinson 2003, 2014; Erickson and Walker 2009). For archaeologists, the conceptual strengths of landesque capital emphasize the recursive activity of past environments and landscapes “as terrains of possibility and even improvement,” but equally as full of palimpsest-like residues of past action (Morrison 2014: 52). Agrarian or agropastoral societies engineered landscapes that had varied and historically contingent effects on environmental conditions, agricultural and pastoral practices, structures of labor and power relations, and infrastructures of production, transportation and mobility, and markets (Rosenzweig 2018). From cleared plots and humble field walls to massive earthenwork canals and dikes, the material features of landscapes become rich sites of interaction within and between generations motivated by similar commitments as well as by solving problems of land use (Erickson and Walker 2009). These repetitive investments in landesque features, motivated by systematic decisions or more incremental usage, can occur on a spectrum of short-term bursts of activity mobilized by intensive labor strategies, or through piecemeal, longterm accretion (Garrison et al. 2019). While archaeologists have cautioned

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wholesale applications of landesque capital that do not critically engage with the problems of mapping capitalist frameworks onto ancient societies, the concept exposes the materially specific ways that politics and history matter in constructions of value in specific landscapes (Morrison 2014: 49). Taking the term “capital” metaphorically, without adhering tightly to the language of neoclassical economics, scholars such as Kathleen Morrison (2014) and Melissa Rosenzweig (2018) have adeptly foregrounded the historicity of human–environment relationships entangled in particular recurring and persistent commitments to cultivation and landscape construction (see also Rosenzweig and Marston 2018). Moving beyond a solely economic-functionalist lens can allow scholars to explore land use “as a praxis of social life that physically and symbolically instantiates relationships of difference or communality” (Rosenzweig 2018: 31). Archaeologists have examined, for example, the divergences in sustainable land-use practices between areas of significant state control of production as opposed to those managed by more autonomous farmers (Marston 2012). Attending to the landesque features of the countrysides developing from the later ninth century bce onward can thus provide an important complement to traditional top-down models of the period’s economies and resource flows. It can also bring much-needed focus to discerning and analyzing agriculture, plant and animal economies, and means of production (cf. Rupp 2001). As explored in subsequent chapters, Archaic households and communities were building and interpreting landscapes full of the accumulations and signatures of earlier improvements and modifications geared towards short- and long-term agropastoral production, orchard cultivation, mining, quarrying, and other industries. Arguably, the farming and herding practices of the Bronze Age and the demographic declines that followed its end caused landscape degradation but left behind the residues of features still visible and workable with maintenance and attention, which helped some people buffer the variability in agricultural outputs (Christodoulou 1959: 124–128; S. W. Manning 2018). These features, and earlier Neolithic and prehistoric places, may have lost their contextual meanings but afforded Archaic communities different assemblages to manage and create new senses of landscape. Analyses of agricultural terraces and survey material around the prehistoric site of Politiko Troullia and the adjacent slope of Politiko Koloiokremmos in the northern Troodos foothills on Cyprus exemplify well these kinds of long-term, material accretions of land use (Fall et al. 2012; see also Wagstaff 1992). Typological studies of terraced hill slopes that combined analysis of surface distributions and vegetation cover indicated intensive

Consuming Landscapes

use for polyculture and potential orchard arboriculture during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1700 bce) but abandonment during the later centuries of the Bronze Age and early Geometric periods (ca. 1700–900 bce). By the eighth century, inhabitants of the area, presumably living in nearby sites or villages perhaps associated with the town of Tamassos, reinvested in the landesque features of these dry-stone, unmortared walls for intensive cultivation. Existing olive groves in remnant orchards or terraced hills provided clear advantages for appropriating preexisting productive crops that normally require relatively long periods of initial growth to reach measurably viable output (Keswani 2018: 147–149). In periods of water stress or intermittent rainfall, moreover, orchard trees such as olives can produce even longer delays before fruiting, and existing landesque features such as terraces would have been attractive for households trying to establish their own crops. While the terraces of Politiko Koloiokremmos are currently not used, these analyses further exposed their continued ability to restrain slope wash and the roots of trees, encapsulating the kinds of long-term endurance of materials such as sediments and stones across millennia of oscillations in temperature, precipitation, and evaporation (Fall et al. 2012: 2435). Such arguments do not necessarily imply that Archaic communities used the terraces in the same ways or valued their sediment retention for the same purposes, but that the relic walls became marshalled in a set of relations that tied these earlier features to new commitments and possibilities. The efforts of Archaic groups to forge particular modes of extracting resources such as copper or limestone or producing commodities such as olive oil and grain thus found purchase within an existing, if altered, patchwork of remnant terraces and drainage structures, plots and orchards, roads, buildings, and harbors, but that accommodated or configured new interventions and unruly social relationships (see also Bloxam 2009). We can surmise that some entitled groups may have taken early control of landesque features, or that local knowledge afforded others the ability to manage them and to accumulate their own wealth. As noted in Chapter 1, we lack enough evidence that can detail institutions of land ownership, and thus may only guess that these social groups were starting to require more regulatory provisions for protecting claims to property in a period of amplifying competition among a range of elite actors (e.g. Mackil 2017). The socioeconomic differentiation afforded by emerging countrysides, such as metal and stone industries, small-scale farming and horticulture, shipbuilding or pot-making, further added to a complex field of labor demands and interrelationships with urban markets and regimes of production and consumption. The archaeological study of their landscapes can

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show how historical processes driven by social and environmental change mediated local knowledge about how to manage and enhance these different resources, which catalyzed new possibilities for rural communities and political and social structures.

Territory and the Messy Chora How did the ten vassals who brought wood and stone to Esarhaddon’s palace interact with each other? Were they in constant competition, using their power to build up the boundaries of their respective kingdoms and safeguard their valuable countrysides? For Iron Age scholarship, the tripartite economic typology of kingdom territory – harbor emporium, arable hinterland, and mines – has been a powerful and intuitive mechanism for exploring inter-polity relationships and tracing their boundaries through the available archaeological and textual records. While such a formula standardizes the scales of lived practice between coast and copper into an assumed separation between polis and chora, it throws important speculative light onto the boundaries enacted in the maintenance of a segmented array of regional polities and their internal aspirations towards cadastral control. In the predominant view of Archaic states founded towards the end of the Bronze Age and achieving consolidated form by the middle of the first-millennium bce, their boundaries shifted against each other in reaction to internal and external pressures, such as imperial subordination, while the polities maintained an interregional homogeneous institution at their cores. Attempts to delineate the kingdoms’ boundaries have turned in more recent years to other theories of state formation drawn from archaeology and ancient history. Prominent in this scholarship, for example, are approaches that trace political borders through the performative competitions enacted at religious sites inhabiting key boundary positions. Following the conceptual framework of François de Polignac (1995) for explaining the rise of the Greek polis, scholars have viewed extra-urban sanctuaries on Cyprus as loci for political mediation and contestation in border contexts between consolidating kingdoms (Fourrier 2002, 2013; Papantoniou 2012a, 2013; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018).13 De Polignac’s aims were to detail how the Greek polis formed through the repetitive and increasingly permanent investments by neighboring communities in ritual sites. These sanctuaries were placed both in town and in rural zones, and the more distant sanctuaries served to anchor claims to sovereignty as well as polis-identities through emulative and competitive

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displays. While critiqued for some of its historical methods and assumptions about processional routes, sanctuary foundations, and political affiliation (e.g. Alcock 1993: 172–214; Hall 1995), the formulation has helped Cypriot archaeologists place semi-urban and extra-urban sanctuaries in their social settings, as powerful sites for community gathering, social aggrandizement, and ritual authority situated on the axis between center and periphery (Iacovou 2021: 247). Adapted for the Cypriot archaeological record, the model explains that sanctuaries materialized in rural places after the foundation of poleis, but before their territories were mapped out through the generation of novel forms of authority. Kingly actors used them to instantiate claims to resource-rich peripheries and to sovereign space (Fourrier 2013: 113). Inasmuch as these arguments bring muchneeded examination to the varied sacred landscapes of the Archaic period, however, they rely on relatively common tropes of urban centers overseeing apolitical rural hinterlands. In keeping the term “extra-urban” from the model of de Polignac, these religious sites refer back to the centrality of urban power relations and elide their potentially important rural resonances (Papantoniou 2012a: 34, 90–91). Urban and extra-urban sanctuaries are thus “closely linked to a center on which they depend” (Fourrier 2014: 126). The religious sites are held to duplicate urban tastes and practices, and the analysis risks omitting or neglecting the complexity of discursive and material strategies at the margins. In other words, concepts such as de Polignac’s still tend to hold the central city as the explanatory and analytical focus. The idea thus shares implicit conceptual kinship with the central place theory of geographer Walter Cristaller, as well as frameworks of “gateway” sites popular in current research on networks and connectivity (Papantoniou and Vionis 2017). For Cristaller (1933), market cities inhabited the most accessible and central positions of a territory to direct the exchange of goods and services from surrounding areas. Such concepts as these are not without their critics, because they flatten and homogenize the complicated dynamics of bounded settlement systems into a concentric lattice of distance and trade (e.g. Page and Walker 1994; Smith 2003; Steel 2018). Central place theory, for example, relies on preconditions of constant population density and idealized economic exchange, as well as methods of hierarchically ranking higher or lower order settlements or of calculating the lognormal distributions of progressively smaller market sites ringing one central node. Centrality, even when divorced from the earlier principles of econometric geography, necessarily ranks inhabitation and land use through the lens of size and can create unidirectional biases towards economic questions –

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how were resources brought to centers, and how were they shipped off into interregional markets? The character and historical trajectories of smaller sites can get lost in these analyses. Goods-centered models of centrality typically conceive of one primary town at the top of the settlement system, multiple intermediate secondary centers, and a majority of small villages or farms at the bottom (Rupp 2001; Erny 2022: 131–137). In other words, they follow models for Bronze Age settlement systems and create a spatial hierarchy of Cypriot sites that links together centralized urban workshops and ports, middling distribution or ideological sites, and farming, mining, and logging villages with “commoners” (e.g. Catling 1962; Rupp 1989; Keswani 1993, 1996; Iacovou 2018: 19–20; for discussion see also Manning and De Mita 1997; Steel 2018; Andreou 2019b). The intermediate category of “second-rank” sites, presumably the seats of local administrators, becomes ambiguous, usually representing a sanctuary or simply a local center or “agro-town” (e.g. Keswani 1993: 80; Fourrier 2013: 113–117; Papantoniou and Vionis 2017). These vague hierarchical structures that ultimately distill political territory into an economic region leave little room for theorizing other power relationships or examining how local actors can affect their spatial and political standing (Smith 2003: 42; see also Crumley 1994). Unlike in some of the influential studies of Greek rural landscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, for example, which debate the political status of small-scale farmers living in dispersed or nucleated settlements, studies of Iron Age Cypriot settlements tend not to interpret rural sites as politically or socially differentiated.14 When ties are only connected to urban centers, scholars can ignore the lateral connections and interactions between small settlements (Attema et al. 2017). To put it differently, we sometimes expect too much from the interpretive strengths of centrality. It often retains a rank-size, econometric lens that still needs to account for “un-central” social and historical phenomena (Papantoniou and Vionis 2017). The segmentary arrangement of ancient polities around the island also raises important questions about what this fragmentation may have meant in terms of political relationships. As introduced earlier, the island’s epigraphic record attests to practices of subregional divisions of land and property, with local or regional officials in charge of administration (Pestarino 2022). The evidence for the patterning of settlements and their interconnections raises the possibilities of irregular and discontinuous intersections of landscapes, as explored in Chapters 4 and 5. As Smith (2003: 130) has argued, in places where “the controlling political authority was less than perfectly clear … it would seem better to look

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for frontiers between polities … rather than simple boundaries linking polities into a geometric mosaic.” The production of first-millennium bce territoriality may have generated unpredictable malleability and patchiness: “a mosaic of open-ended assemblages of entangled ways of life” (Tsing 2015: 4; see also Elden 2021). James Osborne’s (2013) concept of malleable territory offers one inroad to push beyond the continuous expanse of central places towards more creative interpretations of how these territorial modes joined together into what Horden and Purcell (2000: 115–122) call dispersed hinterlands. Malleability of political landscape refers, in Osborne’s (2013: 787) words, to the potential for “fluid borders, variable ownership of settlements, and non-contiguous areas of territorial control” that traditional archaeological distribution and settlement maps struggle to render visually. Instead of conceiving of the political space of complex societies in terms of top-down directional flows of authority within fixed borders, malleability puts the patchiness of ancient politics at the center of analysis and exposes how connections between settlements and senses of territory were not a given, but generated through social changes. In studying Syro-Anatolian royal ideology and territoriality in the Amuq Valley during the Iron Age, for example, Osborne (2013: 787) argues that on the edges of the capital of Patina, with its tiered network of sites, sat small settlements that appear “untethered politically to either the capital city or any of the secondary fortified centers.” His analysis further considers the possibility for environmental changes to have conditioned the engagement of some smaller sites with the wider Amuq Valley, especially through a potential marsh or wetland zone that may have made inhabitation or mobility intermittently prohibitive. The boundaries between regional communities can be, to put it another way, messy. An orientation to the ruptures in lived and ruled or governed space helps reframe questions of political landscapes towards the emergent properties of place-making and complexity. Sarah Janes (2013: 161), for example, has used spatial analysis of Amathusian necropoleis to argue for “a more fluid and possibly fractious relationship between the center and the rest of the city-kingdom” than previously considered. These relationships of terrain and political formation were necessarily material in nature (Gordillo 2017; Elden 2021). In a synthesis of evidence for the island’s fortification walls, Claire Balandier (2000: 181) has argued that while these kingdoms lacked defensive networks in the material form of “real” borders, they operated their edges as “a kind of buffer zone” through practices of mobility, settlement, ritual, and industry that shaped how people from

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different polities interacted with features such as rivers, hilltops, and forests. As mechanisms for interaction, the edges between systems can expose histories of relatedness and the unruly workings of political control (Tsing 2015; see also Düring and Stek 2018). This “seamfulness,” the dynamics of living on the edge, underscores that the transparency of what we tend to perceive as “seamless” rule-making institutions obscures and conceals action: “rather than [assume] stable nodes for assemblage, seams suggest that there are many possible ways to patch multiple systems together into local alignment” (Vertesi 2014: 269). Such complexities of political space also reaffirm arguments that territory is not a stable transhistorical mode, but historically produced by contingent actors, institutions, and forms of power (Elden 2013: 322). The several Cypriot polities may not have shared the same authoritative claims to terrain, bodies, and resources, and approaching them as essentialized urban entities risks overlooking their divergent practices. The conjoining of land and sea, especially around many of the coastal towns on the island, made the control of political space more complicated. Rather than presume that territorial power radiated from central towns to peripheral subjects, what would happen if the seams between political authorities centered the analysis? In other words, if we integrate rural communities alongside the town, how would investigations of territory change? As current work on ancient rural dynamics has shown, the common assumptions of a chora subject to its city center are often untenable, instead indicating their loose and wavering interconnections and systems of control, and even the possibility of unregulated edge regions (e.g. Parker 2003; see also Horden and Purcell 2000). Almost thirty years ago, Norman Yoffee (1995: 547) articulated the problem: “Although archaeologists who study the evolution of early states have explained regions and regional hierarchies in terms of urban places, they have seldom meditated that cities are not simply superimpositions on a traditional and stable countryside.” Rather than seeing these rural spaces as penetrated, encroached upon, or diminished by urban practices, robust archaeological attention to other-than-urban spaces over the last decades has exposed complex town–country spatial dynamics (Foxhall and Yoon 2016; Van Oyen 2019). Archaeologists have helped to dissect tropes about ancient rural landscapes and social contexts ranging from the cultural category of the backwards, socially inert peasant to the economic forces integrating rural and urban relations of production and division of labor, logics of distribution and

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consumption, and governance (Bowes 2020). In doing so, towns shift from singularities to nodes in a settlement continuum (Horden 2000; Horden and Purcell 2000: 96). The commonly cited evidentiary problems in recovering ancient rural social worlds, however, from the scarcity of preserved contexts to the lack of typological resolution of most small-site materials, such as utilitarian pottery, has meant that scholars grasp at the territory of the rural countryside through meager and biased records or identify it through negative evidence for urban material signatures (e.g. Grey 2011: 1–15; Campana 2018; Koparal and Vaessen 2020). The situation for Archaic Cyprus is exemplary in this regard. Scholars working with both survey and excavated material, for example, have lamented the lack of attention to undecorated plain, coarse, or utilitarian ware vessels such as cooking pots without painted diagnostic features, relegating large percentages of recovered ceramic fragments to categories of the “unknown,” loosely dated to several centuries of the Iron Age (Given and Smith 2003; Fourrier 2011; Janes and Winther-Jacobsen 2013; Bartusewich 2019: 59). We lack knowledge, outside of tomb contexts, on the everyday jugs or pots used in meal preparation and consumption (Pilides 2005: 177). Storage vessels such as the large pithos, or even unpainted transport amphorae, often found in abundance in surface collections, are therefore of little help in providing more refined chronological data for countryside practices. In addition, survey projects rarely comb the surfaces of hillslopes and upland territories, creating large spatial gaps in coverage of what would have been more expansive countrysides (Campana 2018; cf. Given and Knapp 2003; Given et al. 2013a). Rurality becomes commensurable chiefly through the prism of small cemeteries and settlements, flattening out the possibilities of constructed difference or complexity in malleable territories. Carrie Hritz’s (2013) concept of “rural messiness” digs beneath this flatness. Her main critique on city-centric models of ancient landscapes highlights the ways in which they smoosh likely varied settlement systems into presumed ranks, consistently orienting signatures of growth, innovation, or obsolescence only towards the city or future cities, and not to dynamic non-city and rural domains. For Hritz, a diachronic approach to microenvironmental diversity and mixed economic strategies in the Balikh watershed in northeastern Syria reveals how rural Bronze Age settlements were tied categorically to geographical variation and, as a result of flexibility to resource changes, were largely insulated from various political

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upheavals over the long term. Urbanization can occur without changing other-than-urban practices or can be recursively constrained and destabilized by those practices. This helpful critique, however, risks rendering the countryside essentially apolitical. We should avoid removing or distancing the city and positioning countrysides outside the oscillations in power anchored in urban structures. In what follows, I consider how rural flexibilities and variabilities afforded sites of possibility for political intervention across settlement continuums. These include the landesque and resource investments discussed earlier, which allowed novel social inequalities to take shape, as well as opportunities for assembling local solidarities and distinguishing outsiders. The social orders developing on the edges of town or urban environments invite more attention to ancient communities than has otherwise been granted in Cypriot archaeology of the Iron Age (Kearns 2022a). While challenging, archaeologists and historians are starting to interrogate the “peopling” of the past to discern historical and relational formations. They have reworked definitions of community that capture how it is socially constructed, consisting of complex arrangements produced through interactions beyond the household, as an interface composed of individuals who do not necessarily always interact but who share senses of affiliation (Wernke 2013: 23; e.g. Knapp 2003; Morgan 2003: 12; Mac Sweeney 2011; Bevan and Conolly 2013: 4; Birch 2013; Porter 2013; Harris 2014). In particular, while collective practices are often strongly linked to place, scholars have argued that communities are not necessarily confined to particular sizes of settlement and move across spatial boundaries. Similarly, communities can form and congeal in structures of shared practice, tasks, interactions, or exchanges that occur in different times and places and at different frequencies. These recent moves to reconsider the complexity of community help dissociate it from its typical conceptual position as the smallscale, “simple” contrast to complicated urban social phenomena (Porter 2013: 1–3). They also attend more closely to changes in community constituencies over time, as people define, maintain, or break apart senses of affiliation, as well as to how smaller-scale communities are often unstable (Bevan and Conolly 2013: 9). This “shattering of the notion of long-term continuity” of groups, such as those worshipping at non-urban sanctuaries, seeks to move beyond reified assumptions of ideal types of Iron Age subjects, as well as to consider the intersections of religious and political actions in context (Mackil 2011: 150–156). Indeed, such dynamic approaches to community have proven compelling when they entail multidimensional and comparative perspectives:

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internal divisions, emergent and conflicting interests, cultural practices within and between constituents, and diachronic transformations (Knapp 2003: 567; see also Kolb and Snead 1997; Grey 2011; Bevan and Conolly 2013: 4). Marks of distinction can serve to differentiate between members or to highlight community leaders, who over time and through contingent modes of ownership engineered their own social, economic, and political positions. Analyzing these shifting relationships between a range of intertwined spatial and temporal scales can interrogate which scalar arrangements were socially constructed by certain political formations and reproduced through specific material contexts (e.g. Brenner 2001; Brown and Purcell 2005; Smith 2015). These might include, for example, household scales that incorporated the ceramic signatures of a ruling polity, or the negotiation for access to resources such as copper or limestone between local laborers, markets, and various authorities. “Scaling the rural” thus foregrounds the diverse experiences and registers at which rural communities differentially take up urban practices (Gorman-Murray et al. 2008). While the archaeology of settlement structures, households, and place-making for the early first-millennium bce is challenged by the lack of much written evidence and the available archaeological material and methods, the numerous datasets of surface survey available for the island offer a compelling source for such comparative research questions (Rupp 1997; Counts and Iacovou 2013). A focus on rural households and suprahousehold interactions frames many of the interpretations in the following chapters, although, as noted, we lack much empirical evidence. For Iron Age Cyprus, recent work has started to shed some light on broader transformations in family structures and social relations, including of gender and age, which undoubtedly accompanied the more visible developments of urbanization and social inequalities during the mid-first-millennium bce. Bioarchaeological evidence from human skeletons is sparse, but we know from Late Bronze and Early Iron Age tombs that childbirth was perilous for women, and mortality rates were high for children under ten years old (Budin 2016). By the Archaic period, childbirth and maternal female bodies become widespread topics of concern in art, perhaps suggesting a shift in conceptualizing female roles within the family. While terracotta figurines of female bodies holding infants or with other signs of maternal or childbearing postures were common during the earlier Bronze Age, it is during the seventh and sixth centuries bce that coroplastic figurines showing women in childbirth and midwives or childbirth helpers are created, marking a genuinely novel kind of artistic representation of the gendered human form (Vandervondelen

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2002; Karageorghis 2006: 203–206, figs. 217–220; Budin 2016). Several dozen syllabic inscriptions also survive, especially from the area of Marion on the northwestern coast of the island, which attest to named female individuals in funerary markers and their relationships as wives, mothers, daughters, or sisters (Bazemore 2002). These fragmentary windows into the lives of real women emphasize the importance, by the Archaic period, of being attached to prominent men and their ancestral clans, as well as to a shift in the politics of personhood envisioned by the state and its attempts to instantiate new kinds of temporal control over social reproduction (Yao 2019: 88). The use of patronymics in these inscriptions, relaying the name of a husband or father’s lineage, suggests the growing relevance of claims to a kin network known locally or regionally. They also reiterate the patrilineal features of Archaic society, in which families married off girls or young women to further solidify exchange relationships, status, or prestige. In rural contexts, examples from the Classical Aegean also suggest that virilocal practices were common, in which women traveled distances to join their husband’s family and provide children to inherit his family’s property (Cox 1998). Similarly speculative approaches to understanding rural labor in the ancient Mediterranean have suggested that women and children in small, dispersed farms were doing a lot of agricultural work, in addition to what were presumably domestic tasks such as textile and cloth production, food preparation, and household organization (Scheidel 1995; Smith 2016). Approaching messy countrysides as populated not just with anonymous non-elite dispersals of people but with actors and larger collectives with varying investments in kin networks, rising household and village relations, and state politics can expose how landscapes were instrumental in securing affiliation, to the polity or otherwise (Khatchadourian 2016: 35; see also Appadurai 2003: 338). The most conspicuous traces of such social engineering in the archaeological record are gathering sites, at tombs, sanctuaries, or performative spaces in settlements. In other-than-urban areas, places such as shrines, cemeteries, or collective working sites could become a means for subjects to experience and contribute to their social relationships through shared tasks and performances. Within rural settlements, certain buildings could also offer dedicated places for special events of hosting, gathering, and performing these relationships, outside the normal activities or rhythms of everyday life. At the rural Late Bronze Age site of Aredhiou Vouppes in the northern Troodos foothills, interpreted as a farming settlement, one large subterranean room seems to have served these needs. Evidence of imported bowls and kraters and

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other local tablewares, as well as bull vases and figurines, indicates the shared consumption of food and drink and other performances by this smaller-scale community (Steel 2021). Spaces such as these become, in the words of Smith (2003: 8), “places that draw together the imagined civil community, a perceptual dimension of space in which built forms elicit affective responses that galvanize memories and emotions central to the experience of political belonging.” This book’s case studies move beyond an accounting of how repeated gatherings of people make places to ask how certain practices anchored communities to places through political associations and participation (Swidler 2001; Brace et al. 2006; Lindsay 2016). These heuristics are employed to question how politics necessitates places of interaction and audience, even in remote, rural, seemingly commonplace landscapes. Of interest are the emergent places of engagement that, while apparently critical to the town or its political economy when viewed at a macroscale, are also closely linked to, and  generative  of,  smallerscale social lives.

Unruly Time In conventional reconstructions of Iron Age temporality and transformation, singular objects such as Sargon II’s stele or Esarhaddon’s prism become invested with great explanatory power. To take another wellknown case: a now famous bronze grilling spit (obelos) of someone named Opheltas, found in a tomb of eleventh- or tenth-century date at Palaipaphos Skales on the southwestern coast of the island (Kearns 2022a: 66–68). It has an inscription written in Greek with the Cypriot syllabary and has been called a “perfect example of a transitional phase” between Bronze and Iron Age writing practices and linguistic communities (Masson and Masson 1983: 411; Sherratt 2003: 225; Knapp 2013: 466). This telescoping between “Greek” or “Cypriot” grave good and a more global narrative arc of Greek-speaking migrations to the island makes for exciting archaeology, but as others have noted, it is a precarious foundation for explanations of social, political, or cultural continuity or change (Voskos and Knapp 2008: 674–675; Petit 2019: 69–70). By interpreting the obelos as a marker of transitional time, scholars can reify the links between migrating populations and incipient Iron Age societies but can equally mute the time and experiences of people such as Opheltas and their social feasting (e.g. Vonhoff 2011; Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012). In other words, we can often privilege a lens of macroscalar time, from the mid-second-millennium to

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the mid-first-millennium, rather than the more localized, lived experiences of those on the ground. The preference for a kind of chronicling, by sequencing objects to longterm linear histories, has shaped interpretations of not just other, uninscribed things, but Cypriot sites and landscapes as well, particularly as they concern the transition from Bronze Age systems to Iron Age ones (see also Osborne 2019). Amathus, for example, is considered an urban center without prehistory in some reconstructions of Iron Age topography, referring to its lack of Late Bronze Age occupations. A major site “with no previous history” would seem to deny the landscape, or its inhabitants, a past before the first-millennium bce (Iacovou 1994: 155–156; 2008: 626). Archaeological evidence does suggest that its acropolis was visited during the eleventh century and occupied with permanent installations by the ninth century bce while the surrounding fields in the Ayios Tychonas area show Neolithic but little to no traces of Bronze Age inhabitation (Petit et al. 1989; Petit 1996; Petit 2019; cf. Iacovou 2002b). Such lacunae have led scholars to argue that the Amathusian population inmigrated from somewhere else, such as the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys to the east, after the second millennium. In addition, scholars assert that Amathus, previously unoccupied, was settled from scratch through a “power vacuum” caused by the abandonment of nearby Late Bronze Age towns around 1200 bce (Petit 1997; Iacovou 2008: 642; 2013b: 144; Georgiou 2012). The desertion of Late Bronze Age sites, such as Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and the Maroni complex “permitted without a doubt the new arrivals to extend their influence in these relatively nearby areas which became part of the future kingdom and brought a large part of their revenues” (Aupert 1996: 21). Undoubtedly, given the selective coverage of previous surveys, eleventh- and tenth-century sites may exist in the coastal terrain or in the foothills of the Troodos around Amathus at higher elevations, as Nicolas Coldstream (2012: 13) surmised: “there would have been four or five generations of indigenous people who must have had homes somewhere in the neighborhood, homes that still await discovery.” For Iron Age studies consistently oriented to urban signatures, however, the collapse of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and Maroni marks a legitimate end of the south-central region and allows for the new foundations at Amathus. The power vacuum metaphor thus implies an arithmetic in which power cannot exist in a place that no longer has an urban nucleus, a political realist understanding of primordial motivations of state expansion. This coinage can render the transfer of power largely passive, without examining the ways in which people at Amathus might have taken control and managed to generate

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authority in a transformed landscape. It also perpetuates a temporal myth: rural places without cities have no history and need to imitate urbanism to “catch up” (Gange 2019: 310) or to “heal” (Iacovou 2013b: 144). Undoubtedly, major social, economic, and cultural transformations occurred and catalyzed the kinds of experiences driving the novel conditions of the Iron Age, and their time-based complexity warrants analyses that take seriously “before and after” the events and processes of the late thirteenth and twelfth centuries bce (e.g. Papantoniou 2012b). As noted earlier, and perceptively by Iacovou (2018: 10–15) and Satraki (2012), the attested longevity of certain Cypriot place names, such as Idalion and Kition, presents fascinating toponymic claims to deep, palimpsest-like memories and histories of space and place. Such sites align with the signs of long-lived “robust urbanism” that other archaeologists have proposed in places such as Etruria, denoting well-defined practices of power transfer, institutional integrity, and land use that maintained urban material fabrics through intergenerational ties for over four centuries (Stoddart 2020; Stoddart et al. 2020). But as recent archaeological reassessments of time and temporality have convincingly shown, the materials, ideologies, and sensations stitching together pasts, presents, and futures also produced temporal rhythms that were less linear and orderly and quite a bit more unruly (Bradley 2003; Yoffee 2007; Weber et al. 2016; Yao 2019). As is well documented now for Cyprus, the Iron Age political centers show well this kind of variability in urban longevity and investments in managing intergenerational practices and controlling social reproduction. “Before and after” thus take on more socially situated meanings for what counted as the past or pasts, the present, and anticipations and expectations for the future among different regional communities. One of the frameworks for these multi-rhythmic elements of time, especially salient for the Cypriot Iron Age, is one made famous by Braudel (1972, 1980) as part of the Annaliste school of French history during the mid-twentieth century. Offering a holistic approach to historiography that took seriously the more processual and structural rates of change occurring at century and millennial scales, not just the episodic time of conventional chronicling, Braudel’s framework of different temporal scales has been seductive for diachronic landscape archaeologies because it draws attention to long-term rhythms in settlement and land use (Knapp 1992). His idea of la longue durée, the impossibly slow-moving timescale, privileges longterm trends and has been useful for survey methodologies where period categories for artifacts can extend as long as six hundred years (1958; e.g. Cherry et al. 1991). In his powerful structuralist scheme, la longue durée

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became the nearly motionless underbelly of time, into and upon which the middling social and economic rhythms of the moyenne durée (conjonctures) rotated and were punctuated by microscalar events, what he called courte durée (“short” temporal scale). This shortest timeframe could include experiential events or processes, such as abnormal harvests from unexpected or extraordinary conditions, short industrial slumps, or temporary dislocation. Scholars have enthusiastically taken up Braudel’s longue durée, if often without attribution, for its compelling ability to link the second and first millennia bce through structural continuities but equally to signify how scholars must approach urban temporality: “the historic centers of Iron Age Cyprus have been the victims of their very own longue durée” (Iacovou 2002a: 74; e.g. Papantoniou 2013: 34). What makes this timescale alluring for macronarratives of Bronze and Iron Age Cyprus? Composed from a cell while Braudel was a prisoner of war and laden with the observations of the repetitive and banal daily experiences of incarceration, his book The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II presented a retooling of historical methods as a rebuttal from the margins to contemporary continental research that focused on events such as battles, coronations, revolts, or ceremonies. Political history, such as Philip II of Spain’s activity as monarch, he thus famously sidelined: in privileging the long-term macrophenomena ne pas bouger, “that do not change,” and century-scale social and economic conjonctures, Braudel attenuated so-called great man history to highlight transhistorical modalities of mountain pastures or maritime commerce. He relegated eventful histories to the end of his thousand-page work because he wanted instead to present the everyday structures of Mediterranean life across its heterogeneous and highly variable topographies through the social time of economics, demography, and sociology. Most important were the almost imperceptible changes and rhythms that underscored historical progress, la longue durée, even in a period of dramatic imperial formations and global discovery such as the sixteenth century of Philip II that ushered Mediterranean commercial wealth into northern Europe and across the Atlantic. The utility of the Braudellian longue durée for framing continuities, especially of political form, is suspect, however, when it acts only as a synonym for “long-term,” as does its acknowledged difficulties with explaining change over time when used as a synonym for “diachronic” (Morley 2004: 58–59). The tendency to favor a “smooth and steady reckoning of time” still governing many regional archaeologies, as on Cyprus, can flatten the more uneven transformational moments, where dynamic and unpredictable change punctuate perceptible everyday experiences (Harris

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2017: 128). These problems are exacerbated when it becomes clear that the middle-scale temporality of la moyenne durée is the real temporal aperture that scholars are interested in, or more specifically centennial changes such as demographic movements (1972: 889). La longue durée applications complicate the plotting of narratives against recent work on landscapes as instrumental to human practices and development, but they work well for econometric geographies whereby immutable resources are considered the driving mechanisms behind millennia of socioeconomic development. For Braudel (1958: 731), Mediterranean environments shaped settled and maritime existence, “imprisoning” man with physiographical and climatic forces and conditioning transhistorical continuities of landscape practice, such as transhumance, into slow-moving time. His overwhelming focus on cities, moreover, finds purchase in updated understandings of centrality and urbanocentric territories (Bintliff 2014). One of the more compelling foci of historical work on the structural time of the wider Annales school out of which Braudel’s longue durée surged, however, and one that we need more resolution for on Iron Age Cyprus, is that of the rural landscape. The Annalistes and others sought out the landscape rhythms of peasant villages of the countryside, through which conjunctural and episodic histories could play out, and more recent work has turned to the interesting multitemporal linking of pasts, presents, and futures in rural communities (Forbes 2007; see also Van Oyen 2019). Rural landscapes and their tempos are linked closely to the multitemporality of seasons and weathering processes and constitutive of novel senses of time that “emerge most clearly at the edges” of cities and states (Gange 2019: 308). As Alice Yao (2019: 88) has argued, “the non-events that archaeologists are so adept at finding – rates of discard and histories of disuse and reuse – provide crucial lenses into the processes of decline, abandonment, and continuity” that separated frontier subjects from the language of time at the center. Methodologically, however, it is difficult to delineate these tempos in the remains of rural material histories. As explored in the case studies in this book, the scarcity and fragmentary nature of the archaeological debris of rural life can introduce time lags between surface evidence of the eighth or seventh centuries bce and excavated built features of the fifth and fourth centuries bce. Additionally, features of landscapes can also emerge over long timescales, creating patchworks of persistent geomorphological features after the activities ended that instigated them, for example in the trapping of sediments from erosion that continue to supply and influence rivers (Parrinello and Kondolf 2021). These opportunities for disjointed temporalities in landscapes require more investigation

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to discern how forms of activity took on permanence and which patterns suggest intermittent or “false gaps” in continuous occupation histories, as well as their evidentiary traits and biases. In the macrohistorical focus on regional abandonment or urban monumentalization following the Bronze Age on Cyprus, we can lose purchase on the local mechanics of these changes, of continuities and discontinuities in rural places and the ways that people responded to economic or social processes in local terms and temporalities (Richard 2012, 2013: 46; see also Schwartz and Nichols 2006; Middleton 2012; Schwarz 2013; Yao 2019: 89). In the case of the Vasilikos and Maroni regions mentioned earlier, scholars see them as “depleted” after the collapse of their Late Bronze Age urban centers, not reduced to isolated farms but rather emptied as groups of specialized craftsmen first moved into cities to continue producing exports and then turned to occupy Amathus “ex novo” (Papantoniou 2012b: 304; Iacovou 2018: 19–20). But what if we did try to look more closely at the local communities that moved around the post-Bronze Age landscapes of Amathus, Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, or Maroni? How were they forging new imaginaries and ideologies of time and place as they engaged and encountered abandoned LC walls or tombs, within and across generations removed from the turmoil of collapse and disruption? And what worldviews were constructed when social groups traversed the remains of Neolithic settlements or the imposing hills of Amathus? With these questions, we can begin to draw together our fragmentary evidence to speculate and pose new questions about vernacular histories that avoid predetermined ideas of rural or urban agency and linear time, or the time constructed by state authorities to control subjects. To put it another way, I am interested in exploring how communities on the seams of the state cultivated their own kinds of local time, senses of the past, and affiliations to a collective political standing and future through their modes of creating place: ritual spots, communal burial grounds, domestic hearths, areas of industry or labor, and even ports and routes of exchange. The landscape archaeologies of contexts such as Archaic Cyprus could benefit from more attention to this social time; how rural communities encountered and mapped different senses of time onto local places, especially in periods of transformative reaggregation (Trouillot 1995; Lefebvre 2016 [1956]: 68). As argued earlier, the concept of landesque capital brings these concerns to the forefront: how communities reworked or enveloped earlier remains into their own living and working practices.

Unruly Time

Van Oyen’s (2019) work on forward-thinking rural practices, such as those related to production and storage of perishable goods in ancient Italy and France, similarly exposes how rural actors could plan, strategize, and invest in diverse futures. Shannon Dawdy’s (2016a, 2016b) concept of heterogeneous time also provides a helpful footing for thinking about landscape cycles. What she calls social stratigraphy concerns the accumulation of inherited things and materials from the past that construct and complicate the social present of everyday worlds. The uneven layering of human and non-human elements in landscapes marks out places, such as springs or abandoned sites, that provoke and call out for recognition and action (Dawdy 2016b: 45). As individuals and communities come to imagine a series of pasts, or times prior, they experience other events or moments that make the quality of the past percolate through their own present – senses cultivated through affective practices but also elicited through ruptures of natural or human force, such as abrupt weather events that expose or unsettle timescales. In this sense, the Archaic landscapes of Cyprus consisted of more than just one past, present, and future. They both compressed and incited engagements of histories before, but continuously effecting, contemporary and future horizons (Stewart 1996; Harmanşah 2020). Henri Lefebvre (2016 [1956]: 68) similarly conceived of rural complexity through the “sedimentations” of different historical formations that forged diverse and uneven social and political relationships (see also Halfacree 2006). In both the surroundings of Amathus and the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, the differentiated stuff of past landscapes and their environmental situatedness, as well as concomitant transformations in maritime trade and economic exchanges, created richly varied contemporary fields for people to assemble new constructs of meaning, belonging, and social positioning. Some of these constructs embraced the traditions and motivations of urban authorities, while others transformed regional narratives to suit their own ideas of difference and solidarity. During the ninth and eighth centuries bce, what did the past(s) look, feel, or sound like? Which pasts were considered valuable, and to what ends? How were these ideas maintained or promoted through landscape features in the pursuit of novel senses of community, or of structures of difference controlled by emerging authorities? How were new futures or possibilities for action anticipated or expected, and how did weathering experiences shape these ideas? Undoubtedly, social groups were

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fashioning temporalities of the preceding tenth and early ninth centuries bce into multiple ones that suited their own systems of urban and rural sedentism and cultural ideas, agropastoralism and industry, and interconnections between ascendant polities and interregional economic networks. In these earlier periods, sedentism may likely have taken a more delicate form of single-generation residences or gathering sites, keeping semi-permanent installations in place for activities such as farming or herding, but not reproducing senses of attachment to long-lived sites or topographical features. Towards the end of the ninth century bce, as explored in the rest of this book, groups seem to have wanted to remain longer in places, choosing some sites with previous occupations stretching hundreds of years, as well as to work in, move through, and even disturb places of much older place-making. But they also sought out what appeared, especially by the eighth century bce, as uninhabited or opened spaces to lay their own foundational roots. It was a horizon when senses of expectation were changing, and futures became more solidly tied to place, as we saw in the Idalion Tablet with the anchoring of Onasilos’ generations to his plots. The social times and local temporalities behind the rise of Amathus are thus compelling for the choices and decisions to erect claims to power on an “empty” acropolis. Who was making these decisions and whom did they serve? Archaic communities and their weathering and landscape interactions shaped the pasts they perceived and interacted with into new forms through lived experience and through the assembling of places that afforded different possibilities of political subjectivity. In this book, I explore the traces of these movements to begin to identify the workings of rural communities in gathering places around tombs and sanctuaries, as well as the quotidian rhythms of farming, mining, quarrying, and movement in more and less familiar  environmental conditions.

Conclusions The ninth through fifth centuries bce on Cyprus arguably present one of the most dramatic compressions of social, political, and economic change in the island’s deep history. By the seventh century bce, massive empires to the east and emerging poleis to the west were aware of Cypriot kings and cities, which had claimed membership in trans-Mediterranean economies. After the more entrepreneurial trading and commerce established during the disruptive centuries following the Bronze Age came a period

Conclusions

of widespread investments in agrarian and industrial production, spurred on by access to eastern markets and facilitated by Levantine, Aegean, and Anatolian shipping and commercial infrastructure (Sherratt and Sherratt 1993; Georgiadou and Iacovou 2020). As wealth and economic power grew, and ruling classes developed new modes for expressing and legitimizing their authority through monumental built environments, sacred spaces, and the “kingly things” of royal paraphernalia, regionally differentiated cultural practices found firmer footing within the various Cypriot polities (Georgiadou 2011, 2017; Fourrier 2013: 105; on kingly things see Kopytoff 1986: 73). The Archaic timescale is also the first marked by Cypriot written evidence attesting to multiple languages in operation across the island, whose various scripts were employed performatively to announce the royal constitution of kings, particularly through inscribed prestige goods (Iacovou 2013b; Cannavò 2019). The common CG koine culture of the eleventh and tenth centuries bce had, in more ways than one, started to fracture. And along the unruly seams of these developing towns were tensions and ambiguities shaping novel entanglements between town and country and between social groups and their weathered landscapes. Scholars have suggested that this transformative period was akin to the consolidation of existing city-states into territorial ones, borrowing language from the comparative study of social systems (Iacovou 2002a, 2018; Fourrier 2013; see e.g. Trigger 2003: 92). In studies of ancient political economies, city-states are held to comprise the self-contained unit of urban core and surrounding farmland, such as the classical Maya or Aegean polis, while territorial states define those with motivations for control over larger expanses, such as the ancient Inka, who populated their territories with a multileveled hierarchy of administrators in local centers and sustained wide gaps between the power-wielding upper classes and the bottom classes of farmers or industrial laborers through threats of physical violence. While used implicitly in scholarship on the Cypriot Iron Age, the interpretive work of terms such as “territoriality” has outpaced critical attention to the actual mechanics fitting together original forms of power and place by the later ninth century bce (Elden 2013). We currently lack evidence for the systems of landscape control, such as installations for regulating and protecting movement within a kingdom, fortifying and protecting borders, and surveilling inter-polity communication typically characterized for territorial states (Balandier 2000, 2007). As this chapter has tried to argue, moreover, the overwhelming scarcity of evidence for lower or non-ruling class realities, from settlements to rural production and consumption, prohibits any assumptions of social stratification or of their rigid mapping between

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polis, chora, and hinterlands. In loosely detailed politico-economic models the Archaic to Classical Cypriot polity perhaps comes closest to the hegemonic city-state, which seeks to control larger environments than its immediate arable surroundings (Trigger 2003: 92). Economic orientations to the Archaic polity on Cyprus have brought renewed focus to the internal workings of authorities managing industrial wealth for external markets (Iacovou 2006, 2007, 2014a). Such “Cyprocentrism” makes enormous gains in un-yoking Iron Age histories from the assumed top-down force of Neo-Assyrian or Aegean impacts on a culturally inferior island. The interaction between emergent relations of power and economic actions is, moreover, crucial to understanding polity development and state formation, not only through the supervision and control of resources, but also and equally through the mechanics by which various towns acquired revenues through taxation or rent and regulated exchange (e.g. Mackil 2011: 239–246). Unfortunately, there is poor resolution to make claims about facets of the Archaic economy such as taxation, and we rely on thin material residues of local or regional infrastructure – roads, ports, markets, sanctuaries – to understand political economies beyond goods-centered models. Ongoing work in publishing the tantalizing archives of the classical state at Idalion, for example, through hundreds of ostraka produced by Semitic-speaking inhabitants, will start to make the study of economic action and bureaucratic logistics less prohibitive (Amadasi Guzzo and Zamora López 2016; Pestarino 2022). To build a more critical understanding of these Iron Age political, social, and economic transformations, we can attend to the landscape experiences of communities who were becoming rural at a time when kingly authorities began to proclaim cities as their seats of sovereignty. The landscapes that began to develop during the ninth and eighth centuries bce were conditioned by weathering terrain, formative entanglements with resources such as woods, copper, and stone stimulated by regional and interregional interests, and new understandings of community, kinship, and politics. As David Rupp (2001: 138) argued twenty years ago, “in short, a fine-grained landscape archaeology for the Early Iron Age is needed here to complement the evolving one for the latter part of the Cypriote Bronze Age” and to help understand its so-called recalcitrant economies (Iacovou 2008, 2014a). I take fine-grained, in the following chapters, to connote a multiscalar approach to Archaic landscapes that seeks out the contours of lived experiences and mediations with resource materialities, landesque capital, messy social boundaries, and multitemporal engagements with community and ideology on the seams of emerging political orders. This approach to

Conclusions

landscapes employs the integration of various kinds of evidence – regional paleoclimatic and geoarchaeological evidence, survey collections, geophysical and pedestrian resurvey, excavations, and historical sources – to detail the making of novel place-making practices across the island, in and between two river valleys, and at a selection of small sites.

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On the Rural

4

Pulses in an Electromagnetic Field First-Millennium bce Environmental and Social Change

Collapse and Regeneration “We might compare it,” spoke Braudel of the Mediterranean, “to an electric or magnetic field, or more simply to a radiant centre whose light grows less as one moves away from it without one’s being able to define the boundary between light and shade” (1972: 168). As a metaphor for  the expansive scope of his monumental project The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, the electromagnetic field encapsulated Braudel’s interests in tracing the histoire totale of connections between the sea and the lands extending around it, stretching out to an almost global scale. Thinking of these commonalities as electric and magnetic forces urged his “conviction that the Turkish Mediterranean lived and breathed with the same rhythms as the Christian, that the whole sea shared a common destiny, a heavy one indeed, with identical problems and general trends if not identical consequences” (1972: 14). Electromagnetism offered Braudel an additional metaphorical bridge for writing history. Pulsating currents and portable objects epitomized the tension between the forces of electrical flows, his almost-unmoving underbelly of la longue durée, and different modes of dynamic and kinetic magnetism, the sociopolitical and economic conjonctures and court durée. Likening parts of the ancient eastern Mediterranean to a kind of vibrant grid of geophysical conditions, he hypothesized that the political and economic features of the early first-millennium bce were characterized by pulsing mechanisms of maritime trade (Braudel 2001: 33–35). If the trading settlement of Al Mina on the coast of southeastern Turkey was a high-voltage point during the ninth century bce, for example, and the “still-backward” Greece a low-voltage one, “trade could only really be profitable if there was a vigorous and spontaneous electric current passing” between the two (Braudel 2001: 246). The eighth century bce, a context conceptualized in various ways as revolutionary, even Renaissance-like, electrified many of the structures that would come to foster the growth of the classical Mediterranean (Morris 2009; Whitley 2020; see also Hagg 1983).

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The electromagnetic field “went live” during the conjoncture of the early first-millennium bce as a result of developing trade networks, new settlements abroad and cultural encounters, and entrepreneurial commerce linking the landed empires of the Near East to the eastern and central Mediterranean (Sherratt and Sherratt 1993; Whitley 2020: 175–176). Interpretations of the Mediterranean as a force field of interconnected currents of varying and changing intensities have, like many of Braudel’s other prescient ideas on ancient history, surfaced in recent years under new guises, most notably connectivity and formal network analysis (e.g. Horden and Purcell 2000; Morris 2003; Broodbank 2013; Knappett 2013; cf. Antonaccio 2013). While recent work on connections and networks has tended to describe relations rather than explain their causal mechanics, local peculiarities, or historical trajectories, the focus on interconnections of moving people and goods has helped to foreground the widespread effects of periods of intense social change on the connective tissues of the Mediterranean (Knapp and Van Dommelen 2010; Middleton 2017). An example par excellence is the pulsating current associated with the collapse, or gradual ending, of Late Bronze Age sociopolitical and economic interrelationships across the Mediterranean and Near East, encompassing the fall of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and polities such as Ugarit, the weakening and destabilization of the Egyptian kingdom and the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia, and the varied destruction, abandonment, or relocation of polities across the Mediterranean and especially the Aegean, the Levant, and large islands such as Crete and Cyprus (Ward and Joukowsky 1992; Cline 2014; Knapp and Manning 2016; Millek 2019; Iacono et al. 2021). In calling it a collapse, most scholars refer to the disruption or disjunctures in centralized institutions and the reduction or absence of cultural and material practices (for a review see Middleton 2017, 2020; Meyer and Knapp 2021). In the wake of these disintegrated or disturbed systems, novel and conspicuously smaller polities tended to coalesce, and entrepreneurial and mercantile actors created new trade relationships in place of or alongside more centralized, state-run economic exchange systems (Sherratt and Sherratt 1993; Sherratt 1994; Crielaard 1999; Kourou 2012; Broodbank 2013: 445–505; Nakassis 2020; Hall and Osborne 2022). While the networks operating before and after this epochal close become less enigmatic through ongoing historical and archaeological work, the apparatus of transformation – the charges sending Braudel’s electromagnetic pulse – remains opaque, leading to the prevailing interpretation of multicausal systems collapse rather than any singular force of destruction (e.g. Cline 2014; see also Fischer and Bürge 2017; Middleton 2017).

Collapse and Regeneration

Figure 4.1 Distribution of major Late Bronze Age urban centers

On Cyprus, for example, the disturbances and transformations of the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries bce had dynamic and varied effects on sociopolitical structures and political economies. This variation has served as a catalyst for assessing the continuities and discontinuities bridging the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age periods, particularly in the histories of town centers (Georgiou and Iacovou 2020; Knapp and Meyer 2020). Many argue whether LC society was weakly centralized (e.g. Knapp 2013) or fragmented into independent polities (e.g. Keswani 1993; Peltenburg 2012), and these debates are challenged by the variability of disruptions of LC urban sites occurring across the island around and after 1200 bce (Figure 4.1). Divergent settlement histories indeed provide little justification for a single narrative of widespread destruction (Meyer and Knapp 2021). While there are signs that some sites were abandoned or even partly destroyed, such as Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, Maroni, and Alassa Paliotaverna, others were maintained or even rehabilitated with monumental structures into the twelfth century bce, such as Palaipaphos and Kition. The inhabitants of Enkomi, an important center of Late Bronze Age trade on the eastern coast, may have acknowledged the site’s waning accessibility and silted harbor and relocated to the site of Salamis, which became an Iron Age center. Similar developments likely led some inhabitants of the coastal

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city of Hala Sultan Tekke to join the established harbor-town of Kition. Other coastal sites, with clear defensive architecture coalescing during the twelfth century bce (LC IIIA), such as Maa Palaekastro and Pyla Kokkinokremnos, were abandoned by the tenth century bce (Georgiou 2012). Inland, evidence for Late Bronze Age settlements near Ayios Sozomenos in the Mesaoria plain suggest an eventual relocation of some groups to the hilltop of Idalion. In addition to site histories, scholars have noted other signs of stress and instability on the island. Analyses of metal industries have indicated, for example, decentralizing processes by the end of the LC period, with reduced production of copper and a rise of non-prestige iron objects by the eleventh century bce (Gale and Stos-Gale 2012; Knapp and Meyer 2020: 242–243). Clear mixtures of new arrivals to the island from the Aegean, Levant, and Anatolia are visible in the material record, producing cultural encounters and the creation of social boundaries (Voskos and Knapp 2008). Beyond the large sites and the examples of twelfth- and eleventh-century tombs showing signs of destabilization, however, there is currently a lack of evidence for changing responses to the shifting developments of the Late Bronze Age among smaller settlements. The pulsating Late Bronze to Iron Age transformations across the island were presumably marked by a series of dynamic changes – some fitful, others likely gradual and taking generations to manifest. Because of the evidentiary gaps and the tendency to study transitional phases on the terms of the periods that bookend them, these transformations have remained a contested topic (Baurain 1984; Knapp 2008: 290–297; Cannavò 2010). For the better part of the twentieth century, a majority of scholars held that the Iron Age kingdoms were generated by collapse and the migrations of Greeks to the eastern Mediterranean, as these groups found their way to Cyprus and brought with them their language, cultural practices, and political institutions (e.g. Catling 1994; Karageorghis 1994). The foundation myths of Greek heroes returning from Troy and landing on Cyprus, as well as signs of imported material culture, suggested a Bronze Age horizon of the ‘Hellenization’ of the island followed by Phoenician settlement at Kition (cf. Voskos and Knapp 2008). And indeed the prominence of Greek mythic narratives linking Cyprus to the Aegean had traditionally, owing to biases towards classical Greek culture, downplayed the “Phoenicianizing” practices at home on the island (López-Ruiz 2021: 249). A challenge to this narrative began to surface through the work of Rupp (1985, 1987, 1989) and Thierry Petit (2001: 55–65; 2015, 2019), who used numerous archaeological survey records and excavated settlement evidence to point to the disruption of settlement practices during the eleventh and tenth

Collapse and Regeneration

centuries  bce, which represented a hiatus or slowly unfolding rupture before the emergence of Iron Age polities during the ninth and eighth centuries bce (see also Todd 2013: 100; Iacovou 2019). From the river valleys of the west to the eastern plains, the archaeological record of the Early Iron Age, or the final stages of the LC and early Geometric periods, is largely confined to mortuary contexts. These scholars argue that the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its increasing deployment of Phoenician mercantile authorities and other entrepreneurial commercial actors as middlemen led to processes of secondary state formation across the island, along with widespread demographic growth, the aggrandizement of local actors in maritime trade relationships, and a political economy augmented by its vassal relationships to eastern powers (e.g. Rupp 1986; Smith 2009: 278–279; Körner 2016; Petit 2019). In recent years, scholars who advocate the continuity of Cypriot forms of political territory and kingship between the Bronze and Iron Ages have critically challenged these secondary-state hypotheses. The Cypro-centric perspective rejects a “Dark Ages” model for the early first millennium, arguing instead for the resilience of some political and cultural institutions and advocating closer attention to local patterns stretching over long periods (Iacovou 2007, 2014b, 2021: 231). This continuity is most evident at sites such as Palaipaphos and Kition, but is considered to have occurred in different forms across the island (Iacovou 2007; Fourrier 2013). According to these arguments, the kingdoms were founded within the currents of the Late Bronze Age, no later than the eleventh century bce (e.g. Iacovou 2018; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). They were, however, only fully consolidated during the eighth and seventh centuries bce, when it becomes clear that their populations were participating in common material practices and had joined into client relationships with the Neo-Assyrians as well as new trading relationships with the Aegean, Levantine kingdoms, and Egypt. Their final horizon, marked by the loss of autonomy, coincides with Ptolemaic annexation of the island during the fourth century bce (Iacovou 2007). Some scholars have aimed to nuance the binary between continuity and disruption, positing that the archaeological record speaks much more to the variability of political and cultural processes from the twelfth to eighth centuries bce than the scant texts allow (Petit 2019). Still others emphasize the evidence for migrations and cultural interactions that discredits any claims to Iron Age cultural homogenization, forwarding instead hybridization and dynamic mixture (Knapp 2008: 293–294; Voskos and Knapp 2008; López-Ruiz 2021). Where does environmental history reside in these debates? For Cypriot studies, it has slowly been recognized as a constituent factor of social

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and cultural transformations (e.g. Butzer and Harris 2007; Iacovou 2013a; Knapp and Manning 2016). The island still has few physical archives for assessing Holocene climatic, geomorphological, and vegetation changes, and the lack of attention to environmental archaeology for the Iron Age is particularly acute (Kearns 2013: 109). Even without abundant scientific records, catastrophist narratives for the close of the Late Bronze Age have still been offered. Hector Catling (1962: 146), for example, opined that: [I]n the last years of the Bronze Age, Cyprus was inflicted with some such natural disaster in addition to receiving the attentions of the marauding wanderers of east and west, themselves the victims of even more terrible events in the homelands from which they were fugitive. It is, indeed, in just such times as these that disease and pestilence are most readily engendered, most readily laid upon peoples least prepared by nature to resist them. (my emphasis)

Catling’s portrayal of an almost post-apocalyptic terrain hinges on “some such natural disaster,” and he concluded by presuming that post-Bronze Age populations were “least prepared by nature” to sustain themselves (see also Weiss 1982). These sentiments are in keeping with mid-twentieth-century preoccupations with regressive Dark Ages, which archaeologists and historians have done important work to criticize (e.g. Papadopoulos 2014). More recently, however, collaborative projects have returned to arguments for aridification and environmental precarities heightening around 1200 bce and driving the instabilities and internal pressures that closed LC society (Kaniewski et al. 2013, 2019; Kaniewski and Van Campo 2013; cf. Knapp and Manning 2016). What connects arguments such as Catling’s to recent neo-determinist studies is the presumption that societies resist their surroundings, or are passively “laid upon” by them, and that social actors can be essentialized into categories: those inherently capable of conquering phenomena such as severe droughts or pandemics, and those not. In the rest of this chapter, I synthesize the environmental and social changes of the late ninth and eighth centuries bce to contextualize the emergent landscapes of Cyprus within the eastern Mediterranean grid. I first detail the current evidence for regional climatic and environmental history of the late Holocene, ca. 1500–500 bce, arguing for the spatially variable effects of shifts to wetter conditions throughout the Archaic timescale and the contingent and differentiated ways that marginality and “favorable climates” were produced and experienced. A major goal is to highlight the inconsistency of these environments and the landscapes developing with them. Another is to dissuade us from easily linking signs of precarity with social decline, or the opposite. While it may be tempting

Environmental History

to conjoin wholesale the synchronous indices of wetter climates and the rise of Mediterranean city-states, such arguments would not help explain the mechanisms driving dynamic change (Kearns 2019). If some of the observable practices seem related to shifting environmental conditions, such as increases or decreases in pastoral economies and sedentism and altered investments in harbor access, others were tied to local social and political contingencies arising from new land use regimes and forms of household and community bonding. The paleoclimatic evidence cannot be reductively applied as an explanatory deus ex machina analytic for these developments. Interregional changes, if anything, highlight the complexities of communities inhabiting and moving between collapsing palatial centers and rising Iron Age landscapes (e.g. Porter 2013). After summarizing the available paleoenvironmental evidence, I turn to situate Cyprus against this Mediterranean climatic history through a macroscalar perspective on its diachronic landscapes, revealed through comparative survey analysis, to outline some of the similarities and differences in settlement and social complexity happening in terrains across the island. These trends form distinct signatures of Late Bronze Age, early Geometric, and Archaic landscapes and oscillations in settled permanence and rootedness between horizons of urbanized systems. Several contours of landscape change are salient to discussions of regional heterogeneity and urban–rural growth: rhythms and practices of continuity; interactions or indications of co-managed landscapes or boundaries; and location, considering the articulation of sites with emerging resource materialities, sacred and mortuary spaces, or route networks. Establishing a baseline for the kinds of landscape practices taking root in this period, the chapter argues that Archaic communities were forming weathered worldviews that tied land use, social dynamics, and technical practices to new spatial experiences (Smith 2003: 73).

An Environmental History of the Early First-Millennium bce There has been a long-standing allure to connect the Late Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean with a globally recognized “3.2 kya” climatic event, occurring around 1200 bce (e.g. Kaniewski et al. 2010, 2013, 2019; Rohling et al. 2009; Drake 2012; Langgut et al. 2013; Knapp and Manning 2016; Manning et al. 2017; Finné et al. 2017). Even Braudel (2001: 33–35) was “intermittently conscious” of the links between social and climatic change at the end of the second millennium (Broodbank 2010: 37). Yet Manning’s (2010, 2013, 2019, 2022a) formative work articulating

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the methodological and theoretical concerns for the chronology and paleoclimatic data for this period has exposed the problems with any overly tidy causal frameworks. Through careful and critical statistical analysis of legacy and new samples of archaeological evidence submitted for radiocarbon (14C) dating, as well as published material, Manning has argued that the chronological resolution of many datasets for the thirteenth to eleventh centuries bce remains, at best, approximate. Rather than producing a convenient and singular timing for the end of Late Bronze Age systems, for example, the calibrated radiocarbon data instead produce a closing horizon for the period on the scale of a century, “a long multi-generational process, and not any single event, or few events” (Manning 2022a: 265; Knapp and Manning 2016: 102–112; Finné et al. 2017). Increasingly, the recognition of the variability of eastern Mediterranean climatic conditions, even in comparison with other neighboring biogeographic zones, further complicates things (Woodward 2009). While the basin has come to produce a seemingly stable “Mediterranean” climate of hot and dry summers and cool, wet winters, mountainous terrain and other regional variabilities have produced a range of microclimates and geographical divergences. The impact of south Asian monsoon forces with Saharan winds and the North Atlantic pressure systems, for example, can create “see-saw” shifts in temperature and precipitation in parts of the eastern Mediterranean basin that differ from those simultaneously occurring in the western or central parts (Roberts et al. 2012). When the eastern basin may experience wetter regimes, for instance, the western regions can see reduced water availability. In addition, studies have shown that over time, especially the last eight millennia, the southern and eastern regions have overall become drier relative to northern and western regions (Roberts et al. 2019). This deeper history of fluctuations and developments in aridification or desiccation, particularly since the mid-Holocene around four millennia ago, is important to remember. Comparative analyses that combine different proxies, particularly of things such as human settlements, cultivated and wild pollen, and sediment cores, are helpful for reminding us that cycles of rural population growth and decline do not always relate significantly to the cumulative effects of landscape change, such as vegetation loss or degradation. Indeed in some cases, such as the Levant during the Iron Age, scholars have argued that rural inhabitation grew despite diminishing moisture availability (Roberts et al. 2019). What is more, the archaeological record for the final stages of the Late Bronze Age seems to confirm this temporal fuzziness. Some regional material features, such as forms of storage vessels or modes of decoration, retain

Environmental History

their Late Bronze Age attributes into subsequent periods, making it difficult to ascertain more momentary or perceptibly abrupt conditions of breakdown. Some site abandonments or destructions, from the Peloponnese to the Levant, predate or postdate the anchoring point of 1200 bce. For the Aegean, for example, scholars have analyzed the ruptures and interconnections between Bronze and Iron Age worlds and have increasingly highlighted both consequential settlement destructions as well as the continuous maintenance of trade relationships, craft production, and salient places for burial, settlement, and community ritual (for recent reviews see Papadopoulos 2014; Lantzas 2016; Murray 2017: 276–280; 2018; Lemos and Kotsonas 2020; Nakassis 2020; Knodell 2021). But at this stage, as Manning (2022a: 269) has stressed, close causal relationships between climate and social change “are yet to be demonstrated.” As framed in another recent survey of evidence for the collapse across Mediterranean Europe, “clearer data on local environmental changes … are needed if we are to consider the interplay between natural and anthropogenic effects on subsistence regimes relative to the climate and how these may or may not relate to collapse” (Iacono et al. 2021). Nevertheless, as this book argues, environmental contexts are still important to understanding these periods of transformation. The varying resolution of available records for the Holocene contributes a picture of irregular changes happening across the eastern Mediterranean, likely occurring on seasonal or yearly scales in different times and places, that aggregated to cause local and regional changes, and closer and more rigorous attention to these trends affords a productive route for understanding human historical shifts. In what follows, I collate these records following the phenomena of the final Late Bronze Age, offering where possible glimpses at regional variability. A synthesis of available paleoenvironmental evidence shows a multiregional shift to aridification in the wider eastern Mediterranean setting of Cyprus around the twelfth century bce, but conspicuous inconsistency in its onset, duration, and attendant sociopolitical or economic impacts (Manning 2010, 2022a). More generally, the first half of the second millennium (ca. 2000–1450 bce) shows wetter conditions in several proxies, such as speleothem records in the Peloponnese and Israel, which shift to signs of reduced precipitation, changing temperatures, and pronounced variability by the end of the millennium until around 800 bce (Weiberg and Finné 2018: 589). Conclusions drawn from these records indeed provide only relative trends around a moving average of precipitation, evaporation, or temperature, creating ambiguous scales of favorability or deterioration of landscape properties (Rosen and Rosen 2001). In the northern Aegean, for example, this same mid-second-millennium bce shift is less pronounced

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and the period appears wetter and more humid (Psomiadis et al. 2018). For these reasons, some scholars have hedged that climatic phenomena, while likely one factor of many associated with the close of the Bronze Age, were not overtly part of the mechanisms driving this period of intense change (e.g. Drake 2012; Broodbank 2013). At the least, such arguments admit that drier harvesting seasons contributed to weakening agricultural production in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries bce. Certainly, efforts to synchronize directly the available scientific data with archaeological evidence for depopulation, crisis, and societal upheaval are challenged by the sorts of interpretative problems and assumptions discussed in Chapter 2 (e.g. Kaniewski et al. 2013, 2019; Kaniewski and Van Campo 2017; cf. Knapp and Manning 2016). At present, the gaps in chronologically precise pieces of evidence and issues of equifinality in survey and excavation records, not to mention the complexity of explaining the collapse of a wide and socially stratified system, make these kinds of macroscalar arguments for climate– society breakdown unsound (Degroot et al. 2021). For the Iron Age transition these claims are even more problematic, owing to a relative lack of high-resolution data after the second millennium. Archives and proxy records that span the Holocene, such as those from Soreq Cave in Israel, often have more imprecise age modeling for the first millennia bce and ce (e.g. Bar-Matthews et al. 1998). Some of these issues stem from problems with absolute dating for the early first-millennium bce, and our ability to accurately date proxies for the period. There are well-known issues with the so-called Hallstatt plateau of the radiocarbon calibration curve, which unfortunately creates wide margins of error for dated samples between the late ninth and fifth centuries bce (~800–400 cal bce). Recent work, however, from two ends of the Old World – the British Iron Age and Armenian Iron Age – makes it less tenable to continue to argue that calibrating radiocarbon dates for the period is useless (e.g. Hamilton et al. 2015; Jacobsson et al. 2018; Manning et al. 2018). Additionally, ongoing studies on the Iron Age in Greece that utilize statistical analysis of radiocarbon dates, and especially advances in methods such Bayesian analysis, are complicating the periodization of ceramic sequences, with significant implications for synchronizations of Greek pottery across the tenth to seventh centuries bce in the eastern Mediterranean (Toffolo et al. 2013; Fantalkin et al. 2015; cf. Gimatzidis and Weninger 2020). It is thus pertinent that we start to construct robust absolute chronologies for Cyprus for the first millennium, not just to refine our periodizations, but equally to analyze the connections to absolutely dated regional histories of climatic change, plant and animal economies, and settlement activity.

Environmental History

With developments in paleoenvironmental science in the eastern Mediterranean, the first-millennium bce is poised to offer a compelling case of interregional climatic shifts associated with a grand solar minimum that occurred around the middle of the eighth century bce, what some have called the “Homeric low” (Brooke 2014: 301; cf. van Geel et al. 2004).1 Solar minima are linked to the activity of the sun, are visible in the frequency and abundance of sunspots, and are typically associated with cold temperatures (Usoskin et al. 2007; Manning 2013a: 112–114; see also Bond et al. 2001). Major points of reduced solar activity have been correlated with periods of lower temperatures, indicating cooler episodes with arguably more associated rainfall from increased cloud formation and in some places greater storm frequency (e.g. Bond et al. 2001; Degeai et al. 2015). They are also tied to the production of radiocarbon in the atmosphere. The radiocarbon calibration curve can act as a proxy for solar activity, and the low trough of the eighth century bce, peaking around 765 bce (2650 cal yr BP), clearly stands out as a significant disruption to otherwise trending norms in temperature and precipitation for the first-millennium bce (Manning 2010, 2013: 112–113; Figure 4.2).2 This episode likely lasted about a century and is also linked with high storm activity associated with a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation, bringing more precipitation to the northwest Mediterranean (Usoskin et al. 2007; Degeai et al. 2015). For the northern hemisphere, ice-core temperature models indicate more water availability and moisture after the eighth century bce (Büntgen et al. 2011). Varied and diversely resolved data from across Europe as well as the southern hemisphere, which include sea surface temperatures and salinity in the Atlantic Ocean, confirm the likely global signature of this low point in solar irradiance (Emeis et al. 2000; Van Geel et al. 2000, 2004; Schilman et al. 2001; Chambers et al. 2007; Swindles et al. 2007; Plunkett and Swindles 2008). For the eastern Mediterranean, proxies for precipitation and temperature suggest that this solar minimum initially forced a century-long nadir in cold, dry conditions followed by increasingly more rainfall in some areas and a warming trend beginning by approximately the seventh century bce, but with differing regional onsets (Finné et al. 2019; see also Mayewski et al. 2004; Kaniewski et al. 2010; Manning 2013: 112–114; 2022b). Like arguments made for the aridification happening in the later second millennium, cooling and warming trends associated with the mid-eighth century bce and after were time-transgressive and appear in physical archives with varying duration. They necessarily would have had local and regional effects on water supply, temperature, and precipitation in the following centuries,

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Figure 4.2 The radiocarbon curve (black line) for 3000 bce–1950 ce, showing section 1000–500 bce in more detail, as well as radiocarbon content decay (magenta) and residual radiocarbon (aquamarine) records. Number 1 points to the cooling episode ca. 750 bce (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning)

which demand more geoarchaeological scrutiny. Comparison with other cooling episodes, for example, such as the Little Ice Age, also raise the possibility that in semiarid contexts, the eighth century bce was marked by increased water availability for cultivation and fewer flash floods that caused major erosion (Devillers and Lecuyer 2008). Collaborative projects utilizing scientific proxies have revealed that climatic changes during the eighth century bce in the Aegean, for example, were not abrupt but gradual and effected over longer periods in some places than in others (Weiberg et al. 2010). Cyprus, as a semiarid island with salt lakes and without perennial rivers, so far lacks the kinds of sediment cores used as proxies for long-term vegetation cover seen in other regions, such as Greece and Anatolia (cf. Devillers 2009; Devillers et al. 2015; e.g. Göktürk et al. 2011; Haldon et al. 2014; Weiberg and Finné 2018; Roberts 2019; Weiberg et al. 2019). It possesses few direct paleoenvironmental archives for discerning the timing, local effects, and aftereffects of this Iron Age cooling episode (Kearns 2013). To date, local records point to wetter conditions by the sixth century but lack

Environmental History

chronological precision (Manning 2022b). Analyses of pollen data from Larnaca Salt Lake, near the Bronze Age site of Hala Sultan Tekke, reveal an increase in cereal-type plants, and therefore arguably wetter conditions, during the mid-ninth century bce, but must be treated as coarsely resolved given the relatively small number of radiocarbon dates used for chronological control (Kaniewski et al. 2013; Knapp and Manning 2016). My own carbon isotopic analysis of archaeological charcoal, spanning the Bronze to Roman periods and drawn from records at coastal and inland sites on the island, also attests to wetter conditions for the Archaic period, using especially pine and oak samples from building contexts at Amathus. Determining the timing of the onset of these conditions is made challenging by the fact that the samples were dated relatively, not by absolute methods (Kearns 2019).3 With these caveats in mind, the data provide a diachronic range of relative changes towards more water availability for vegetation (tree) growth by the sixth century bce. In the surrounding Mediterranean basin, evidence from contemporaneous records in Anatolia, the Levantine coast, Egypt, and the Aegean can be used to infer cooler and wetter climatic phases with different onset trends (Hassan 1997; Kuzucuoğlu 2003; Roberts et al. 2011; Langgut et al. 2013; Unkel et al. 2014). On the other hand, indirect proxies for water availability in northeastern Iberia drawn from isotopic analyses of archaeological charcoal show a cool and dry period, as well as a phase of higher frequency of storm events, likely reflecting differences in eastern and western Mediterranean average precipitation during this episode (Ferrio et al. 2005; Ferrio et al. 2006; Roberts et al. 2012; Degeai et al. 2015). At present, syntheses of the climatic history for the wetter eighth–seventh centuries bce remain piecemeal, and offer at best a sketch of more water availability and moisture in parts of the eastern Mediterranean. After the shifts in temperature and precipitation following the eighth century bce, more persistently stable conditions around the Mediterranean lasted in varying degrees into the first-millennium CE (Finné et al. 2011). The same proxies of solar irradiance that show a solar minimum for the eighth century bce, for instance, lack indications of similar-magnitude events for the rest of the first millennium, suggesting average conditions following a persistent mean. Data testing the isotopic discrimination in speleothem growth in Sofular Cave in the Black Sea region of northern Turkey consist of stable measures for the Classical era (Göktürk et al. 2011). In the central Peloponnese and areas such as Lake Stymphalia, warmer and drier conditions beginning after the seventh century bce remained stable into the Roman period and seem to have peaked during the late fourth century bce (Unkel et al. 2014; Seguin et al. 2019). Recent analyses have also

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indicated more than one climate trajectory over the Peloponnese during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, with variations in precipitation as well as local effects on geology and vegetation (Bonnier and Finné 2020). The so-called Roman Warm Period extends from approximately the mid-third century bce to the third century ce, marking a conspicuously long-term phase of regularity in seasonal temperature and precipitation (McCormick et al. 2012; Manning 2013a). Variations in tree-ring widths and isotopic studies of tree growth from central Europe also show a relatively consistent picture from the fourth century bce to the second century ce (Finné et al. 2019). When assessed as a coarse reconstruction, the data suggest conditions for the second half of the first-millennium bce and into the Roman period that align closer to a normative average than the preceding colder centuries of the Iron Age. Thus, the long “Classical” period – from the Achaemenid Empire to Julio-Claudian emperors – seems to share in an eastern Mediterranean climatic regime, a remarkable longevity when situated against our broader understandings of Holocene climatic variability (Manning 2022b). What would a wetter episode have looked like across Cyprus during the eighth and seventh centuries bce? Water would have been more reliably available, in the form of rainfall, karstic springs, groundwater, and flow from streams and non-perennial rivers. In places such as the Vasilikos Valley, geomorphological studies have attested certain springs that become near-perennial or perennial in wetter years across different periods (Gomez et al. 2004). Water is thus a key feature and resource that materially transforms semiarid landscapes such as Cyprus between drier and wetter phases. After the abandonment of many Late Bronze Age sites and the abatement or alteration of agricultural or pastoral systems, degraded landforms and woodlands slowly stabilized and vegetation cover in the form of pine and oak forests redeveloped and expanded with wetter conditions, replacing scrub and garigue cover in some areas and reducing erosional events and the force of flash floods (Waters et al. 2010). Inter- and intra-annual droughts were likely reduced or lessened in severity. According to analysis of paleoenvironmental records, historical archives, and climatic modeling, the island has had consistently regular droughts owing to limited rainfall and high rates of evaporation through the middle and later Holocene (Christodoulou 1959; Griggs et al. 2014; S. W. Manning 2018). While the mountainous areas can receive as much as 800 mm of annual rainfall on average, lowland valleys and the zones transhistorically associated with grain cultivation and arboriculture, such as the interior Mesaoria plain, can hover at or below 300 mm average annual rainfall, the minimum threshold for

Environmental History

sustaining cereal agriculture without irrigation (Wilkinson 2004; Manning 2019). Recent analyses of water availability across the Levant using archaeobotanical remains, however, suggest that coastal plains and lowlands tend to avoid serious fluctuations in precipitation. Ethnographic analyses have successfully underscored that “bad year” cycles of two or more failed harvests, while potentially devastating at different scales, are quite rare (S. W. Manning 2018; see also Halstead and O’Shea 1989). As a recent study of precipitation (since approximately 1750 ce) on Cyprus has shown, however, interannual variation is considerable and sustained periods of approximately twenty years of below-average rainfall occur regularly every seventy to a hundred years, although in most years enough rainfall occurs to allow dry-farming (Griggs et al. 2014). These records all point to the possibility of underperforming harvests in drier conditions, in terms of lower crop yields and smaller fruit or crop sizes, when rainfall is a critical factor for making enough to support the following year’s subsistence regimes. During the eighth and seventh centuries bce, inhabitants of Cyprus encountered and managed expanded forests and more reliable sources of fresh water, a critical variable for establishing permanent settlements and cultivation areas and clearly an important part of daily landscape experiences (Horden and Purcell 2000: 244–247). They also would have noted signs of better-performing orchard crops, such as larger and more watered olives and grapes, whose new cultivation required less time to establish mature tree growth. Other fruits such as carobs, which grow well in many alluvial terraces and coastal plains, would have provided ready access to fodder for goat and sheep herds or would have become attractive for their taste and suitability for medicinal practices (Leonard 2021). These environmental contexts afforded practices of harvesting and pastoralism through woodland clearance and appropriating and refurbishing existing terraces or fields, rebuilding soil and water management features, and creating husbandry installations and herding routes. These practices inferred for the horizon of the eighth and seventh centuries bce are partly synchronous with significant changes in land use across western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, what palynologists have called the Beyşehir Occupation Phase (BOP) of complex agriculture (Roberts 2019: 55, fig. 3; Figure 4.3).4 This widespread phase is associated with a shift to woodland clearance to provide timber and arable land for cereal farming, arboriculture, and the harvesting of crops such as olives and grapes, as well as intensive animal grazing – the kinds of practices Strabo (14.6.5) discursively reconstructed for Cypriot antiquity. Scholars have considered these interventions to be some of the more widespread indications of human

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Figure 4.3 Pollen diagram summarizing data from Söğüt in southwest Anatolia and the estimated boundaries of the Beyşehir Occupation Phase (figure courtesy of Neil Roberts [2019: 55, fig. 3]; pollen diagram data from Van Zeist et al. 1975)

weathering of local and regional environments for the later Mid-Holocene, with clear signatures in paleoenvironmental proxies and geomorphological histories (Marston 2017: 58). The BOP onset has been shown to be time-transgressive and widely variant, with evidence from Anatolia, the Levant, and the Aegean recording this “package” of practices and landscape investments beginning during the Late Bronze Age, around the eighth century bce, or even during the Hellenistic period (Roberts 2019: 58, fig. 6; Figure 4.4). The ending of the BOP is more fixed. The shift away from cleared farmlands and the regrowth of pine and oak forests appears to cluster around the seventh century ce (Roberts 2019). The Larnaca Salt Lake sediment core and its pollen data reveals evidence for this shift on Cyprus in the increased abundance of cultigens, and while the chronological resolution is poor, it suggests a post-Bronze Age re-initiation of agriculture and arboriculture that took advantage of wetter conditions (Kaniewski et al. 2013). In places such as Gordion, in central Anatolia, evidence indicates that large rural populations investing in BOP-associated land use practices generated vegetation loss and induced soil erosion owing to the expansion of tree cutting and grazing (Marston 2017). While the data are not available yet to impose similar historical trajectories onto Cyprus, the oscillation in settlement patterns, explored later in this chapter, indicates similarly sensitive interactions between intensive agriculture and pastoralism along river valleys and into more marginal hillslopes, which had implications for sustaining economic schemes beyond three or four centuries. Indeed, the marginality of Cypriot environments has gained more attention over the last decade, and archaeologists are increasingly aware of how

Environmental History

Figure 4.4 Onset (a) and endings (b) for the Beyşehir Occupation Phase, showing number of sites per century (figure courtesy of Neil Roberts [2019: 58, fig. 7])

“marginal” landscape conditions were and always have been relative to social, historical, and environmental actors and processes (Iacovou 2013a). What marginality of arable production or its implied opposite, favorability, looked like in terms of growing conditions changed in semiarid contexts with variegated climatic regimes as well as with available technologies and human decision-making, and average conditions extrapolated from paleoenvironmental archives can mask these variabilities (Manning 2019; see also Wilkinson 2003). While it is clear from settlement pattern studies across the Mediterranean that ancient (and current) domestic or residential areas generally sit close to water sources, dry farming without the benefit of intensive irrigation strategies could exist even in places with non-perennial water supply, such as lands bordering ephemeral streams. Exploitation of these kinds of less-than-profitable areas was arguably achieved by households or landowners with the kinds of access to technological resources and labor to assume the risks of poor harvests. They were also utilized as secondary subsistence fields to support other local industries on the edges

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of more productive valleys and coastal plains (S. W. Manning 2018, 2019; see also Moody 2012). On the other hand, seemingly marginal areas on the edges of river valleys in upland zones may have provided the kinds of reliable resource pockets of localized stable temperatures and moisture levels that families or small-scale communities would have sought out when lowland terrain became increasingly unviable for intensive agropastoralism. For Cyprus, precipitation is markedly more consistent and abundant in elevations above 300 m asl, suggesting that fragmented areas of hillier zones would have been attractive. To summarize, a coarse account of the transition between the second and first-millennium bce acknowledges the probability of increased aridity and more consistent or frequent inter- and intra-annual droughts after the twelfth century bce. These patterns culminated in cooler conditions by the eighth century and a turn to more water availability and progressively warmer temperatures into the Archaic period of the later eighth and seventh centuries bce. Communities pivoting again to increasingly permanent and rooted sedentism by the eighth century bce encountered renewed forests and vegetation cover, more reliable streams, rivers, and water sources. These more consistent seasonal conditions afforded reinvestments in arable farming, arboriculture, and likely intensive grazing, as well as copper production and other rural industries. Climatic shifts took shape in local landscapes through the diverse weathering practices of settled groups from the end of the Bronze Age through the early Geometric periods, successively building upon the landesque capital of earlier generations. I turn in the next section to exploring in greater detail these patterns and the arguments for transformative changes in settlement and landscape practices between the twelfth and eighth centuries bce. Some groups, as argued at the beginning of this chapter, reworked the vestiges of Bronze Age urbanism, while others weathered new land use practices, settlement networks, and trade relations to create forms of community bounding and solidarity.

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After The archaeological phase consisting of the later twelfth to mid-eleventh centuries bce on Cyprus (LC IIIB) is one marked by signs of internal stress, notably in the drop in number of visible settlements. Evidence of human activity outside of centers such as Palaipaphos and Kition either appears in the form of small, isolated assemblages or cemeteries with signs

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

of some access to external trade (Steel 1993; Janes 2010, 2013). It is important to acknowledge that current evaluations for the chronological scheme of the period indicate this LC IIIB phase was relatively short, roughly fifty to seventy-five years in duration. We must be mindful not to equate periods of ceramic style with population changes, nor to map generations onto arbitrary chronological boundaries, but the compression of the LC IIIB between the material habits of earlier and later periods may point to the lived experiences of disruptive processes such as dislocation or economic breakdown within two or three generations.5 Even if it was a process with variable regional effects, the transition from the twelfth to eleventh centuries bce was likely stressful for most of the populations living on the island below the wealthy or ruling classes. These stresses came from the varied arrival of different social groups to the island, the breakdown of expected living and working conditions, institutional frameworks and social ties, and the instabilities of local settled landscapes that grew increasingly difficult to sustain. It seems probable that kin-based families and groups became the main producers and consumers of goods and took on different living and subsistence strategies after the dissolution of more formal economies.6 The few known settlements of this period, such as Gastria Alaas, are one-phase sites, and reflect what must have been a period of tenuous ties to place as families and households across the island moved around (Iacovou 1994: 153). Undoubtedly, some groups living around places such as the Paphos catchment and the harbor installations at Kition generated some productivity and even amassed more authority, rebuilding parts of the town centers and adding new monumental architecture associated with temple sanctuaries. Recently found jar burials of infants, adorned with amber jewelry and deposited with offerings within the town limits of Kition, suggest that the wealthy were still able to devote considerable attention and care to mortuary traditions of earlier centuries (Fourrier and Georgiadou 2021). The investment in sacred monuments in a time of increased stress hints not just at a localized pattern of unequal access to resources but also at continuing as well as new requirements for ritual spaces for communities seeking divine assistance or social connection. The subsequent eleventh to ninth centuries bce then seem to pivot on a shift in landscape persistence (sensu Bevan and Conolly 2013; Cherry et al. 1991: 246; Wilkinson 2003: 7–8). There are some signs of impermanent settlement practices between the LC IIIB and early CG I–II periods (eleventh to early ninth centuries bce), with households or groups perhaps moving between sites within a single generation. One indication is the absence or diminution of the monumental-sized storage vessels (pithoi), known from

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the Late Bronze Age in centers across the island, after the eleventh century. It is possible that these materials are not recognized and categorized as “unknown” or “undiagnostic” in surveys, but the pattern suggests that durable, large-scale storage requiring significant technological investment was no longer a viable part of daily practice for many communities (Pilides 1996: 110, 119–120; 2005; Rupp 2001; Halstead and O’Shea 1989: 123–124). For vessels such as pithoi or other large objects used for storing perishable goods such as grains, the apparent decrease in production may also signify that people were wary of the time pressures and risks of spoiling large quantities of foods in drier or unpredictable climates. By the end of the ninth century bce, larger vessel types reappear, indicating more riskaverse, long-term storage strategies and senses of accumulation as well as a renewed investment in craft specialization (Gjerstad 1948: 242–247; Halstead and O’Shea 1989; Van Oyen 2019; on crafts, Steel 1993: 153; Pilides 2005). Coarse-ware cooking pots and vessels also seem to predominate as grave goods during the CG period and are more scarce in tomb deposits in the CA period, although these lines of evidence are biased from the lack of comparable settlement evidence (Pilides 2005: 177). Sabine Fourrier (2010: 245–246) has also documented a significant shift, during the ninth century bce, from the earlier use of diverse Aegeanizing cooking wares to a vase with a rounded base, borrowing from Levantine styles and particularly suited for slow cooking and stewing. Another sign of impermanence is the sparse evidence for olive oil production following the end of the eleventh century (Hadjisavvas 1992: 27; 1996: 133; Hadjisavvas and Chaniotis 2012). Only one olive press is known for this period, from an eleventh-century bce tomb at Palaipaphos Skales (Hadjisavvas 1996: 133). This reduction can be contrasted with the conspicuous and elite-controlled nature of oil production and consumption during the Late Bronze Age, which becomes evident again by the eighth century bce within public and royal architecture at sites such as Amathus and Idalion (Hermary 2013). It is probable that increased signs of largescale storage, presses, and consumption wares during the Archaic period represent an expansion not just in the scale of production and commercial exchange of goods such as olive oil, but also more opportunities for exchange, in the form of public and private communal meals or feasts, rituals, and events. Jennifer Webb and Judith Weingarten (2012: 92) have likewise suggested “a low intensity use of seals in commodity management” in the eleventh- and tenth-century bce period, a practice that had been largely linked to Late Bronze Age overseas trade and which reappeared by the Archaic period in relation to increased exchange with Euboea, Crete,

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

and the Levant (e.g. Gjerstad 1977). Similarly, compositional analyses of copper alloy objects indicate a reduction in the amount of tin during the later thirteenth century bce and higher amounts by the Iron Age, reflecting likely changes in interregional exchange networks (Charalambous 2016). There are also relatively weak signatures of continuity of cult or sanctuaries in the Geometric period outside the town sanctuaries at Palaipaphos and Kition (Papasavvas and Fourrier 2012: 297; Papantoniou 2012a). Intermittent use of some shrines placed within Late Bronze Age remains, as at Enkomi, Ayios Iakovos Dhima or Myrtou Pigadhes, hints at other smallscale, less permanent or less overt ritual practices leading up to the late Geometric-Archaic horizon (Papantoniou 2012a: 297–300). Many of these inferences of less rooted Iron Age landscape practices outside the known occupied sites stem from an absence of evidence, and it is important to be mindful of projecting a reversion of unstructured or regressive practices onto the early and middle Geometric phases (Lewthwaite 1981: 60; Cherry 1988: 14, 26–28). At the outset, we must acknowledge that without a robust archaeology of domestic and everyday life for this period, any discussions of households remain largely conceptual (Foxhall 2014). The lived habits and political economies shifting dramatically after the eleventh century bce do, however, seem indicative of a new privileging of the household and kinship groups that could more easily navigate the breakdown of hierarchical control and the attendant decentralization of eastern Mediterranean trade networks. Those prominent households who could hold onto their forms of local power and legitimacy established during the Bronze Age were in a better position to access new mercantile frameworks and to exploit coerced labor, in the form of family, slaves, or more serf-like actors subordinated through debts. Most households, however, would have lived in smaller-scale, less persistent settlements. For roughly 150 years of the early and middle Geometric period, enough time for a small group of prominent families to claim control of more productive areas or harbors, communities seem to have centered the household over establishing visible roots for collective dwelling and social space (see also Andreou 2016: 165). Syntheses of burial practices for this period suggest not only a reduction in expenditure, in the number and kinds of prestige goods included in inhumations or the addition of some cremation burials, but also the weakening of intra-elite differentiation (Rupp 1989; Steel 1993; Janes 2010; Diakou 2018). While ceramic analysis has begun to highlight regional workshops of the early Geometric period, the period is characteristic for its widely standardized material attributes (e.g. Fourrier 2010: 243; Georgiadou 2011). In sum, I argue that most households of the

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eleventh to early ninth centuries bce focused inward, preserving traditions and reducing their imprints on the landscape through alternate modes of semi-permanent dwelling, shifting agriculture and pastoralism, and smallscale social networks. This shift in landscape persistence does not assume that we have wholly failed to see Early Iron Age sites, although the brevity of some periods exacerbates their poor visibility or time lags between surface evidence and settlements, and we certainly need higher-resolution investigations (Bintliff et al. 1999). Rather, living and working practices transformed landscapes in varying ways, and our expectations of one period’s dwelling and movement habits cannot easily map onto another’s. Wilkinson’s (2003: 11) concept of “signature” landscape preservation can help to frame this shift in regional long-term histories. Signature landscapes are better preserved archaeologically because of both the practices that created them and the subsequent economic, social, or environmental actions that persisted around them. In the Near East, the common mounded formation of the tell or höyük is a prime example. Continuously occupied and spatially defined, these cumulative, diachronic mounded sites were reused over generations and remain visible and even occupied today in many cases. Less permanent settlements, on the other hand, can be more susceptible to erasure through subsequent land use practices (Alizadeh and Ur 2007). In other words, sites of the eleventh to early ninth centuries may not carry the surface signatures – extramural cemetery, olive processing or mining installations, large-scale storage – which we have come to expect of either the earlier LC or later Archaic periods. Landscape endurance is tied not just to post-depositional processes – though local taphonomic properties and histories are important – but also to the organization of communities, their construction and subsistence activities, and their practices of landscape investment or sustainability (Bevan and Conolly 2013: 9). But, to avoid falling into the trap of creating a false dichotomy between Early Iron Age semi-permanence and Archaic settlement, my focus on persistence follows Michelle Lelièvre’s (2012: 105) reconsideration of social movement and the “settlements without sedentism” that she has studied among the indigenous populations of the Canadian Arctic. Sedentism is (and was) not an “ideal” form in relation to which movement represents a degeneration (Lelièvre 2012; Cherry 1988: 27); rather, environmental and social changes around the later ninth and eighth centuries bce were co-constitutive of a shift towards more permanent, rooted practices. Thinking about signature landscapes of permanence can also ensure that we pay attention to the contingent politics of movement and sedentism. We can start to hypothesize, for

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

example, about those people who could lay more solid foundations and those who needed to or were forced to move (e.g. Woolf 2016). As John Cherry (2004: 30) has noted, comparative survey data can shed light on the kinds of place-making that accompanied and supported these oscillations in rootedness and the development of historical polities during the later ninth and eighth centuries: What is especially promising about such regionally-based comparative research is the likelihood that it can shed significant new light on archaeological or historical problems that have hitherto been tackled only with piecemeal data. In Cyprus, for instance, such problems might include the processes of geopolitical transformation that resulted in the known kingdoms of Cyprus in the Cypro-Archaic period.

Several scholars have conducted brief reviews of the available archaeological survey evidence for the Iron Age of Cyprus, including Rupp (1987: 150–151) and Todd (2004, 2013), with the predominant intention to situate local patterns against wider insular trends. Comparing multiple regional datasets presents a number of challenges, particularly in the kinds of Mediterranean projects that employ small-scale surveys and high-resolution data collection methods (Blanton 2001, 2004; Wilkinson 2003: 5). Indeed, it took roughly three decades after the “new wave” of systematic (and self-reflexive) archaeological survey across the Mediterranean before Alcock and Cherry (2004) issued their call for more “side-by-side” comparative investigations. Each project uses its own collecting, recording, and cataloguing methods for pedestrian survey: transects or blocks, total collection or only diagnostic sampling, site-based or distributional (“off-site,” “site-less”; Alcock et al. 1994: 137–138). Many of them provide scant quantitative information, making it especially challenging to review patterns in particular material categories. All of these constraints make comparative survey analysis daunting, especially for “chasing” the fugitive Iron Age with its often regionally or temporally disparate resolution (sensu Pettegrew 2001; Bintliff et al. 1999; Cherry et al. 1991: 34). For many of the projects listed in Table 4.1, for example, Iron Age remains are identified only as CG or CA, or simply “Iron Age,” without further distinction into subphases, and can be claimed as sites without the presence of architecture or built remains. Despite these concerns, the existing records, and recent attempts to perform the resurvey of sites found by earlier projects, afford an opportunity to measure landscape changes against interregional patterns (Diacopoulos 2004; Kearns 2016). Such configurations are characterized by shifts in practices related to sedentism and sustainable interrelationships between communities and their resource materialities (Wilkinson 2003: 11; Alizadeh and Ur 2007; Lelièvre

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Table 4.1 List of analyzed survey projects and their representative publications Project

Region

Methods

Main publication(s)

Akamas Survey Lemba Archaeological Project Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project

Akamas peninsula Western coast Southwestern

Sotira Project Kouris Valley Project Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project Sydney Cyprus Survey Project French Expedition at Amathus

Kouris Valley Kouris Valley Troodos foothills

Extensive (intuitive) Extensive (intuitive) Extensive (intuitive) and intensive Intensive Intensive Intensive

Fejfer 1995 Baird 1984, 1985, 1987 Rupp et al. 1984; Sørensen and Rupp 1993; Sørensen 1993; Rupp 1981, 2004 Swiny and Mavromatis 2000 Jasink et al. 2008a, 2008b Given et al. 2013a, 2013b

Troodos foothills South-central coast

Intensive Extensive (intuitive)

Given and Knapp 2003 Petit et al. 1989; Petit 1996

Vasilikos Valley Project

South-central coast

Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project

South-central coast

Extensive (intuitive) and intensive Intensive

Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus Project Malloura Survey Project Pyla Koutsopetria Survey Project

South-central coast Mesaoria Eastern coast

Intensive Extensive Intensive

Johnson and Hordynsky 1982; Todd 2004, 2013, 2016; Georgiadou 2016 Manning and Conwell 1992; Manning et al. 1994; Swinton 1994 Papantoniou and Vionis 2018 Kardulias and Yerkes 2011 Caraher et al. 2014

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

Figure 4.5 Outlines of surveys mentioned in southern Cyprus

2012; Izdebski 2013). What follows is a general synthesis of available information related to the CG III-CA II horizon, the later ninth to later sixth centuries bce, moving from the published survey reports in the western part of the island to the eastern and discounting the occupied northern region of the island, listed in Table 4.1 and visualized on the map in Figure 4.5. The earliest systematic surveys that Catling conducted on the island in the mid-twentieth century, albeit extensive, covered large portions of the northern and eastern coasts and provide information mostly on identified Iron Age tombs (Catling 1962; Cadogan 2004). Generally, these tombs are located on prominent ridges or terraces and were looted in antiquity or more recently, with often little information on their dating. In the western part of the island, survey projects have examined through more detail the settlement and mortuary histories of the region around the ancient site of Palaipaphos. The Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project (CPSP), for example, undertook intuitive fieldwalking and intensive surveys across a large region (over 600 sq. km) combining several river valleys (Rupp 1981; Rupp et al. 1984; Sørensen and Rupp 1993; Rupp 2004). The CPSP found little Geometric material dating before the CG III-CA I transition. Of sixty-three sites with CG and CA material, only two possessed ceramics from the CG I and CG II periods, while there were thirty-four sites with CG III presence and sixty with CA evidence, mostly small settlements clustered within 2.5 km of Kouklia (Palaipaphos) or further along the slopes of rivers and

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surrounding larger settlements (Rupp 1987: 149, 151; Sørensen 1992: 358). However, the sites do show divergent patterns across river valleys, with, for example, only the lower Xeros Valley inhabited after the eighth century, and the Ezousas Valley with a more uniform dispersal of sites across periods, which the project leaders argued related to environmental variations and the availability of water (Rupp et al. 1984: 138). Based on her study of the survey ceramics, which indicated relatively homogeneous distributions of different wares and shapes across the area, Lone Wriedt Sørensen (1992: 359) argued for the predominance of mixed assemblages and communities who likely used the same sources of clay for vessel production. More recently, the Palaepaphos Urban Landscape Project has detailed settlement activity around the long-lived site of Kouklia, especially installations related to its urban extent such as the monumental tumulus at Kouklia Laona and the palatial Classical-era buildings at Kouklia Hadjiabdoulla (Iacovou 2008, 2019) In the northwestern regions of the island, limited survey near the village of Peyia recorded Bronze and Iron Age (CA) sites (Baird 1985: 345–346). One area of interest at Peyia Tremithas constituted an Archaic sanctuary, with numerous fragments of terracotta statuettes and figurines, although the site was damaged by bulldozing (Baird 1985: 345). By contrast, fieldwalking around the area of Drousha found little Bronze or Iron Age material (Baird 1984: 64–65). South of the modern village of Polis, where the Iron Age town of Marion was located, surveyors found evidence of small sites spanning the CG III-CA II horizon along the Stavros tis Psokas River and near cupriferous pillow lavas (Baird 1987). Most of the artifact scatters had CA I material and suggested a “densely distributed” area of Iron Age settlement, as well as a few cemeteries, a pattern that constituted one of the more intensive uses of the watershed since the Middle Bronze Age (Baird 1987: 17). Further to the northwest, the Danish Akamas Project conducted an intensive survey of the westernmost Akamas peninsula in the 1990s (Fejfer 1995: 21, 141). Noticeably absent in these areas were materials from the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The ceramic fragments that were found consist mostly of CA I transport amphorae and Levantine imports, and while none appear in the major Roman settlement of Ayios Kononas in the Akamas, they do accumulate in a natural anchorage called Kioni on the western coast with agricultural terracing and seasonal streams. The northern Troodos foothills have been studied intensively by two survey projects, the Sydney Cyprus Survey (SCSP; Given and Knapp 2003) and the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP; Given et al. 2013a, 2013b), as well as smaller targeted surveys around

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

the Bronze Age site of Aredhiou Vouppes (Steel 2016). The earliest firstmillennium bce material found within the SCSP survey area dates to the CG III period, and is relatively uncommon, while the team found abundant CA material throughout all its survey areas. Several locations of intermittent or continuous mining-related activity dating to the Iron Age were found at Agrokipia Kriadhis, Politiko Kokkinorotsos and Mitsero Kokkinokoyia. The site of Politiko Ayios Mnason may have been related to pottery manufacture as well. Signs of settlement, however, are less prominent, and the SCSP team hypothesized that the landscape would probably have consisted of dispersed farmsteads in addition to the sites related to mining. TAESP, on the other hand, found limited surface assemblages that could be confidently dated to the early first-millennium bce, with little that belongs to the CG period and possibly more intensive use of the well-watered Karkotis Valley during the Archaic period (Given et al. 2013b: 148). Along the Kouris River that leads from the Troodos to the Limassol district of Episkopi on the southern coast, the Kouris Valley Project explored the upper part of this valley and specifically its prehistoric and protohistoric development (Jasink et al. 2008a; Jasink et al. 2008b). Finds dating to the Archaic period were restricted to the area of two looted tombs on the edge of a steep gully overlooking a dense side drainage network. For the southern coast and the lower Kouris and Paramali valleys, with important prehistoric sites near Erimi, Sotira, and Episkopi, Thomas Kiely (2005: 177–199) examined the long-term occupational trends around the kingdom of Kourion, while the Sotira Archaeological Project undertook a survey to examine the development of the associated regional countryside (Swiny and Mavromatis 2000; Swiny 2004). The small amount of Archaic material recovered in the latter survey, in the form of isolated tombs (but perhaps connected to tomb clusters), seems to follow the trend seen in the Kouris Valley of placing tombs on the upper slopes of the river channel. Further east, the French school excavating Amathus conducted a pedestrian survey north of the acropolis and east of the Germasogeia River, particularly around the villages of Armenochori and Parekklisia in the Pyrgos River watershed (Petit et al. 1989; Petit 1996). The findings confirmed a dense occupation in this catchment area during the Neolithic period, an almost complete gap during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods, and then a rise in small sites dating to the CG III and CA periods that appear to have been consistently occupied until the fourth century bce (Aupert 1996: 99). Kiely (2005: 193) has argued that the eleventh century material found at Limassol Kommissariato, including tombs, may serve as the progenitor for the population that eventually occupied the Amathusian area.

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Recent syntheses of the mortuary evidence from the Limassol area confirm the abundant and prosperous communities living in this landscape, likely concentrating in a small town with surrounding necropoleis, with numerous tombs persisting in use from CG III to the Classical period and containing evidence of social stratification (Alpe 2015). Limited preliminary results also sketch some Archaic settlement activity for the Moni Valley to the east of Amathus (Menozzi et al. 2018). The Vasilikos Valley Project, an interdisciplinary project directed by Todd that began as intuitive survey walking during the later 1970s, covered a large percentage of the lower Vasilikos Valley and provides some of the greatest resolution on Geometric and Archaic settlements (Todd 1977, 1982, 1989, 2004, 2013, 2016; Johnson and Hordynsky 1982). Recent analysis of the catalogued surface finds from some eighty recorded sites with Iron Age material has confirmed an initial reoccupation of the lower valley in the CG III period (Georgiadou 2016, 2018). Then, during the later eighth and seventh centuries, the valley bursts with settlement. Roughly 72 percent of all sites identified in the surveyed area have some CA I material. These include evidence of working sites, numerous tombs or cemeteries, as well as two sanctuaries in the foothills, Vavla Kapsalaes and Kalavasos Skouries. Ceramic analysis of the recovered materials shows a reduction by the CA II period, leading to an overwhelming contraction in settlement by the Classical period. The Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project performed a much smaller, more intensive collection to the east (Manning and Conwell 1992; Manning et al. 1994). In the Maroni Valley, two CA scatters indicated settlement (Maroni Vouni) and tombs (Maroni Viklari), with almost no evidence of CG material, in addition to a sanctuary site on the coast at Maroni Yialos, which produced figurines (Swinton 1994: 353; see also Johnson 1980: 6). Smaller-density concentrations of Archaic ceramics in the area likely represent field installations or processing sites. While the Pentaschoinos Valley to the east of Maroni has not yet been surveyed, the Sacred and Settled Landscapes of Cyprus Project (SeSaLaC) has found Iron Age assemblages in the Xeros Valley, regionally bounded by the polities of Amathus, Idalion, and Kition (Papantoniou and Vionis 2018). As in the Vasilikos area, limited CG material is attested, but intensive survey found numerous Archaic sites interpreted as small hamlets and farmsteads and one larger, 10 ha site at Kophinou Panagia (Papantoniou and Vionis 2018: 11, fig. 13). A dozen looted tombs were also identified on the edge of this scatter, although the chronological resolution is coarse, and more work is needed to interpret a possible reduction in sites during the Classical period (Papantoniou and Vionis 2018: 14).

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

Moving further east along the southern coast, Anna Satraki (2019) has mapped the available evidence for sites in the Tremithos River area centering on the inland town of Idalion and leading to the coast west of Kition. She has identified a break in occupation after the Late Bronze Age, with some presence around Idalion as groups continued to manage copper mining and metallurgy in the nearby pillow lavas. In the inland Mesaoria plain, the Malloura Valley Project conducted a limited survey around the Archaic-Roman sanctuary of Athienou Malloura, finding no Bronze Age material and very limited scatters of Archaic material and tombs in this area outside the historical center of Golgoi (Kardulias and Yerkes 2011: 96–97). Limited survey has also catalogued the lowlands around Larnaca Bay (Leonard Jr. 2000), and the Pyla Koutsoupetria Project recorded surprisingly little prehistoric and Iron Age evidence around the LC III site of Pyla Kokkinokremnos in its intensive survey of the Hellenistic and Roman landscapes of the eastern coastal region (Caraher et al. 2014: 146, 273–276). Some finds dating to the Iron Age are known from a nearby site called Ormidhia, excavated by Luigi Palma di Cesnola, as well as a probable CA sanctuary site at Pyla Stavros (Caraher et al. 2014: 277). To sum up this imbalanced review, the long Archaic horizon that began during the ninth century bce but amplified during the mid-eighth and seventh centuries bce set in motion new signatures of rural and town sedentism across the island. Most obvious are the signs of administration, wealthy tombs, religious organization, and large or monumental storage facilities at the known towns: Palaipaphos (Kouklia), Marion, Soloi, Kourion, Amathus, Kition, Idalion, Tamassos, Salamis, Ledra, and, to a lesser extent, Chytroi and Lapithos near the Kyrenia range and Golgoi in the Mesaoria plain.7 The evidence of centralized monumental buildings seems to suggest early requirements for restricted control over storage and distribution of goods, indices of a polity and not just a community of affiliates. The second striking pattern, necessarily coarse without more published data on ceramic finds, suggests some initial, perhaps more seasonal or experimental, occupations in the areas around these towns during the CG III period and then the high visibility of CA I pottery in surveyed regions across the island. In several areas, trends of dense or dispersed activity during the later eighth and seventh centuries bce suggest the rise of rooted populations with varying connections to towns, and the patterns do not conform to a single structure and instead indicate differing socioeconomic and environmental contexts of development and material production. Outside of some areas in the Paphos catchment and the Vasilikos Valley, for example, most signs of Archaic occupation appear after long gaps since the

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Neolithic period. While in some regions such as the south-central coast, the Polis area, or the Kouris region, the evidence suggests small, perhaps suprahousehold sites, in others there seems to be more evidence of larger settlements that directed flows of people and goods to towns, such as at Kophinou Panagia in the Xeros Valley near Larnaca or around the sanctuary at Palaipaphos. Much of our material stems from regional ceramic styles, however, and in many ways depends on the increasingly robust scholarship on regional workshops and their heterogeneity (e.g. Georgiadou 2014; Waiman-Barak et al. 2021). Interpretations of the distribution of pottery wares in the Paphos area, for example, have suggested no distinction between the material consumption of the town and the peripheral site networks, while around Amathus, as I argue in Chapters 5 and 6, signs of vernacular practices emerge that suggest alternate trajectories of rural interaction with a well-known regional production center. This local variability in persistent inhabitation, material consumption, and mortuary sites facilitated diverse entanglements between populations and shifting resources over the next three centuries. The current consensus for the length of the CG III reemergence is roughly 150 years (ca. 900–750 bce), followed by another 150 years of the CA I phase (750–600 bce), which partly accounts for their greater visibility in the survey record. Others have concentrated the major signs of these changes, especially evident in excavated tomb groups, to the eighth century bce, as the end of CG III and the earlier part of the CA I period (ca. 800–700 bce; e.g. Rupp 2005). Within this period, settlement trends diverge temporally around practices of continuity, landesque capital, and “new” foundations. In some places such as the Paphos catchment, the watersheds south of Marion, and the Vasilikos and Maroni area, a significant number of sites with later ninth- and eighth-century bce evidence tend to be associated with some Late Bronze Age or even Middle Bronze Age presence. The major site of Palaipaphos, for example, which shows clear signs of some continued inhabitation since the Late Bronze Age, offers an example of a robust built environment and prominent sanctuary site that continuously drew people to it and undoubtedly contributed to the growth of its chora during the CG III and CA I periods. The Vasilikos and Maroni area, while no longer an urban landscape during the Iron Age, was also persistently attractive. To be sure, these patterns highlight how certain places in semiarid landscapes, particularly those near water sources and on terrain with advantageous properties, remain propitious over centuries, often despite significant changes in social order and political economy or distance from urban markets. The Ezousas Valley, for

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

example, was beyond the 2–3 km radius of Palaipaphos, and yet showed more evidence of dispersed settlements than the closer Xeros Valley, likely owing to its accessibility to arable soils, water, and outcroppings of chert and other workable stones. Similarly, cyclical patterns of alluviation and sediment fill related to climatic changes over centuries could make river valley floors more attractive in certain phases, particularly as deep pockets of soil are created, and unattractive in others. Such oscillations in resources were likely shaping settlement histories south of Marion, along the Tremithos River, and in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys. These patterns also suggest that in some cases, groups sought to anchor their families or descent groups to areas of recurring occupation to exploit existing landesque capital or to benefit from developing discourses of the past. As argued in Chapters 5 and 6, the presence of Neolithic and Bronze Age materials throughout the Vasilikos and Maroni region made it attractive for rooted settlements. The lack of sure evidence for Geometric or Archaic settlement around the short-lived LC III site of Pyla Kokkinokremos may, in a related vein, represent intentional avoidance of prominent Bronze Age remains (Caraher et al. 2014: 274). On the other hand, possibilities and opportunities emerged with shifts to wetter conditions during the eighth and seventh centuries bce that catalyzed the growth of settlements in significant ways. Across the island, records show a remarkable jump in the visibility of CA materials, especially of objects such as storage amphorae, which can be used as evidence for broad shifts in risk-averse storage and accumulation practices and changes in how people managed and harnessed goods such as foods or items of exchange, or thought about securing diverse futures. These findings also suggest that by the eighth and seventh centuries bce, those with the knowledge and control of reliable land-based resources, as well as labor, were able to expand into what had been less desirable or less persistently worked areas that were undergoing ecological shifts. As noted earlier, we lack concrete evidence, but have to imagine that some technological developments, such as ploughs and irrigation techniques connected to more reliable sources of water, were also aiding the settlement and initiation of agriculture in plots that without intervention would have remained difficult to work and less worthy of labor commitments. Around Palaipaphos, for example, evidence of small sites for this period dramatically overshadows the numbers recorded for the Bronze Age, articulating in some regions more widespread and diversified uses of landscapes that may have been less appealing in other periods (Rupp et al. 1984). In the Xeros Valley of Paphos as well as locales in the Akamas region, parts

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of the Mesaoria plain, and along the southern coast in the hinterland of Amathus, moreover, these Archaic experiments in more permanent practices and mortuary landscapes seem to represent the first occupations since prehistoric periods millennia earlier, indicating that households and communities were targeting these landscapes for new development (e.g. Iacovou 1994: 156). People within the Amathus catchment, for example, would have relied primarily upon the Amathos and Pyrgos rivers to create conditions suitable for dry farming. The French survey found several features in the area north of Ayios Tychonas that suggest a close management of water in this period, including cisterns and traces of rock-cut irrigation (Petit 1996: 182, fig. 71). The discovery of treading floors, in combination with catchment vats, indicates more permanent rural agricultural practices (Hadjisavvas and Chaniotis 2012: 161). Exploiting these kinds of technological features afforded some the freedom to turn to resources critical to wealth production: copper and trees. The survey evidence indeed raises important questions about the location of settlements in relation to emerging resource materialities, given the interpretations outlined earlier about more vegetation growth, access to sources of water and clay, and soil changes for this period, as well as shifts in the accessibility of substances such as workable stones and metals. The copper sulfide deposits in the periphery of the island’s major Troodos mountain range invite special interest. Radiocarbon data available from ancient copper mining and smelting sites begin in the Archaic period and not in the preceding eleventh to ninth centuries bce, which arguably represents the growing economic prosperity of some Archaic actors who chose to start copper mining and metal production (Kassianidou 2013). Vasiliki Kassianidou (2013) has done compelling work tracing the intersections of the historical polities and the exploitation of metals and metallurgical practices. While iron became a Mediterranean staple in this period, available in abundance and widely used for everyday tools and implements, copper and its alloys remained valuable materials for the production of meaningful things, such as special vessels, prestige weapons and armor, and even battering rams for ships (Kassianidou 2013: 53). Her survey of archaeometallurgical evidence in the regions of various towns and ports has adeptly shown how complicated any straightforward assignment of mines to settlements or kingdoms would be. While many of the installations connected to mining lack secure dates, the Archaic period sees a reinvestment in metals exploitation, indicating the close association of smaller settlements in the Troodos foothills, navigating the interface of copper-rich pillow lavas and basaltic formations, pine forests, and water sources. Around Amathus, for example,

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

survey work found compelling evidence for Iron Age copper exploitation at Mazokambos and stone quarries by the eighth and seventh centuries bce (Petit 1996: 179–180). Some of our most clear evidence of the resource materialities of copper beginning around 600 bce comes from the small site of Ayia Varvara Almyras, for example, within the presumed territory of Idalion (Fasnacht 1999; Kassianidou 1998, 2013: 53). Here, excavations revealed evidence of small-scale domestic life as well as the sequence of steps (chaine opératoire) involved in extracting and transforming the substance of mineral ore into smelted copper, including basins, furnaces, and other workshop paraphernalia (Fasnacht 1999). In other areas, particularly the river valleys of the Paphos region without as much explicit evidence of metallurgical production for the period, survey evidence of Bronze Age settlements suggests a connection to routes and paths of mobility from the ores to the coast, which may have left landesque features that Iron Age inhabitants took over. Yet the dozens of small settlements recovered in survey in this area also point to other important constellations of environmental engagements and resource materialities, particularly those related to timber, chert, and limestone, which invite more inquiry. Overall, the uptick in visible settlements or sites of the Archaic period across survey projects would suggest population growth. One of the more significant signatures of demographic changes manifesting in this period is the number and spatial patterning of cemeteries and tombs. Certainly, the number of tombs found or inferred through pedestrian survey is related to their visibility and can be a function of methodology, as rock tombs on high ridges are more easily spotted and fine wares associated with grave goods make up the most consistently identified diagnostic assemblages for the period (Given and Smith 2003). There is thus a danger of circularity. Nonetheless, the positioning of later Geometric and Archaic tombs and necropoleis on visible and even intervisible features of the landscape, and at a distance from earlier Bronze Age remains, as for example encircling the site of Palaipaphos, points to the need for new spatial experiences of family and lineage and different social senses of the past (Janes 2013; Figure 4.6). The shift to extramural mortuary grounds associated with town sites after the eleventh century bce, as well as the abandonment of earlier cemeteries for new ones, as with the cessation of the Palaipaphos Skales cemetery by the eighth century, indicates senses of place-making intended to generate social distinctions (Hatzaki and Keswani 2012: 321–322; see also Sørensen and Rupp 1993: 73). We can imagine a public or series of publics, in other words, that required enduring spaces for cultural and social gathering. Keswani (2004) has convincingly argued that intramural burials

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Figure 4.6 Cemetery groupings around the site of Palaipaphos (village of Kouklia), showing Late Bronze Age tomb areas (black stars) and the shift to extramural Iron Age burials (black circles). 75 m DEM (adapted from Janes 2013: 152, fig. 5; Iacovou 2019: 218, 226, figs. 13, 24)

characteristic of Bronze Age mortuary practices were an urban phenomenon, rooting prominent families and their descent groups directly to the monumental architectonics of power and inequality in the town through conspicuous connections to ancestral lineages, reproducing visible forms of social differentiation (see also Manning 1998). Bronze Age populations living outside towns, on the other hand, consistently maintained collective extramural cemeteries, perhaps to dissociate domestic from ritual space or to remove the deceased from the world of the living. These practices reveal choices to commit to vernacular solidarities and the potential for meaningful places for burial for non-urban populations (Keswani 2004). This community-focus of burials placed outside the rural settlement, shown for example in the Late Bronze Age tombs cut into a cliff edge outside the small village of Aredhiou Vouppes in the northern Troodos foothills, would have offered some sense of place attachment (Steel 2009: 140–141). Arguably, this tradition continued among the households of the Archaic period. Mortuary grounds were often sited in previously unoccupied places, as seen in the high alluvial ridges of the Kouris Valley, the Paphos catchment

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

system, or the marine terraces of the south-central lowlands (Kearns 2017). Ritual and funerary processions to these mortuary grounds, as well as the pomp of cremation and communal meals that may have occurred there, evoked senses of belonging for emerging communities and political formations, especially those linked to town sites. Evidence of cooking jugs in Iron Age tomb deposits, particularly the dromoi leading up to tomb chambers, likely reflects these acts of consumption before deposition (Pilides 2005: 178; Fourrier 2010). While richly catered tombs appear in the later eleventh and tenth centuries bce, such as those at Lapithos Kastros or Palaipaphos Skales, their significance is attenuated by the explosion of different levels of wealth in tombs of the Archaic period in the form of more prestigious grave goods signaling status as well as elaborate or even monumental built tomb architecture by the eighth century bce at sites such as Amathus, Salamis, and Tamassos (Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012). Analyses of interred objects from necropoleis ringing major settlements such as Salamis, Lapithos, Amathus, and Palaipaphos find remarkably consistent trends towards “hardening” social status by the CG III period (Diakou 2018: 243–251).8 Rupp (1989) has argued that differentiation among a range of elite actors reappears by the CA I phase, particularly among the Royal Tombs at Salamis. At this juncture, we can see signs of wealth accumulation in especially prominent tombs: non-local vessels and other ceramic imports, iron and bronze objects indicative of warrior aesthetics or events such as feasting, inscribed objects, as well as large numbers of bulk amphorae showing agropastoral wealth and status in semi-luxuries such as olive oil and wine, what Catherine Pratt (2021) has recently called cultural commodities. Analyses of skeletal remains from Amathusian tombs of the eighth century bce that show evidence of injury and stress, moreover, point in tantalizing ways to the possibilities of new conflict or tensions within the polity that may have related to status and kinship (Janes 2013: 370). If this was a time when the leading class was committing to processes of solidarity or competition and accelerating its modes of power, it was also arguably when the lower strata of society were gaining social recognition as “others.” We have unfortunately very little handle on the makeup or material practices of these non-ruling or commoner groups, although scholars regularly presume the Cellarka tombs in the necropoleis of Salamis held the burial grounds of non-elites (Blackwell 2010). There has also been little research into the slave economies of the period. The Royal Tombs at Salamis provide one tempting indication of slave burials dramatizing the funerals of the rich (Steel 1995).9 In the dromos leading to the impressive built

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Tomb 2, the remains of two donkeys and several human skeletons (one of whom may have been bound) were connected to the deposits of a funeral for the last person buried, and point to the material elaboration of status for the top class that could come to necessitate, and make acutely legible through momentous spectacle, the death of “others” (Karageorghis 1969a: 9, 121). The inclusion of sacrificed donkeys as well as horses in tomb spaces at Salamis suggests that the deposition may have been intended to evoke an imaginary of physical agricultural labor for the afterlife. This evidence is slight, but draws our attention not just to the redefinitions of rivalry and competition between those of powerful or elite status shaping Archaic mortuary practices but also to the emerging boundaries of the lower classes of Cypriot society. Families with proclaimed lineages who could accumulate wealth in metals or agropastoral semi-luxuries, and then find ways to exploit new resource materialities and invest in the craft specialization that would make Cypriot vessels attractive in Mediterranean markets, were surrounded by the smaller-scale networks of households who possessed little outside labor of their own.10 Another landscape practice surfacing by the later ninth and eighth centuries bce consists of ritual shrines, sanctuaries, and other sacred places outside the town. Like the corresponding surge in visible settlement evidence by the CG III period, these religious landscapes proliferate during the early Archaic period (Papantoniou 2012b: 304; Papantoniou and Vionis 2017). As noted by others, many of these assemblages, especially those recovered by surveys of the last few decades, are difficult to interpret. Surface collections of figurines cannot necessarily be equated with the presence of sanctuaries, and many excavations remain unpublished or lack chronological information, presenting several challenges for identifying temporal changes in ritual activity (Ulbrich 2008; Papantoniou 2012b).11 In the northern Troodos foothills, SCSP and TAESP found indications of multiple Archaic sanctuaries including one at Katydhata Pano Limna, near the copper mining area of Skouriotissa, with geophysical signatures of circular walls as well as finely decorated tablewares and transport amphorae indicating multipurpose areas of settled and working life (Given et al. 2013b). These inferences attest to the growth of rural ritual practices on the edges of emerging towns, in smaller settlement networks, and along developing routes that could bring various publics together, in a time when religious spatial senses were becoming more materially diverse (Ulbrich 2008; Papantoniou 2012a: 103–105; Fourrier 2013). Although they share many similarities in physical and spatial properties, such as a cult building or altar, temenos or precinct wall, or even sacred

Surveying Landscapes of Before and After

grove, these rural spaces also reflect the kinds of local variability apparent in the settlement evidence that confirm contingencies of place and social order. Some, for example within the vicinity of Soli on the northwestern coast (Loulloupis 1989) or the Kouris Valley (Jasink et al. 2008a), suggest a possible preference for quasi-natural or more inaccessible features such as caves and springs for votive deposits, although the nature of those practices is questionable given the paucity of associated finds. Other assemblages have indicated a close relationship between rural sanctuaries and agricultural produce and activity, acting as places where people came together to share, store, and consume foodstuffs (Loulloupis 1989; Smith 1997: 91). Research through excavation and material studies at a few rural sites also reveals the investment in building specific architectural features and places for ritual. At Polis Peristeries, for example, on the edge of the town of Marion, excavations found four phases of a temenos and cult building from the CG III to Classical periods, with the main occupation and activity dating to CA I (Smith 1997). Here, different spaces were constructed to facilitate various kinds of worshippers and practice, such as the deposition of simple terracotta figurines in one area or the storage and display of high-value objects, such as bronze vessels and large statuary, in other rooms with more restricted access. The recovered contents of a large bothros, or pit for burying votive deposits and other waste, further indicated the inclusion of multiple kinds of Archaic audiences. Within the accumulation of waste were signs of craft production as well as of dining and feasting (Smith 1997: 90–92; see also Karageorghis 1977; Loulloupis 1989: 69; Fischer 2001). Other groups seem to have intentionally placed temenoi on routes or paths to attract passersby. The findings of an Archaic sanctuary with almost life-sized statues, numerous terracotta figurines, and objects such as loom weights at Peyia Tremithas near the western coast, on a gentle slope overlooking the coastal plain, may articulate small-scale and inclusive ritual places aimed at appealing to travelers moving up and down the coast (Baird 1985: 345). Also provocative are the sanctuaries established during the later Geometric or early Archaic horizon that reused remains of Bronze Age monumental public buildings, as at Maroni Vournes, at the eastern city of Enkomi, or at Ayios Iakovos Dhima (Papantoniou 2012b: 298). The famous example of the sanctuary of Ayia Irini, near the northwestern coast, also fits this pattern. It was initially established during the thirteenth century bce, and worshippers came to the site during the ninth century to rebuild a temenos, with an enclosure of sacred trees, baetyl altar, and numerous kinds of limestone and terracotta statues and figurines found still arranged and standing in situ (Fourrier 2007: 89–92; Papantoniou 2012b: 299).

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Continuity of cult is, however, a deeply complicated and ambivalent process (Whitley 2009; Papantoniou 2012b). The gaps in occupation apparent at these sites make arguments for social memory tenuous. Rather, communities needed spaces for public performance, and some chose to cultivate new senses of shared history within the visible remains of old walls, which I explore through a closer look at Maroni Vournes in Chapter 5. The setting for some rural sanctuaries on terraces near agricultural land, without direct evidence of contemporary settlement (acknowledging that we may simply not yet have found associated domestic spaces), has influenced their interpretation as suiting agropastoral communities. Most conspicuous in these assemblages are offerings related to the worship of deities associated with symbols of fertility, agriculture, or pastoralism (e.g. Toumazou et al. 2011; Todd and Warren 2012: 51;Ulbrich 2012). The iconography of votives found at sanctuaries such as Athienou Malloura in the central Mesaoria plain centers around a male god whom Derek Counts (2008: 23) has examined and hypothesized as a deity powerful enough to meet expectations of diverse social actors, “farmers, shepherds, soldiers, and merchants alike.” Despite the multiple and potentially conflicting boundaries at work in the area, the worship of gods such as the “master of animals,” with the ability to weather the land and air, could appeal to the local and regional collective. In a banal way, the Archaic legibility of worship devoted to symbols and divine embodiments of agropastoral productivity and prosperity and the fertility of the land and its animals maps onto my arguments that populations had become accustomed to different weathered conditions and sought divine assistance to procure their continuation. Even if some votives represented sacrificial offerings in bad years, praying for rain or good weather, the overwhelming investments seem to be towards articulating imaginations of what productive landscapes ought to look like: plough animals, bundles of grain and wheat, and baskets of fruit.

Conclusions This review has not examined as extensively the obvious changes in urban settlements happening during the ninth and eighth centuries bce, partially exposed through excavations at Kouklia, Idalion, Amathus, Marion, Kition, and Kourion in the form of perimeter walls and fortifications, buildings with signs of conspicuous storage and state archives, and so-called palatial architecture (e.g. Aupert 1997; Hadjicosti 1997a, 1999; Smith 2009; Hermary 2013; Counts and Iacovou 2013). These “central place” transformations have

Conclusions

long dominated interest in the before and after of the early first-millennium bce. Instead, my goals have been to direct attention to the landscape-making practices occurring in differentiated ways across the island beyond the confines of urban built environments to reveal how new complexities were created in relation to emerging towns. As argued in Chapter 3, these settled, mortuary, and ritual landscapes should not be wholly subsumed within the urbanized control of political territory but should also be situated within local dynamics of families, differentiated communities, and their encounters with shifting environments. This reorientation has aimed to think through diachronic change more holistically, as well as to integrate available records detailing the environmental history of the second and first millennia bce. As Cypro-centric approaches to the Iron Age as well as arguments for secondary-state formation increasingly note, the ninth and eighth centuries bce form a horizon of lived experience that generated new kinds of urban and rural political economy, institutional places of state and authority, and cultural norms and expressions of religious and social life. Associated with this age of foundation and consolidation were climatic oscillations in temperature and precipitation that also transformed agropastoral productivity, human and non-human movement, and resource formations. By way of Braudel’s metaphor, the electromagnetic field of Cyprus transformed as the magnetism of growing authoritative and suprahousehold formations encountered and absorbed the pulses of ecosystemic changes to generate new, and often unruly, configurations. Climatic shifts did not create the rise of Iron Age states. Despite the poor chronological resolution of much paleoclimatic data and archaeological survey evidence, these dramatic transformations ostensibly began during the ninth century bce, the CG III period, and therefore slightly before available records for a cooling episode with attendant wetter conditions by the mid-eighth and seventh centuries bce visible in hemispheric and global proxies and longitudinal analyses. Moreover, the signs of rising complexity have proven to be more localized and site-specific than a reductionist “wetter = better” arithmetic would allow. While the appearance of highstatus tombs seems acutely timed at Salamis, for example, mortuary indices of wealth accumulation and status signaling appear much more gradually at Amathus. Wetter climates did not cause or determine social inequalities and wealth accumulation post facto. I have proposed, instead, that human–environment relationships materializing within household and small-scale politics introduced new weathering regimes that suited more rooted ways of living and land use practices, cultivating experiences of settled life, industrial production, farming, herding, and manufacturing.

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In this albeit speculative position, the eleventh to early ninth centuries saw some families use intergenerational knowledge of landscapes to claim limited arable land and to appropriate forms of landesque capital. While undoubtedly competitive, these influential actors participated in similar practices and commitments to land use and wealth accumulation across the island. Those without these means likely worked collectively to manage areas of well-watered soil and pasture. During the ninth century, the accommodations to these forms of living started to shift as some used their access to long-standing orchards or terraced plots to scale up their production of semi-luxuries such as olive oil and wine.12 By the eighth century, these privileged actors and groups were able to take advantage of longer and more reliable growing seasons, access to water, plentiful tree resources, and in turn more control over labor through a manipulation of technological capacities, the adoption of more risk-tolerant strategies, and the decisions to create mortuary and ritual landscapes that would instrumentalize their authority and legitimacy. The latter formed new signatures of landscape preservation that anchored families and kin networks to place, particularly through visible tombs and gathering places that could persist across generations. Some also carved out prominent positions in emerging agropastoral economies or maritime trade, casting “others” into groups of subordinate social status. As scholars have argued for the early Archaic period elsewhere in the Aegean, it was likely an unruly time of “openness to new events, new participants, and new contexts,” where the norms of social inclusion and exclusion were being settled and tested through feasts or other public events (Pratt 2021: 254). These are the critical relationships that helped drive Archaic complexity. I have argued here that forms of urbanization and ruralization became more materially rooted during the later ninth and eighth centuries bce, which seems late compared with other areas such as Crete, where rural landscapes show persistence from the twelfth century bce (Haggis 1993: 157–158; Foxhall 2014: 425).13 So far we lack the kinds of evidence for the Early Iron Age on Cyprus to understand these divergent patterns, but the variability in settlements and socioeconomic life evident in archaeological survey records suggests that our categories of homogeneous cultural forms obscure the messy paths that social change could take. These kinds of macroscalar observations require the complement of analysis at other scales to situate human–environment relationships within feasible interpretive scope. As towns and countrysides developed in varying forms of integration, social stratification took shapes defined by diverse spatial experiences and by the motivations and strategies of numerous actors at different

Conclusions

scales. For these reasons I turn in Chapters 5 and 6 to the case study of the “becoming” of the state of Amathus, its mosaic of chorai, and its eastern edges. How was the growth of rural sedentism generative of political order and social formations? How were households instigating concepts of differentiation or community bounding through local land use schemes, material practices, or through integration with the town and its harbors? What were the kinds of landesque capital and resource materialities that more remote regions offered to individuals seeking to gain membership in new interregional modes of status? What might rurality have meant in Archaic Cyprus?

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Beyond Amathus South-Central Cyprus in Context

Introduction

154

If the Idalion Tablet that opened Chapter 1 documents some of the environments and values activating one ancient political landscape, a different object from the Archaic Cypriot world can shift an alternate lens onto some of the imagined spatial conditions of first-millennium bce society. A small amphoriskos found within the excavations of Amathus, from one of the tombs ringing the main acropolis, displays an outdoor event (Figure 5.1). Dated to the latter half of the sixth century (ca. 520 bce), the vessel depicts a gathering of six figures under and in between several stylized trees. One is likely a date-palm, although Aurélie Caubet (2008) has argued for the anomalous and therefore special ambiguity of the depicted trees that share similarities with Near Eastern arboreal iconography.1 Birds rest among the branches. Some human figures are shown reclining and holding Greek-style cups, not on the usual couches, klinai, but on pillows. Others stand to offer drinks or to play the double flute. While a number of these bodies appear to have beards suggestive of people gendered male of various ages, one leaning near the central tree does not, perhaps indicating a prominent female. Regardless of these idiosyncrasies, the imagery finds parallels in contemporary iconography as an outdoor scene and appears to show a picnic or feast in open air, accompanied by musicians whose presence may imply associated festive dancing.2 Cross-culturally, ancient scenes of dining al fresco appear frequently and have been interpreted in divergent ways in studies of Iron Age interconnections in style and practice, as for example in royal Neo-Assyrian depictions of outdoor consumption (e.g. Fehr 1971; Dentzer 1982). This vessel’s representation of drinking underneath trees laden with flowers and birds raises questions about the spatial relationships between Archaic town and country conceptualized by its inhabitants. Called a portrayal of a “countryside picnic,” “fête,” or “banquet champêtre,” scholars take the trees to represent a rural place, outside the town walls, rather than an urban courtyard (des Gagniers 1972; Raptou 1999b: 208; Caubet 2008; Karageorghis 2009). The discovery of an East Greek imported vessel at Amathus similarly

Introduction

Figure 5.1 Amphoriskos, Amathus, ca. 520 bce (British Museum C855)

dated to the later sixth century bce and showing an outdoor dining scene with birds and trees may echo these stylistic interests (Gjerstad 1977: 36, no. 176).3 Indeed, the especially fine craftsmanship of the amphoriskos, within the Amathus-style that included whiter, chalkier clay than other local fabrics, suggests an imitation of East Greek vessels but in an Archaic Cypriot fashion (Fourrier 2009c: 133–134). Does the amphoriskos depict town-dwellers hosting a ritual feast outside the temenos of the town, at leisure within their wealthy rural estates?4 Or does it imitate the trappings of an imagined, foreign countryside? Or does it portray a putative otherworldly dimension, populated with divine beings and a familiar ritual economy of symbols, to evoke a feast for the Great Goddess?5

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Elite styles can often earn labels such as cosmopolitan or “metropolitan,” reinforcing the mapping of the ruling class onto towns, while indigenous, lower-status or subaltern material implies “provincial” or peripheral tastes (e.g. Megaw 1974: 88). Some interpretations of the Amathus vessel have indeed glossed the countryside with lower status communities. Vassos Karageorghis (2012: 23–24), for example, has stated that the amphoriskos likely portrays “ordinary people,” implied to be non-elites, “who may seize any occasion for feasting.” These kinds of class distinctions are made more peculiar at Amathus given what scholars have come to interpret as both its outward-facing cosmopolitanism and an inward-facing rustic localism, the latter sensibility derived from comparisons of the local ceramic styles with other workshops across the island (e.g. Coldstream 2009: 23). This rusticity is compelling when viewed alongside the historical connections of Amathus to eastern Mediterranean trade, particularly on the high-voltage currents between sites in the Aegean and Levant exchanging Euboean or Phoenician cups. On the one hand, some of Amathus’ local ceramic wares could be comparatively ranked as “coarse” beside the products originating in towns such as Salamis, Kition, or Paphos (Gjerstad et al. 1935: 434; Gjerstad 1960: 106). On the other, the abundant presence of imported fine wares in the settlements and feasting contexts on its acropolis and in its cemeteries re-elevate Amathus to a center of regional trade and consumption of “Aegean trappings” (Broodbank 2013: 534; see also Coldstream 1995). What motivated the acquisition or adoption of localized styles, or the portrayal of people outdoors in woods or gardens, for higher-status Amathusians familiar with the feasting equipment of Greek and Levantine elites? Was there, in other words, a class-based sense of rustic otherness, or a cultural and social distinction between town and country? Or were these local imitations of sacred motifs? Unlike the Idalion Tablet, which revealed how other-than-urban land plots sustained the political territory of the city, the Amathus amphoriskos discloses how landscapes were conceived and imagined socially, culturally, and politically. To put it another way, it offers, heuristically, an opportunity to question our assumed categories of rural backwardness and urban sophistication and to hypothesize how other-than-urban spaces articulated structures of social transformation. I am interested in its attraction for urban audiences, towards the end of the Archaic period, when rural places, peoples, and practices were becoming more legibly tied to the state. Did the inhabitants of late Archaic Amathus use such spatial imaginations of the rural landscape to make sense of their polis, in a similar way to how the Idalion Tablet publicized a particular ideation of royal territory?

Introduction

These are difficult questions to pose in relation to a single, fragmentary vessel. Especially one found in a tomb, and one whose material propensities and visual imagery display the fascinating hybridity of Cypriot Archaic art, combining Near Eastern and Aegean ideas, styles, and motifs with local ways of making pots.6 In many ways the cultural study of the Archaic countryside remains at this level of fuzzy ambiguity. Yet the image and its staging provoke us to consider how countrysides, hinterlands, and rural landscapes generated scales of solidarity, competition, or agency, cultural ways of acting and moving within them and with other places such as towns, and the habits that came to symbolize those practices (Halfacree 2006; see Rosen and Sluiter 2006; Roy 2011). One of the more marked patterns of ceramic consumption found within the contexts of the Amathusian acropolis, for example, is the apparent preference for local vessels, such as cups without handles, for cult purposes within the sanctuary of Aphrodite, while imported Greek or Levantine pottery was used for feasting and banquets, placed within the palace and tombs (Fourrier and Hermary 2006; Hermary 2015: 11). Amathusians on the acropolis chose some objects for ritual purposes that spoke to local production and materials, and non-local objects for others, perhaps imitating interregional styles or aiming at wider audiences. The already mentioned multilingualism of this town, with evidence of the local Eteocypriot language and scripts alongside Greek and Phoenician, further highlights the performative aspects of employing one or more languages for different contexts. The small amphoriskos is uncertain: is the imagined realm of outdoor feasting one of exotic, “other” places, or is the familiarity of the vessel suggestive of a local countryside or nature that elites at Amathus would know and identify with? Its inclusion as a grave object within a necropolis of Amathus raises the possibility that people wanted to provide the dead with a vernacular vision of place, or a ritualized world populated with familiar scenery. In this chapter I want to explore how the periphery generated its own complex social and political field but also had real material influence on the town, even if as an imagined natural space (Herzfeld 2015). The archaeological, historical, and environmental records of this integration between town and country provide a compelling case study for examining the production of scales of interaction between Amathus and its landscapes. Building upon the island-wide comparative survey analysis synthesized in Chapter 4, here I look more closely at the patterns in two watersheds to argue that the eastern seams of the Amathusian polity afforded a heterogeneous set of weathered landscapes instrumental to the growth of local and urban practices. If the amphoriskos may have rendered countrysides legible for urban audiences, those living outside the city had their own ways of seeing the

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state (Herzfeld 2020: 49). Instead of viewing the countryside as an immutable backdrop, changed from the top down through the imposition of state political control or economic investment, this chapter looks more critically at its inhabitants and environments. How did an urbanized Late Bronze Age region transition into a ruralizing one by the Archaic period? How do we explain the abundant evidence for settlements, manufacturing activity, and gathering places in a near-shore region without its own large town? The patterns recovered through survey and rescue excavation evidence in the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds expose more complex transformations occurring across the ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries bce that integrated local communities, environments, and goods through recursive ties to the growing state. While not intended to dismiss the importance of studying the possible reaches of urbanization in these regions, I examine their ruralization  – the processes of maintenance and weathering of landscapes interconnected with diverse settled groups vying for interactions with ascendant local and regional networks. The availability of data and my own recent fieldwork narrows these discussions to the Vasilikos and Maroni region, although more work will undoubtedly offer similarly compelling arguments for the heterogeneities of small towns and local authorities in the Limassol area (Alpe 2015; see also Hermary 2015). The gap in survey coverage in the immediate valleys surrounding the Vasilikos and Maroni region additionally reinforces this arbitrary boundary (cf. Menozzi et al. 2018; Papantoniou and Vionis 2018). While these valleys were arguably deeply intertwined with the Amathusian state, their position from the town makes them too distant for a picture of “urban farmers” commuting daily to fields. In three subsequent sections, this chapter examines the growth of social and cultural relationships between Amathus and the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds. The first details the divergent landscape temporalities of territorial edges and associates features of settlement, landesque capital, and resource materialities with the claims of emergent households and communities. When comparatively examined, the survey records from town and “farther chora” reveal their processes of integrated development while allowing for local differentiation (Attema 2018a; Koparal and Vaessen 2020). The second section compares a varied assortment of mortuary and ritual places to argue for the political creation and maintenance of gathering places outside the town that responded to, or sidestepped, urban trends. The third argues for the interconnected networks of movement, including maritime access and overland travel, that turned these peripheral place-making practices into a mosaic whose constituent parts counter

Emergent Settlements

its assumed “backwater” image in conventional histories. The chapter reclaims the Vasilikos and Maroni region as involved in dynamic processes of state formation, landscape development, and flows of materials over time through local and regional interrelationships, not simply through passive absorption into the world of the Amathusian acropolis.

Emergent Settlements Amathus represents a site whose town, various chorai, and edges of control seem tightly anchored to the later Geometric and Archaic horizon, and whose wealth and social power were undoubtedly partly reliant on its trade relationships (Petit 2019). Scholars debate that populations relocated there around the eleventh century, evident in a small and enigmatic ceramic scatter of CG I material found on the acropolis (Iacovou 2002b; cf. Petit 2019). After some intermittent presence in the wider area between the Amathos and Pyrgos rivers, including the construction of multiple CG I-II necropoleis, people founded first an important residential building (known as the palace or palais) halfway up the southern slope of the acropolis during the ninth century, with its main evidence dating to the Archaic period, and then a sanctuary at the top to a female deity, a local “Great Goddess” later recognized as Aphrodite, by the end of the eighth century bce (Petit 2001, 2019; Fourrier and Hermary 2006; Papantoniou 2012b: 304; Todd 2013: 120; Hermary 2015). By the seventh century bce Amathus possessed speakers of three languages: Greek, the local and still undeciphered Eteocypriot language, and Phoenician. Phoenician communities who may have populated some part of the area are also inferred by an extensive burial ground of cremations, especially of young children, in Phoenician-style vessels along the coastal plain as well as finds of Levantine and Punic-style pottery and figurines in sanctuaries outside the urban center (Given 1998; Fourrier and Petit-Aupert 2007; Hermary 2015: 27; López-Ruiz 2021: 257; Fourrier and Georgiadou 2021). As summarized briefly in Chapter 4, the valleys behind the acropolis revealed a series of Neolithic occupations, including what the surveyors called large settlements, and a quite striking absence of evidence for the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods (Petit et al. 1989: 895; Petit 1996). Some of these Neolithic places were reused in the Geometric and Archaic periods, but the conspicuous gap in the later prehistoric and protohistoric periods seems, at first glance, to support the idea of a mortuary and then urban foundation “from scratch” (Iacovou 1994: 156).

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Figure 5.2 Amathus positioned between Limassol and the Late Bronze Age urban sites of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and the Maroni complex. 75 m DEM

The disruptions along the coastal lowlands of the south-central stretch of the island and the spread of urban and industrial areas around Amathus and Limassol have clearly affected the recovery of archaeological sites through survey. It is reasonable to assume that Bronze Age sites taking advantage of cultivable coastal terrain existed in the area, especially outside the small French survey grid, but which have been variably destroyed or obscured by recent land use activity and urbanization from Limassol.7 When compared with the diachronic landscape changes and possible senses of social time patterned in the Vasilikos and Maroni region, the rise of the Amathusian catchment appears both distinct yet closely interconnected with its wider regional context (Figure 5.2). Recent scholarship on the Bronze Age landscapes of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys has provided a hypothesis for the rise of social complexity that helps historicize the Amathusian area. During the Middle Bronze Age, several large occupations in the central Vasilikos Valley suggest a likely nexus of social and economic power, if still household-based (Knapp 2013: 350–352; Keswani 2018). Wealth asymmetries emerged through access and manipulation of valued commodities such as copper, but equally through the capacity of some households to maintain differential access

Emergent Settlements

to agricultural and pastoral assets, such as olive oil and plough technologies (Keswani 2018; Knapp 2018). Georgia Andreou (2016) has argued, for example, for a shift in settlement practices and rural economies in the Vasilikos watershed from the late third to the second-millennium bce, when the coastal lowlands and anchorage sites such as Tochni Lakkia became focal points for regional development. By the Late Bronze Age, urban sites such as the Maroni complex, Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, or possible centers around Limassol to the west seem to have attracted “rural–urban” dwelling practices where populations lived in close proximity, commuting daily to farms and pasturage in 1–4 km trips, which afforded the creation of urban stratification (Keswani 2018; Manning and Fisher 2018; for Limassol see Kiely 2005: 193–194; Karageorghis et al. 2012). Settlements contract around Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios by the fourteenth century bce, suggesting corporate urban communities that likely received payments in agropastoral commodities from smaller settlements in the region, while at Maroni a lower-density and more dispersed urbanism evolved more gradually (Manning et al. 2014; Fisher et al. 2019). These urban sites of the Late Bronze Age arguably also enveloped communities from the Amathos and Pyrgos valleys surrounding Amathus in emerging trade networks. These groups may have been disadvantaged without nearby urbanized infrastructure or access to local landesque features, such as olive groves (Keswani 2018: 147). The Neolithic occupations around Amathus would thus have been replaced and reused with smaller, more ephemeral sites of variegated Bronze Age rural households and communities with informal and formal economic ties to urban sites, and whose practices remain difficult to identify through surface survey (Andreou 2016: 147; 2019b). Rather than see the Amathusian catchment as a “virtual topographical gap” in these Bronze Age periods, we could envision different modalities of small, rural occupation and land use that were imbricated in the social and economic spheres of more stratified settlements to the east and west (cf. Iacovou 1994: 156). The abandonment of the region’s Late Bronze Age sites after the eleventh century remains difficult to trace archaeologically and to explain through settlement patterns, given the scarcity of evidence for the period, but the simplest hypothesis is that some households maintained less permanent practices at large sites such as Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios or coastal sites such as Tochni Lakkia, while many communities moved up into the higher elevation foothills and hilly areas with conditions that could support subsistence-level practices (Figure 5.3). Heightened inter- and intra-annual variability in precipitation, evaporation, and temperature in these centuries undoubtedly amplified the risks of extensive agriculture, and the lower

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Figure 5.3 Survey findings in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys for the Late Bronze Age, later Geometric, and Archaic periods. 75 m DEM

valleys saw less sedentist practices as schemes of production, storage, and consumption diminished or became less permanent. By the tenth century bce, communities in the area that had likely held onto places where they achieved some measure of material stability began to stake claims to social power, and the striking acropolis of Amathus provided an attractive and instrumental site for new political beginnings. Some groups had clearly established strong connections with trade routes to the east and the Levant and the Aegean, perhaps through maintaining elite connections through intermarriage, and cultural activities partly pivoted towards the seascape. Mortuary landscapes and grave goods consisting of increasingly frequent Aegean and Levantine imports located to the east, west, and north on hills encircling the Amathusian acropolis were created during the tenth century bce, attested through ceramic analysis to the CG II period (Stefani and Violaris 2018; see also Hermary 2015). Some of these are monumental built tombs with clear aims for intervisibility with the wider coastal plains and foothills, making legible new performances of authority (Petit 2001; Janes 2013). Within the excavated remains on the acropolis, signs of large-scale storage appear again by the ninth century that additionally suggest socially crafted statements about surplus, particularly of agropastoral commodities, which could be seen and perceived by others. In this interpretation, Amathus provided a key vantage point and seat for claims to wealth and the establishment of social asymmetries especially during the ninth century bce, at which time its nearby chora appears in survey evidence as an area of small farming sites taking over hillsides, drainages, and plains. This patchwork of countrysides within daily walking distance

Emergent Settlements

Figure 5.4 Iron Age sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys categorized by estimated area in hectares (Appendix)

became intensively managed once these households and networks settled into the expanding lower settlement beneath the seat of social power on the Amathusian acropolis, and undoubtedly invested in a harbor critical for maritime trade (Hermary 2015). The differentiation in survey evidence for the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys across the later Geometric and Archaic periods cannot be explained solely through models of secondary formation or dependency on the rise of Amathus (Figure 5.3; Appendix I). The variations in comparative settlement sizes and signs of accumulation, connected to the decisions of extended households and community formations, as well as site continuities and temporalities, reveal unique local developments in social complexity (Kearns 2017, 2019). While many Archaic sites identified through previous survey fall into the “small settlement” type covering less than 0.5 ha in area, roughly a third were ascribed to sites of 2–5 ha in size, suggesting larger, suprahousehold agglomerations that may or may not have entailed village-scale politics (Kearns 2015: 183; Figure 5.4). The most overt differentiation of sedentism between Amathus and these valleys by the ninth century, however, are the returns in the latter to areas of Middle and Late Bronze Age occupation to take advantage of existing landesque capital and resource materialities, accounting for roughly 75 percent of recorded Archaic surface collections (Kearns 2015: 194). Indeed, the continuous

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Figure 5.5 Survey findings of the Geometric and Archaic periods from the region of Amathus and the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, categorized according to temporal phasing and continuity from earlier occupations. 75 m DEM

reuse of Bronze Age sites, especially of the Middle Cypriot period, accounts for some of the largest surface scatters recorded in the area (Kearns 2015: 224). The Vasilikos and Maroni valleys consisted of dozens of hills, escarpments, ridges, or alluvial terraces with a patchwork of older presence, and the early Archaic communities that resettled many of these places undoubtedly encountered and integrated existing rubble or earlier activity within their developing senses of place and time. Amathus, on the other hand, sits on a sloping hill with a quite different palimpsest-like series of much older, prehistoric features of settlement and land use surrounding it. These regional variations in terrain can help us to infer how groups targeted landscapes and established claims to place in diverse ways. Instead of plotting recorded survey findings by their predominant period of occupation, such as “Geometric” or “Archaic,” Figure 5.5 categorizes them through an index of phasing, albeit compromised by the coarse signatures of surface material. Sites are anchored to the Iron Age, particularly highlighting the CG and CA periods, but reveal different articulations with previous occupation phases and landscape features. Assemblages classified with only CA materials, for example, have occupations beginning in the late eighth and seventh centuries bce, suggesting “new”

Emergent Settlements

foundations of settlement or activity. Other assemblages show the relationships between Archaic reoccupations of areas with continuous activity since the Neolithic, intermittent activity after the Middle Bronze Age, or large gaps after prehistoric occupation. Initial settlements in higher elevation terraces close to the Vasilikos River by the CG III period, for example, likely less permanent and more geared towards initiating cultivation regimes, afforded these communities access to olive orchards, check dams and field walls, and pockets of arable soil. While CG material is still not abundant, these sites exemplify exploratory reoccupations of Bronze Age settlements or working areas as new weathering experiences in the ninth and early eighth centuries bce led to shifts in land use. The terraces and hills of the river valleys were seemingly more attractive than the flatter coastal plain, since the lower Maroni valley shows almost no evidence of CG III activity around the areas of Maroni Vournes or the shoreline (Swinton 1994: 355–356).8 Household units possessing the greatest domestic or slave labor initiated cultivation in smaller watersheds at higher elevations as well as took over cultivated resources, such as olives, to reap the benefits of existing, already-productive trees (Keswani 2018: 147–149). Those who had early success took advantage of more productive seasonal outputs, and even surplus, achieving the kinds of measurable yields that could be invested in plough technology and oxen or livestock, and more labor mobilization. While it is also possible that collective action secured access to certain resources, such as grinding mills or terrace walls, to provide more extensive kin networks with subsistence support, the settlement variation evident in the survey data suggests that cultivation and land use practices drove Archaic social differentiation. Those at “the top,” who had enabled early productive yields and amassed more resource wealth, were navigating increased water availability, fewer interannual droughts, and more vegetation in different ways than others. This look at temporal phasing shows how the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys were full of the kinds of landesque capital and resources that attracted settlers by the ninth century bce and led to an explosion of community growth by the later eighth and seventh centuries bce, the CA I period, when the region saw a height of occupation and land use activity, with greater coverage than during the preceding Late Bronze Age (Georgiadou 2016: 104). Over 40 percent of the recovered CA artifact scatters are part of multiperiod assemblages with Middle Bronze and/or Late Bronze Age materials. These patterns suggest that Iron Age settlers were seeking out places in an urbanizing and ruralizing settlement system that had been worked and occupied up to a millennium earlier. As argued in Chapter 4,

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some of these reoccupations mark the places that were undoubtedly propitious to first-millennium bce agropastoralism, particularly in deeper sediment fills weathered by alluviation and colluviation in the two river valley floors or hillslopes overlooking springs or water sources. More investigation of these fills and geomorphological analyses could shed light on whether the same valley floors that were degraded and highly erosive in drier periods such as the eleventh or tenth centuries bce were more productive and dynamic with more alluviation by the eighth and seventh centuries bce. Since the Middle Bronze Age also marks a period of dense occupations in the region, it makes sense that Archaic communities settled and took over many of the same terraces, hillslopes, and valley plains. In other cases, the lack of site continuity in certain areas – as around cemeteries of the LC period in the Kalavasos village area and the eastern valley slopes – may suggest that Archaic groups deliberately avoided some places. What size of populations might the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys have supported by the Archaic period? There are numerous problems in building models of ancient demographic dynamics from surface survey (e.g. Sbonias 1999; Osborne 2004; Wilson 2008; Price 2011; Witcher 2011). Despite the inevitably coarse resolution and the lack of bioarchaeological data to quantify population through burial frequencies, there are methods for calculating rural population via estimates of either site or catchment area and number, household size, or individual building area (Witcher 2011). The figure of 0.1 to 0.3 ha for a single one-household rural site from the first-millennium bce survey material calculated by Alcock (1993: 60) is one starting point, recognizing that these could represent a range of field shelters or houses, pens, worksites, or temporary installations (Pettegrew 2001).9 Estimates for the number of people dispersed across a catchment area have also helped to quantify the peopling of landscapes. The Boeotia Project computed roughly 38 persons per sq. km (or 3–4 people per ha) in the Classical Greek countryside, and assumed all rural sites to have the same inhabitation size (Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985; Osborne 2004: 166). Yet excavated evidence from contemporary rural Levantine houses suggests that both house sizes as well as the degree of compactness can vary (Routledge 2009). Another common model extrapolates population from numbers of assumed settlements multiplied by average number of persons per household, analogized from twentieth-century village census records (Yerkes 2000). Such data from early and mid-twentieth-century villages in the Vasilikos survey region, for example, hover around three or four people per household.10

Emergent Settlements

Extrapolating and multiplying by the numbers of assumed settlements recovered by the survey data, and without more empirical bases to make calculations, we can create one coarsely resolved sketch of population, taking into account a presumed and highly arbitrary range of household size of three to five people (e.g. Mattingly 2011; Table 5.1).11 The estimates for the Vasilikos Valley presented in Table 5.1 can be adjusted to account for sampling bias as well as the likelihood that not every small site was occupied at the same time, approximating ca. 3,700 as the minimum and 5,000 as a maximum population during the late ninth to fifth centuries bce (Bevan 2002: 245). This range of 25–33 persons per sq. km (using the 151 sq. km surveyed by the Vasilikos Valley Project) is somewhat lower than estimates for other Mediterranean locales, such as the Boeotian countryside, but not by drastic amounts, especially if we allow for variation in the number of persons per household (Osborne 2004: 166). Such numbers accord with a hypothetical “farther chora” of more widely dispersed small sites rather than the densely settled rural areas surrounding major towns, as in the range of 32–118 persons per sq. km in Upper Mesopotamia during the Neo-Assyrian period (Wilkinson 2014: 192). Most importantly, these figures square with projections for the low population densities on average of semiarid contexts and marginal arable and pastoral conditions on Cyprus, based on historical data for estimates of crop yields for food consumption in good and bad years (Manning 2019: 107–108; see also Christodoulou 1959: 51; Iacovou 2013a: 21). For Maroni, it is more difficult to conceptualize demography with the smaller amount of identifiable assemblages, and the likelihood that farming installations and settlements were concentrated in the fertile coastal plain and have been obscured.12 Gross estimates of ca. 450 people for the southern valley where survey was conducted, or about 30 people per sq. km, might reflect a presumably intensive agricultural zone near the coast. Estimates made for the Late Bronze Age occupations in the Vasilikos valley are lower, at 1,575–1,875 people or 10–12 people per sq. km (South 2014).13 They reflect the arguments mentioned above that the major site of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios acted as a concentration of population for the period (South 1995). Even with the recognition that these attempts to capture demographic change through surface finds are largely notional, they raise the question of a repopulation and the accelerated growth of this south-central region during the eighth century. These numbers for the Vasilikos and Maroni region are moreover significant in comparison to Amathus, with 30 ha of area within its Archaic walls and a roughly estimated population of 6,000–9,000 people, approximately 200–300 persons per ha (Petit 2019: 45).14 By this early Archaic period, the

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Table 5.1 Estimated population and household numbers for survey sites in the Vasilikos Valley, listed in relation to possible site size.

Proposed type of material Small farm or rural site Small settlement Small village Village Village Total Total lower estimates (−10%)

Size(ha)

Households

Population with 3 persons per household

0.01–0.3 0.3–0.5 0.5–1 ha 1–2 ha 2–5 ha

1 2–3 4–12 10–20 20–40

3 6–9 12–45 30–60 60–120

Population with 5 persons per household 5 10–15 20–75 50–100 100–200

Number of sites recovered

Estimated total sites

11 13 19 12 22 77

23 27 40 25 46 161

Estimated population (3 per household) 69 162–243 480–1800 750–1500 2760–5520 4200–9200 3780–5000

Note: Owing to the nature of the published data, in which site areas are postulated by overall scatter, sizes have been crudely estimated. The recalibration relied on the description of the surface scatters given by the two surveys, the descriptions of sites and visual identification in satellite imagery, and then gross arbitrary estimates if neither of these sources were available (e.g. “small scatter” = 0.5 ha). Sites that Todd identified as, for example, 25 ha with CA material “spread across the site” were reduced to an arbitrary value of 6 ha owing to the lack of any other descriptive information, particularly related to architecture or other settlement material. These scatters, particularly found by the VVP, arguably represent the clustering of sites and small activity areas.

Emergent Settlements

Vasilikos and Maroni region was almost equal in population size to the presumably town-based inhabitants at Amathus, although clearly less densely settled. Communities were moving beyond the slopes of the rivers to venture into more productive smaller watersheds in nearby side drainages, into the pine and oak forests of the foothills, and across the coastal plain. This period marks the first extensive settlement in the area around the village of Mari in the lower Vasilikos Valley, for example (Todd 2013: 100). Unlike the organized Late Bronze Age settlement shift to the lowlands to maintain better access to coastal trade, Archaic settlers took over all niches of the river valleys and foothills, without statistically significant patterns in relation to relief, slope, elevation, or aspect (Kearns 2015: 209–210; see also Bevan 2002: 27). An average slope range of 1–10° characterizes the majority of Archaic sites, while several areas under 1 ha in the 17–24° slope range, between 100–200 m asl, may indicate pastoral activity in the form of shelters or sites with livestock folds or pens. In the varied terrains of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, settlers also seemed to favor low to mid-relief for permanent installations within 50 m of the edges of small watersheds, presumably to maximize run-off drainage (Kearns 2015: 214). While the Amathusian necropoleis and emerging town partly looked seaward, investing in the harbor facilities that made it a stopping point on eastern Mediterranean transit routes, the Vasilikos and Maroni region offered a range of landscapes for working, living, and gathering. By the eighth century, the prominent families and households who had seized control of and reengineered landesque possibilities, for example in now productive olive groves or vineyards or in drainages with access to nearperennial water sources, could manage the riskiness of inter-annual variabilities, while the rest as well as newcomers to the valleys made up the remainder. Landesque capital in incrementally resilient soils spurred some households and extended kin networks to scale up production to more marginally arable areas, as those with the labor resources, technologies, and ability to handle “bad years” were in a better position to take on the risks of dry farming on the calcareous and gypsum soils of the hilly region (Manning 2019). Those with accumulated wealth could also reinvest in rural land use industries, and it is evident that quarrying, copper mining, and probably logging began again by the eighth and seventh centuries bce. Undoubtedly, these extractive ties to shifting resource materialities were driven in part by urban demands, as town authorities or officials required payment in crops or goods as well as needed metals, stones, and woods, sent abroad as gifts or staged for “conspicuous production” in the large-scale storage of agropastoral commodities around the acropolis (sensu Van Oyen 2020: 38–39; see also Christakis 2008).

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The Vasilikos and Maroni region was becoming rural, with its own kinds of social formations but whose members also interacted in diverse ways with Amathus. These included modes of craft production and cultural and ideological practices emanating from ideological centers, as well as forms of tax or tithes to the town, in crops, animals, or semi-luxuries. While zooarchaeological analyses for the region and period are limited, over a thousand fragmentary bones of sacrificial animals discarded within the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Amathus record the frequent supply of goats, sheep, and to a lesser extent cattle for urban spectacles, a percentage of which arguably came from Vasilikos and Maroni hill regions (Columeau 1996: 782; 2006). These local communities also invested in copper mining, sandstone and gypsum quarrying, and wood cutting. Landowners who appealed to some sort of ties to earlier Bronze Age sites and occupation areas may have even shored up their legitimacy through claims of ancestral lineage, inhabiting upper elevation or lowland sites with visible articulations of earlier times: walls, terraces, olive groves, tombs. As explored in the next section, they also sought out lowland areas for novel expressions of identity and community, particularly through the demarcation of mortuary grounds. Ceramic analysis from the Vasilikos Valley surveys reveals a decline in activity during the sixth century bce, the CA II period, and a serious contraction of local occupation by the fifth century, with very little evidence of settlement during the Classical period (Todd 2013: 102; Georgiadou 2016: 104; 2018; Rautman 2016). Survey evidence is notoriously hard to date, however, and more high-resolution investigations are critical for exposing through excavation that many sites may have continued into the fifth and fourth centuries bce. It is telling that several of the sites with inventoried fragments of the CA II period cluster near the area of copper mines, such as at Asgata Kambos, Kalavasos Spilios, and Kalavasos Yirtomylos, or in the alluviated plains closer to the coast, near Tochni Petreli, where landesque features drew more persistent occupations. Yet florescence in this Vasilikos region is limited to the centuries between the late ninth and late seventh centuries bce, a stretch of time for households and communities to stake claims to certain areas of agropastoral or rural wealth, and for the larger population and non-elites to sustain subsistence farming and to provide small tithes. This oscillation in the density and permanence of settlements contrasts strongly with Amathus itself, where the town’s cultural efflorescence and economic prosperity, the first minted royal coins geared towards local markets, and the solidification of its city walls peak during the Classical period, before its conquest by the Ptolemies at the end of the fourth century bce (Hermary 2015).15 The fifth century was also when inhabitants refurbished and

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

rebuilt the palatial center for the third time, after the destructions spurred by Amathus’ abstention from the Ionian revolt (Hdt 5.104, 108–16). It does seem that despite the turmoil of the early fifth century bce, when ancient texts record that the Amathusian sovereign sided with the Persians, the nearer chora of Amathus recovered quickly, and continued to be occupied throughout the Classical period with the highest density of settlements dating to the Hellenistic period (Petit 1996: 178; Serghidou 2007; Hermary 2015: 19–23). By the fifth century bce, the Vasilikos Valley was clearly no longer as productive for village-based economies, and the probable catalyst was a pull of most households to Amathus to live in its lower town, already established during the Archaic period, to work its immediate chorai (Aupert 1996). The first indications of a perimeter stone and mudbrick wall indeed date to the latter decades of the sixth century bce, suggesting that the closing of the Archaic period saw a shift in rural migration to the town and the need for a demarcated area for more classes to live (Balandier 2000; see also Aupert 1996: 147). For the same reasons that Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios had likely drawn in farming communities from the Amathus and Pyrgos areas during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries bce, with its control over lowland terrain and coastal trade, Amathus became the regional Iron Age town with a maritime harbor, crafting industries, and labor specialization. The families who remained in the Vasilikos region after the fifth century bce were possibly the most wealthy landowners or officials of the Amathusian state, in control of significantly larger and more extensive properties in the depopulated valleys and with the ability to expend the labor and personnel to manage diversified and fragmented plots, orchards, groves, livestock, and likely also mineral and timber access. Given the salience of certain places in their social worlds, some locals may also have wanted to preserve ties to tombs or shrines rather than take up residence in town. The Maroni Valley presents a slightly different pattern, as it currently lacks evidence for ninth-century occupations but indicates slightly more settlement activity during the fifth and fourth centuries bce, perhaps driven by its cultivable coastal terrain, harbor activity, and its closer integration with Kition further east.

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes These growing landscape practices, involving novel constellations of resource materialities and requiring increasingly permanent and sedentized taskscapes and lived practice, fostered the growth of places for

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Figure 5.6 Survey findings showing tombs or cemeteries (red stars). 75 m DEM

gathering. The congealing of local and regional structures within the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds arguably generated the need for spaces for novel community life and for practices of affiliation that could reproduce critical social bonds, not just between local groups but in relation to larger state bodies. The weathering entangling these Archaic communities with the south-central river valleys forged territorial imaginaries where place and landscape-making were conjoined, especially through events and routinized practices of mortuary and religious life. The creation of mortuary landscapes and sacred places was driven, in part, by the emerging social requirements of a polity, reinforcing its territorial messaging through common ritual and funerary schemes, as in the seemingly inclusive preference for local forms of pottery in ritual practices on the Amathusian acropolis. But these landscapes also emerged through contingent and locally circumscribed environmental shifts that made possible salient configurations for gathering places, senses of rootedness and temporality, and possibilities for social action. Tomb sites identified through survey, primarily through the association of finer wares of the Archaic periods with the typology of ceramics derived from known mortuary records, appear in all inhabited areas of the legacy survey area in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys (Figure 5.6). Archaeologists

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

have shown that extramural mortuary practices across the island began during the transition to the first-millennium bce, with large necropoleis and other cemeteries placed outside settlement areas (Rupp 1987; Blackwell 2010).16 In this south-central region, as no large urban centers exist, the spatial analysis of mortuary remains must necessarily rely on a sketch of how they interrelated with the kinds of varied settlement patterns discussed earlier in this chapter and more broadly in Chapter 4. A basic pattern reveals that clusters of sites, for example near the copper mines, were connected spatially to burial grounds on the edges of ridges, gullies, and other visibly apparent landscape features within daily walking distance (0–4 km). Our ability to discern how these mortuary remains might represent changing community dynamics at levels of kinship is severely limited. At a general level, in the upper variegated parts of the valleys closer to the interface with igneous geologies, the survey evidence indicates that burial grounds were never located in particularly inaccessible places and were relatively well connected to small-scale routes of movement between settlements and their presumed agricultural, pastoral, and production areas. Further down the valleys and along the coastal plain, however, evidence for tombs and necropoleis, combined with assemblages recovered through rescue excavation of tombs, suggest the creation of distinct mortuary landscapes on intervisible marine terraces (Kearns 2019: 282, fig. 9.5). Given the climatic variability of the karstic topography of the lower stretches of the valleys during the eighth century bce, the geomorphological conditions of these marine terraces were more visually and even tangibly prominent. As argued earlier, the coastal plain has seen some of the most recent disruption owing to a variety of industrial, urbanizing, and infrastructural improvements related to land consolidation, irrigation, and road construction that undoubtedly skews the surface collections of archaeological materials. As Todd (2013: 5–6, 133) has noted, the recording of settlements in these areas is necessarily challenged by lack of visibility and accessibility. Nonetheless, from the available material and impressions of these earlier surveys, a discrete pattern of mortuary evidence suggests that Archaic communities did invest in place-making practices that connected tombs and cemeteries to novel claims to territory, with over two-thirds of Archaic tombs in places without previous prehistoric or protohistoric activity (Kearns 2015: 229). While the shift to extramural burials is a common island-wide signature of the Iron Age period, the Vasilikos and Maroni evidence reveals coordinated efforts to distance these more littoral cemetery depositions from prehistoric places. Whereas survey and excavated evidence for tombs in the upper stretches of the valleys has more affinity to Neolithic and Bronze Age

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occupations, placing tombs on intermittently occupied limestone ridges overlooking the rivers or higher elevation slopes close to settlements, the tombs identified in the lower regions tend to be in places with no associated material scatters from prehistoric or protohistoric periods. It would be a stretch to argue that Archaic communities necessarily recognized Bronze Age remains and avoided them, but the ruins, markings, or features of earlier periods in this local coastal zone were perhaps distracting for the spatial requirements for new burial grounds. Instead, local leaders, or heads of kinship groups, chose to inter their community on other striking ridges. Some of these relic marine and alluvial terraces were intervisible with the flatter coastal plain and with indications of settlements, suggesting that the sighting of tombs or mortuary grounds was an important element of their placement, or at least reproduced potentially important social bonds between lived places within the landscape. Archaeologists have argued for these tomb sites as locales for feasting and the social performances of the living, engendering affiliation and belonging to kin groups, communities, social classes, and even regional formations (e.g. Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012). It is significant that in a period of dramatic landscape transformations and the increasing investments in these river valleys, one local mortuary terrain emerged in places affording unique conditions for processions, gatherings, and rituals. What we know from limited excavations of the local mortuary signature reveals an interesting counter to the Amathusian record. This signature speaks to the growth of social boundaries and inequalities at scales constructed not just in subordination to town but in efforts to sustain local complexities. Rescue excavations at Mari in the lower Vasilikos Valley, for example, revealed an unlooted tomb dating to the CA I period, around 650 bce, whose material offerings arguably exalted the status of a figure with access to foreign goods (Hadjicosti 1997b; Kearns 2019: 281). The rock-cut chamber tomb included three benches, with an adult male placed on the northern bench, an adult female holding an infant on the southern, and several grave offerings on the western (Hadjicosti 2002). While the goods deposited in this grave, including common ceramic vessels of presumably local manufacture holding foodstuffs, do not show the same levels of accessibility to foreign markets known in the elite necropoleis of Amathus to the west, the assemblage of iron swords, possible bronze weights, and uncommon vessel shapes indicates that the main interred male figure had acquired a class differentiated from others in his community. Conceivably, the surviving kinship group buried this local individual with the mortuary warrior aesthetic appearing elsewhere on the island during the early

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

first-millennium bce in iconography and “epic” funerary objects (Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012: 195). Yet the inclusion of a “wife” figure, as well as a child, speaks to the importance of the family and household unit and to the social time of intergenerational ties. For the woman, her role as mother is further emphasized through her positioning with the child and the lack of other ornamentation such as jewelry (Hadjicosti 2002). The funerary practices and final deposition of this family thus seem oriented less towards the display of wealth than to the power and gendered authority of the household and its provisioning after death, anticipating its importance to the local families and kin who remained. Similar burials found through excavation in the valleys disrupt the idea of a dependent, homogeneous countryside. These singular and disaggregated examples consist of mostly small-scale burials of a few individuals, with some evidence of reburial at later phases during the early fifth century bce, and hence possibly the intergenerational practices of familial or kinship descent groups (a general trend; Hamilakis and Sherratt 2012: 200). One disturbed tomb excavated by the Department of Antiquities in a cemetery on the southern edge of the village of Maroni dates to the CA I period, and its deposits, including an iron adze and imported Red Slip vessels, reveal interconnections between the region and other polities on the island (Karageorghis 1972; Christodoulou 1972). At a locality named Khirokitia Gouppes near the prominent Neolithic site of Khirokitia Vounoi further up the Maroni valley, rescue excavations recovered material covering the Archaic-Classical transition, attesting to the reuse by later generations to bury the dead with objects such as silver and gold jewelry and a bronze mirror (Flourentzos 1985: n. 1; Karageorghis 1984: 922). Here, the visible old walls or features of the nearby Neolithic settlement may have formed different understandings of burial and senses of the past. The tomb deposits suggest interactions with interregional markets as well as potential continuities in local communities between the sixth and fourth centuries bce. Similar continuities are evident in tombs of Archaic and Classical date excavated during the construction of a highway in an area called Kalavasos Kafkalies (Karageorghis 1969b: 19, figs. 66, 67, 69; Johnson and Hordynsky 1982: 65; Todd 2004: 53–54). By the sixth and fifth centuries bce, particularly rich tombs in this area had dozens of luxury goods, including silver and gold jewelry and ornaments, plaques and figurines, weapons, and prized vessels, most notably two amphoriskoi produced at Amathus, similar to the kind that opened this chapter. The links to community produced and reproduced through mortuary practices were partly constructed at the scale of these local burial politics, while simultaneously also constructed to participate in the

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Figure 5.7 Distribution of metal weapons in Iron Age tombs, Amathus (adapted from Janes 2013: 158, fig. 9)17

more hierarchical scales of funerary assemblages shoring up the legitimacy of ruling bodies at Amathus (Janes 2013: 158, fig. 9; Petit 2019; Figure 5.7). They are therefore better viewed as local interpretations of urbane trends at Amathus, taking on the trappings of wealthy culture showcased in funerary practices and monumental, highly visible necropoleis around the town, but with clear pivots to varied audiences of nearby communities. Recent excavations at a site called Amathus Loures, roughly 1 km east of the Amathusian acropolis, provide compelling reasons to hypothesize how urban and rural leaders were becoming integrated while maintaining and advancing their own place-making interests. The site consists of a series of enigmatic built structures such as rectilinear and ovoid platforms, dating from the Geometric to Hellenistic periods, which include two underground built tombs with rectangular burial chambers and dromoi interpreted to have been used for multiple interments (Stefani and Violaris 2018: 69, 75). The two tombs (T 964 and 961), one of which included an in situ skeleton of an adult male, have been preliminarily dated to the tenth to seventh centuries bce (CG II to CA I, Stefani and Violaris 2018). Not only do these burial assemblages constitute the earliest recovered examples of constructed Iron Age tombs, but their contents also point to the aforementioned indices of regional wealth: locally produced ceramics of a range of dining and serving shapes, some imported Levantine pottery, as well as

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

sophisticated iron swords, knives, and daggers. Intriguingly, the two burial assemblages produced no examples of Aegean pottery, a striking contrast to the contemporary tombs of the other Amathusian necropoleis (Stefani and Violaris 2018: 80–81). In addition, the excavators have noted the intentional choice to locate these monumental burial chambers at a distance from other mortuary grounds, “a need to create a separate and possibly a distinct burial ground, adjacent and visible from the main road … firstly reached when coming to Amathous from the east” (Stefani and Violaris 2018: 81). I have argued that communities in the Vasilikos and Maroni region were starting to make similar claims to land, beginning slightly later during the ninth century bce, suggesting that Amathusian leaders were providing the norms for how to anchor status to meaningful place through familial or ancestral lineages. Is it further possible that these powers, aware of burgeoning interests and competition over land in these south-central landscapes, were broadcasting the prominence of their long-lived households for their subjects to the east? Several platform structures and features such as limestone stelai at Amathus Loures suggest that communities throughout the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods reused the site for gatherings, perhaps ritually incorporating newer generations and simultaneously upholding their social boundaries. While still preliminary, these findings attest to the unruliness of these mortuary landscapes in the emergent Archaic horizon, and may yet highlight how intra-elite distinctions manifested through senses of place attachment. The Vasilikos and Maroni region has also proven to be a testing ground for exploring the ritual territorialization of the Cypriot state as sanctuaries, shrines, and other sacred places became marshalled as boundaries (Fourrier 2002, 2013; Papantoniou et al. 2015; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). Papantoniou has convincingly shown, for example, how the growth and proliferation of sacred sites in the region were linked to the emergent politics of the Archaic state at Amathus as well as integrated with developments at Kition and Idalion. As frontier landmarks, rural and extra-urban sanctuaries generated the state’s interregional status and its relationships with neighbors. In this argument, such places, as sites for community gathering, became operative in the machinations of sovereignty, as ruling classes furnished them with visible and legible claims of ownership. Important in the interweaving of polis and chora were the ritual processions led from the town’s major sanctuary to the outer peripheries, establishing the social and political links between the center and its more remote limits. The framework helpfully directs attention from the town center to the territorial seams undergirding community definition (see also Snodgrass 1980:

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Figure 5.8 Distribution of mentioned sanctuaries or shrines as well as figurine survey finds (yellow triangles), showing Archaic settlements and tombs (red stars). 75 m DEM

38–40), and certainly for Cyprus, the remarkably restricted distribution of lifesize statuary at some extra-urban sanctuaries points to their generative power in performing class and status. For the Vasilikos and Maroni region, while survey and excavations have not exposed many shrines or sanctuaries, a handful of presumed religious sites seem to fit ideally into this understanding of rural sacred landscapes (Figure 5.8). On a high ridge connected to a route from the lower Maroni Valley inland sits a sanctuary dated to the Archaic to early Hellenistic periods, named Vavla Kapsalaes, with commanding views across the Vasilikos valley and back towards the west (Morden and Todd 1994; Todd 2013: 35–36). Within the monumental debris of the Late Bronze Age urban complex at Maroni Vournes, on the coastal plain, a shrine operated between the eighth and third centuries bce (Ulbrich 2013). While Vavla Kapsalaes was potentially oriented to a male deity, as shown through surface remains of figurines and statuaries of a Pan-like god, devotion at Maroni Vournes is ascribed to a male and female pair of deities (Ulbrich 2013; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018: 121). These two sites, plotted between the states of Amathus, Kition, and Idalion to the north, provide a template for how

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

border sanctuaries worked. Despite some stylistic elements shared with Idalion and Kition, the material signatures of their assemblages suggest close relationships to Amathus, especially in the recovered ceramics, and viewshed and mobility analysis has shown arguably intentional preoccupations with the Amathusian acropolis (Papantoniou and Vionis 2017: fig. 3; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018). Intentionally positioned by urban authorities in frontier zones, as border claims, they would have made visible the extent of this monarchical power, reproducing the territoriality of the center through the norms and conventions of Cypriot ritual. While at a general level there are convincing claims for the potential politics of Archaic sanctuaries far removed from populous town centers, these applications have tended to homogenize rural or extra-urban sacred spaces into top-down, political operations. If every site near borderlands becomes a royal claim to territory or a grab at the possession of critical resources such as copper, as is argued for Vavla Kapsalaes for example, the framework can be universalizing and flattens the possibilities for local variation (see Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018: 566). There is a risk in treating ceramic styles, statuettes, or topographical position as essentialized political traits. While recent investigations take a number of locational factors into account, such as topographical position with implications for visibility and accessibility, the sites have largely been important for their stationary position between hypothetical political boundaries, and less so for the communities that would have been engaging with them: urban, rural, mixed, or in between. At the same time, smaller rural shrines or sanctuaries that lack the signs of state-level investment can be elided in these analyses, rendering them apolitical. Such might be the case for indications of sanctuaries recovered by the French survey around Amathus, at Ayios Tychonas Asvestoton and Armenochori Lazarides, for example, which lack real dating resolution (Petit 1996: 180). The former is particularly interesting given the findings of coroplastic figurines, locally made, but in the style of Phoenician and Levantine ritual materials (Fourrier and Petit-Aupert 2007). Arguments that privilege structuralist geographies obscure the very local formations, as suggested here, that created ritual spaces on their own terms and for the maintenance of social boundaries parallel or in opposition to the state (cf. Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018: 571). A couple of these kinds of shrines found in the Vasilikos and Maroni region expose more of the variability and peculiarity of local religious networks entangled in different ways with town politics. Along the littoral at a locality called Maroni Yialos, archaeologists recorded a large limestone statuette of the Egyptian deity Bes holding an animal, probably a lion

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Figure 5.9 (a) Map of Vasilikos Valley showing location of ancient mines and Kalavasos Skouries and (b) Photograph of small stone-built structure at Kalavasos Skouries. 75 m DEM

(Karageorghis 1978: 881; Johnson 1980: 6; Swinton 1994: 353). The Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project collected a considerable concentration of later Iron Age materials in this microregion, particularly later forms of Red Slip ware, suggesting the possibilities of a Classical sanctuary (Swinton 1994: 355). In addition, numerous fragments of votive figurines, including some in the “horse rider” style, amplify the signature of a space of ritual practice, one with potential maritime connections to foreign religious themes. Further up the valley, the Department of Antiquities recorded another probable sanctuary site at Vavla Metaxas, with limestone statuette and figurine remains and architectural features indicating use from the Archaic to Hellenistic periods (Flourentzos 2008: 82). Around the copper mining area in the Vasilikos valley, rescue investigations identified a small sanctuary, Kalavasos Skouries, consisting of a stone-built structure and numerous terracotta figurines eroding out of later fourth-century bce copper slag heaps (Flourentzos 2008: 102; Kassianidou 2012: 233; Socratous et al. 2015; Figure 5.9). Slag is the byproduct of the smelting process in which ores are heated to remove the valuable metal bodies inside. Dating to the Classical period, Kalavasos Skouries seems to represent a very small local shrine, with a permanent cult building and likely open

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

Figure 5.10 Dancers in ring composition, Kalavasos Skouries (courtesy of Vasiliki Kassianidou)

air temenos attended or maintained by worshippers bringing homemade or locally crafted figurines of female and male dancers (Fourrier 2009b; Kassianidou 2012: 233–234; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018: 566; Figure 5.10).18 The figurine compositions, described by the excavators as “crude,” belong to well-known types of dancing ring scenes found at urban sanctuaries and exported across the eastern Mediterranean (Averett 2007: 196–198). In the geologically liminal zone between agrarian and copper production regimes and resource exploitation, mining and smelting may have come to acquire a performative aspect, involving a choreography of flames, sounds, and malleable metals.19 The material signatures of the shrine and its vernacular character suggest that it was an arena of small spectacles aimed at local political affiliations to community, reproducing broader ritual domains of practice at intimate scales and anchoring those involved in nearby tasks to meaningful places (Swidler 2001; Brace et al. 2006). In other words, Kalavasos Skouries exemplifies how particular scalar arrangements between mining community and polity were socially constructed and constituted by political formations (Brown and Purcell 2005). The mid-first-millennium bce sanctuary set within the walls of the impressive Late Cypriot Ashlar Building at Maroni Vournes speaks to

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Figure 5.11 Maroni Vournes, Ashlar Building, with Archaic sanctuary walls and remodeling shown in orange and inset of drone photo of remains (adapted from Ulbrich 2013: 33, fig. 1)

the complicated reinvestment of this monumental space, and the possible attraction of the surviving materials of this built form for the ideational habits of a much later generation (Manning 1998; Ulbrich 2011, 2012, 2015; Fourrier 2013: 108; Figure 5.11). Based on a study of the deposits, the central parts of the older Ashlar Building appear to have fit

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the pattern of Archaic ritual or cult spaces created by the mid-eighth century bce and abandoned by the Hellenistic period in the third century bce (Cadogan 1983: 156–157; Ulbrich 2012, 2013; Papantoniou 2012b). Excavations revealed a small shrine that altered some of the existing monumental masonry in the building. The users shaped an entryway from a pebble-floored square (A) into a partially roofed courtyard (C), reusing LC masonry as pillar bases, and added an unusual stone structure (DB) that constrained access to the inner sanctuary rooms, E and F (Ulbrich 2012: 177–279). Once inside the courtyard, benches and other fixtures were used for libations and votive practices, during which numerous figurines were deposited, most dating from the final phase during the Hellenistic period (Ulbrich 2013). Rituals and activity at this sanctuary by the Classical and Hellenistic periods were devoted to a pair of gods probably related to rites of fertility, represented in the form of female figurines with vegetal crowns and nude male limestone statuettes of the Cypriot Apollo “Pan” type, as well as votaries of centaurs and animals (Ulbrich 2012, 180–191; 2013; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018, 121). Since excavations at the site have revealed no evidence of destruction, it is likely that almost five centuries after their abandonment in around 1200 bce, the site’s ashlar masonry and existing structural elements offered a salient space for community investment. Maroni Vournes was not a ruin during the later ninth and eighth centuries bce, a heap of rubble, but a locally known source of old walls. The monument may have generated feelings of attachment for Archaic populations working and moving through the land nearby, as well as the crystallization of some sense of time prior. These lived experiences with old walls and sandstone blocks, as well as the more pragmatic logics of restoring existing buildings for new purposes, undoubtedly amplified the space’s utility as an arena for performing senses of community. Nearby, at the site of Maroni Aspres where the MVASP survey found a fragmentary Archaic limestone figure during surface collections, actors also reused the visible, existing walls of an LC structure to support an uncertain structure during the Archaic period, discussed further in Chapter 6 (Manning and De Mita 1997: 128; Nakou and De Mita n.d.: 18–19). Papantoniou (2012b: 304–305) has argued for similar mechanics behind the establishment of a tomb cult in triangulation with the sanctuary of Aphrodite and the royal residence on the Amathusian acropolis: “The act of manipulating memory in the late Cypro-Geometric/ early Cypro-Archaic period, should therefore be interpreted as a wish of certain families or social groups to preserve and emphasize their ties with the past in an age of political, economic and social transformations.” What

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I suggest here is that Archaic communities were not preserving memory, as the time lag in occupation phases seems too great, but instead consciously using old things in altered settings – weathered and transformed by emerging practice – to develop their own social stratigraphy in the pursuit of new kinds of bounding and differentiation. The available evidence makes it more ambiguous what kind of community the Maroni Vournes shrine would have served. Given its placement near the flatter coastal route, and its visibility from the sea on a slightly raised contour, the sanctuary may have had importance beyond the southern Maroni Valley, with its development inside the LC Ashlar Building an intentional visual reclamation of impressive remains to garner more attention. The creation of a narrow entryway to the inner cult space, moreover, may suggest some form of ritual authority controlling movement and visibility within the shrine or religious or ritual modes of entry, especially for larger audiences not fully witness to the sacred (Ulbrich 2013).20 On the other hand, Anja Ulbrich (2011, 2012, 2015), through a study of the deposited figurines and objects within the sanctuary, has argued for a rural quality to the shrine that served local populations on a smaller scale. While it is important to avoid simplistic equations between iconography and devotional practice, the recovered terracotta and limestone votives associated with vegetation and animals may suggest the preoccupations of rural communities, at least by the Hellenistic period. We can theorize, albeit tentatively, that groups were aware of common norms of worship and ritual on display at Amathus, while also exploiting visibly local ruins for their own practices of gathering and community bonds. When considered at a macroscale, rural sanctuaries appear critical to the political economy of the state, especially those with any proximity to valued resources, such as copper. Yet as proxies they also become flattened, and their smaller-scale social lives, or their roles driving the interactions of differently scaled social and economic networks, are more interesting if their histories are not viewed a priori as urban motivations for landscape control. Difficult to discern through survey material, for example, are the household ritual practices that would have centered smaller social worlds around the family. Fragmentary figurines recovered in the Vasilikos and Maroni valley attest to the widespread appearance of domestic sacred objects (Figure 5.8). These incorporations of cult or ritual within households or family networks can reveal how relationships were defined with kin and with outsiders, preserving ties to property or reproducing gender roles (Faraone 2008).

Mortuary and Ritual Landscapes

The evidence from the Vasilikos and Maroni region offers a picture of the variety of ritual audiences within the Archaic polity. A site such as Kalavasos Skouries, as a place for public assembly, was only salient to local senses of community and territory, as articulated by Smith (2015: 57): senses connote “the domain of evocation, of signification, where assemblages work to (re)define value.” Manifested in the weathered interface of the igneous pillow lavas and the sedimentary chalks and marls of the river valley, Kalavasos Skouries emerged as a ritually evocative space, materially powerful owing to the mutable terrain of deep slopes and gullies, springs, forests, and metallic lithologies. As spaces for more elaborate ritual gatherings, on the other hand, sites such as Vavla Kapsalaes and Maroni Vournes filled the growing need for local domains for fostering political and social affiliation and constructed opportunities for inclusion as well as exclusion. Conspicuous places, on ridges with commanding overlooks (Vavla Kapsalaes), or on rising hills and terraces of the lower valleys and coastal plains (Maroni Vournes and Yialos), were important for engaging with larger authoritative structures. These investments in place that generated local character existed outside and alongside the demands of polities such as Amathus, Idalion, and Kition, and defy easy categorization. These sanctuaries adhered to the state through locally complex seams and at registers that threaded urban and rural participants together or apart in varying degrees. Signs of solidarity as well as local leadership or competition therefore begin to peak through the mortuary and ritual landscapes of this region, building up a picture of networks of rurality generated through daily and momentous practices. Potential translocal status-builders, members of prominent households, cultivated access to the urbanism of Amathus and moved beyond and between the town and the rural edges. Their emergence in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys is difficult to trace to any specific local or interregional roots, but their ability to gain some form of status was undoubtedly tied to the management of land use and of shifting weathered conditions. By the Archaic period, as argued earlier, members of these local communities were investing in their ability to control successful harvests to produce semi-luxuries such as olive oil and wine and cereal crops, as well as other wool, mineral, clay, and timber goods. Sustaining their ownership of productive land or industrial areas, these figures worked this control by engaging with regional and interregional networks, bringing urban stamps of status into rural social fields in contingent ways. For this region, the kind of translocal entanglement with urban actors as well as broader, eastern

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Mediterranean markets was not achieved through a single access point, social or physical. To connect the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys to Amathus overland routes were likely critical, especially for moving copper, gypsum, amphorae of oils or other heavy bulk commodities, as were coastal routes. In the next section, I explore how the Vasilikos and Maroni region, while having direct connections to seaborne trade, became a place for different modes of engagement with regional networks that suggest it was more than a rural backwater.

A South-Central Small World? The Vasilikos and Maroni region stands outside common predictions for the farming and pasturage modalities of town inhabitants walking to fragmented plots, and would therefore have served as a more distant edge of the state. As explored earlier, this extent from the town engendered more socially and materially constructed vernacular scales, removed from the daily gaze of urban authorities, at which local actors and social inequalities could unfold. Yet this distance also calls into question its cohesiveness as a region. Similarly compelling is the orientation of these valleys towards island-wide and interregional networks, given their immediate access to and evident exploitation of the coast. With opportunities for harbor activity, did these inhabitants engage with maritime trade? Was access to trade instead monitored and controlled by Amathus? The south-central coast forms a coherent hydrological segment of the island, delimited by natural features to the west, at Cape Dolos, and to the east by the Maroni headlands, stretching further east to the cape of Kiti in what is now the periurban extent of the city of Larnaca on the eastern coast of the island (Karyda 2016; Figure 5.12). The geomorphological and environmental conditions are broadly similar across this expanse today, with non-perennial rivers radiating out from the Troodos massif that have been studied for the alluvial fans, sediment transfer, and seismological changes they have caused across the region in tandem with human development (e.g. Gomez 1987; Waters et al. 2010; Murray and Robertson 2020). As noted earlier, relic Quaternary marine terraces are a predominant feature of the lower plains and coastal areas, providing intermittent high points with exposed and eroded carbonate rocks and gravels, while the beaches consist largely of sand and pebbles on low-lying land interspersed with higher scarps. To the west of the coastal village of Zygi now lies a cement works and petrochemical industries, including a liquefied natural gas terminal

A South-Central Small World?

Figure 5.12 Rivers and known ancient anchorages along the south-central coast. 75 m DEM (adapted from Andreou 2018: 3, fig. 2)

and various jetties of the Vasilikos Energy Center, which have increasingly expanded and encroached upon nearby archaeological sites (Todd 2016; Andreou 2018). This stretch of coastal waters has indeed become a pollution hotspot (Andreou et al. 2019). Despite these disturbances, it is reasonable to hypothesize how communities of the Archaic horizon were oriented, or not, towards this relatively consistent and accessible maritime sphere. While no clear remains of an ancient harbor installation survive in the Vasilikos and Maroni coastal area, in part owing to the disruption of the coastline and likely siltation over submerged features, we can surmise what coastal activity might have entailed. Coastal sailing, known increasingly by the more narrowly defined term cabotage, can take the form of sheltering, mooring, or beaching without permanent infrastructural elements in places conditioned by terrain and weather phenomena (Leidwanger 2013). Winds are a particularly important constituent part of the mechanics of coastal sailing, especially the interactions of breezes that accommodate movement against prevailing winds (Karyda 2016: 80). These latter tend to be easterly to westerly during winter months in this region, with

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stronger southwesterly and south winds during the summer, for which the south-central coast is particularly exposed, thereby necessitating efforts to find shelter (Karyda 2016: 89). Based on these features, as well as the recovery of numerous stone anchors through underwater survey, scholars have argued convincingly for the presence of several putative anchorages and shipping and distribution sites linked to local, regional, and interregional trade, particularly for the Late Bronze Age period (Manning and De Mita 1997; Andreou and Sewell 2016; Andreou 2018; Andreou et al. 2019). The Vasilikos and Maroni region’s premodern coastal access points include Tochni Lakkia, Maroni Tsaroukkas, and the nearby Late Roman site of Zygi Petrini, all with evidence of workshops, storage, and residential areas, as well as inferred harbor locations around Maroni Yialos and Vrysoudhia (Leidwanger 2013; see also Rautman et al. 2003). Further east, evidence clusters at other areas along the coast at the mouths of the Pentaschoinos and Xeros rivers and at Mazotos, where recent excavations have revealed a Late Classical shipwreck carrying Chian wine amphorae (Demesticha 2009; Demesticha et al. 2014). The underwater discovery of dozens of stone anchors likely dating to the Late Bronze Age around the site of Maroni Tsaroukkas, for example, as well as the remains of large carved sandstone blocks, attests to at least some sailing activity and the shipping of building material related to the monumental structures found inland (Manning et al. 2002; Andreou and Sewell 2016; Fulton et al. 2016; Andreou et al. 2019). Central to the Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios trading system would have been the site of Tochni Lakkia, at the mouth of the Vasilikos river, where ongoing work has revealed building foundations and storage of agropastoral or other goods, as well as evidence of craft production such as textiles and pottery manufacture, in the presence of a kiln, and significant amounts of local and imported ceramics. As Andreou and colleagues (2019) have claimed, the evidence recorded at these sites, combined with pedestrian survey and the archaeological record inland, suggest tightly interwoven trading systems during the Late Bronze Age, using the network-analysis term “small world” employed by scholars such as Thomas Tartaron (2013) and Irad Malkin (2011) to theorize ancient Mediterranean maritime communities. While decades of previous research have focused largely on the evidence for long-distance contact and exchange, as markers for the rise of social complexity, these recent findings are instead offering a picture of a more local coastscape of interrelated actors: large administrative urban sites and complexes, mercantile entities, and agropastoral producers who interacted through different forms of land and maritime travel. Much of this activity would have involved smaller anchorages or less permanent

A South-Central Small World?

harbor installations, although they are hard to find archaeologically (Leidwanger 2013, 2014, 2020). It remains possible that an Archaic or Classical anchorage is submerged in the area and not visible, or has been disrupted by shoreline construction (see also Karyda 2016). Cyprian Broodbank (2000: 21–22) and others (Knapp 2008: 24) have forwarded terms such as coastscape and islandscape as important correctives to thinking about the spatiality of island or shoreline communities. The everyday practices and taskscapes of these places would have generated scalar interactions between the settlement groups and governing bodies in the region in a mosaic of small and large sites, activity areas, maritime movement, and surrounding coastal, agricultural, or hinterland spaces. These areas fostered social and economic links as well as tensions between competing elites and institutions, in addition to opportunities for broader, interregional relationships through maritime networks providing access to bulk and prestige commodities and to “knowable places” forging new island identities (Knapp 2008: 24). For the Late Bronze Age, the evidentiary record consists of enough fragments to make a convincing case for this kind of mosaic of interrelationships (Andreou et al. 2019). By the Archaic period, however, evidence for the continuity of this coastal small world in the Vasilikos and Maroni region becomes attenuated. At Tochni Lakkia, there are indications for the intermittent use of the site during the tenth and ninth centuries bce, particularly through the recovery of some CG ceramic fragments, as well as abundant CA material (Andreou and Sewell 2015; Georgiadou 2016: 115–116). There is less evidence for activity elsewhere along the coast during the eighth to fifth centuries bce, despite abundant proxy material for occupation on the coastal plain found through survey ceramics. The Archaic period’s sea-related activities thus require further scrutiny, chiefly to assess how a coastal zone that afforded significant production and distribution during the Bronze Age may have transitioned to a lower-intensity, ad hoc maritime world by the eighth and seventh centuries bce, when the region was arguably more systematically occupied and utilized. How were communities in the Vasilikos and Maroni region managing, exploiting, or stewarding the coastscape for redistribution or communication? And how did these local practices converge or run parallel to those attached to the larger port at Amathus? Scholarship has long recognized Amathus itself as a coastal emporium, “firmly on the route from the Aegean to the Phoenician metropolis” (Coldstream 1998: 6). Indeed, for several other Geometric and Archaic urban sites on Cyprus, Greek imports are scarce, but excavations at Amathus have uncovered numerous examples of traded objects that, outside of

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Salamis, represent the greatest concentrations on the island (Fourrier 2011: 128–129; Georgiadou 2011: 167–170; Janes 2013; Hermary 2015). Significant amounts of Samian or Chian ware suggest a strong connection to the east Aegean during the seventh and sixth centuries bce. By the fourth century bce, numerous examples of Attic bowls and other feasting equipment at the site suggest an orientation, at least on the part of elites, towards Athenian style and culture (Petit 2007). For the earlier Archaic period, the quantities do not suggest a high-frequency exchange network of bulk shipments in Aegean objects, and scholars have instead proposed the use of smaller ships carrying mixed cargos of staples with elements such as prestige ceramic vessels included as gifts between interregional elite families (Rupp 2005). The high numbers of Euboean plates found at Amathus, for example, may suggest a local demand for feasting accoutrements that helped solidify interpersonal connections with Aegean elites without parallel elsewhere. These Amathusian families, with invested interest in managing the port and cross-Mediterranean connections, may have sought to control the Vasilikos and Maroni coastal stretch, dominating maritime traffic and perhaps even restricting or policing the use of smaller anchorages to exclude outsider access to Aegean and Levantine prestige goods. On the other hand, the independent use of smaller anchorages does seem likely, as local landowners began investing more intensively in agropastoral, mineral, and timber production, and would presumably have used the sea in some capacity to move and distribute goods. While there are currently no known wrecks associated with this period off the shores of Cyprus, evidence from contemporary shipwrecks along the Turkish coast can provide a heuristic proxy for the kinds of maritime activity in which the Vasilikos and Maroni coastal world was likely participating. Over the last decade, at least three seventh-century bce shipwrecks containing transport cargos of agricultural produce such as olive oil have been discovered in this region (Greene et al. 2011, 2013; Figure 5.13). The recovered cargo assemblages, including shallow-walled ceramic grinding vessels (mortaria), echo the signatures for agricultural storage and processing equipment associated with rural sites recorded through pedestrian survey. Prominent also are the fragments of Cypriot transport amphorae with upright, horizontal handles, called “basket-handled,” which came from different local workshops on the island and have long production histories throughout the Iron Age and later periods (Demesticha 2021: 436; see also Winther-Jacobsen 2002, 2006; Leidwanger 2006; Caraher et al. 2014: 128– 133). These Plain White ware vessels probably held olive oil, or wine, and during the eighth and seventh centuries bce, Amathus was one of a few

A South-Central Small World?

Figure 5.13 Three Archaic shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey (adapted from Greene et al. 2013: 23)

regional centers producing the amphorae for local and regional use around the eastern Mediterranean (Waiman-Barak et al. 2021: 256).21 While the excavators of these wrecks do not pinpoint the cargos to particular production sites, the assemblages, combining likely Cypriot vessels with those of East Greek provenance, suggest a regional redistribution and economic network from the Aegean to the eastern Mediterranean and Levant that operated between small and middling scales of trade (Greene 2018). Given the heterogeneous cargo of these specific ships, it is unlikely that Cypriot ports were being used but rather that their produce had made its way to Aegean or Anatolian coasts, where it was repackaged onto smaller vessels (Demesticha 2019). These signatures of agropastoral commodities attest to the expansion, through maritime mobility, of market relationships beyond the exchange of luxury goods. If local producers along the south-central coast were managing to send their produce, such as wine or olive oil, off the island out of harbors such as Tochni Lakkia, what were they choosing to use and consume for things such as storage vessels or everyday wares? Recent and preliminary analysis by Anna Georgiadou (2016, 2018) of diagnostic survey material from the Vasilikos and Maroni region has provided, for the first time, a closer look at the ceramic production and consumption trends for the late Geometric and Archaic periods. The ceramic fabrics, shapes, and assemblages recovered from these sites show an overwhelmingly conspicuous orientation

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Figure 5.14 Examples of Cypro-Archaic ceramic fragments found in survey in the Vasilikos Valley, showing range of pithoi and plain wares, basket-handled amphorae, and painted table wares

towards the known workshops at Amathus, with limited exchange with other regional workshops in Paphos and Salamis (Figure 5.14). Especially noticeable in these pieces are the small black inclusions of coarse basaltic sand that are a diagnostic element of the calcareous and iron-rich ceramic fabrics of Amathus (Waiman-Barak et al. 2021; see also Courtois and Velde 1980: 821). Combined with the objects recovered from the rescue

A South-Central Small World?

excavations mentioned earlier, these regional pottery signatures seem to have shared material properties and stylistic attributes with the nearby town, if they were not directly produced there. These findings raise numerous questions about the mobility of potters and craft production techniques and knowledge, the flow of clay or other resources to different production sites, and the direct or indirect shipment, allotment, or marketing of ceramic goods from Amathus to communities in the Vasilikos and Maroni region. Certainly, we can imagine some control of the consumption of prestige vessels among elites (e.g. Crielaard 1999). It is difficult, however, at this stage, to assess the mechanics of ceramic production without more clear evidence for local kilns, clay sources, or manufacturing sites.22 While it seems probable that larger, heavier, and more stationary storage or distribution vessels were made locally, we lack clear indications for community or household production areas. We can speculate, as others have, that independent production workshops existed in some local settlements that provided access to cooking, storage, and drinking and eating vessels for daily household consumption (Rupp 2005: 50). Comparative compositional analysis using ceramic petrography or other methods, such as X-ray fluorescence, is a helpful method for discerning the origins and technological style of pottery fragments, and recent studies have shown that Amathusian ceramics, recovered from the site as well as in the form of imports in Levantine cities such as Tel Dor, carry the familiar signature of basaltic sand (Waiman-Barak et al. 2021).23 Intended investigations will bring much-needed granular focus to the production regimes for the Vasilikos and Maroni area and for our abilities to discern how ceramics may have mediated social difference outside of the workings of elite commodities (Franklin 2014: 169).24 What about imported pots? Only a few pieces of imported ceramics out of hundreds of diagnostic fragments were part of the inventory for the Geometric and Archaic periods by the VVP, including two Euboean vessel fragments: one a plate with semicircles similar to those found in mortuary contexts or in the palace at Amathus, and one the base of a cup, skyphos (Georgiadou 2016: 103; see also Blandin et al. 2008: 133). The former comes from the apparent eighth-century reoccupation of the Bronze Age urban center of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios. The skyphos, on the other hand, was recovered in a small scatter on the edge of the survey grid at Tochni Petreli, near the Ayios Minas River of the Maroni Valley (Todd 2004: 140–141). Imitations of foreign shapes in the survey finds are even more rare, but include one fragment of a Greek-style skyphos, found within an area of looted tombs at the site of Mari Paliambela and produced with

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Figure 5.15 Commercial Levantine amphora with incised markings, Asgata Kambos (drawing courtesy of Anna Georgiadou)

the signature traits of Amathusian workshops (Georgiadou 2016: 106). At a site called Kalavasos Arkhangelos, with very little Archaic evidence, the VVP found a local imitation of a Phoenician trefoil juglet in Red Slip ware, presumably made at Amathus (Georgiadou 2016: 101). About 0.5 km from the known ancient copper mines, ceramic scatters indicate several interrelated small settlements. One fragment of a Levantine amphora was found here at a site called Asgata Kambos and has what appear to be signs incised on the neck after firing (Georgiadou 2016: 103; Figure 5.15). Levantine vessels were a common import at Amathus, possibly distributed by the permanent Phoenician community there, but have not been found frequently outside the main acropolis or tombs area (Alpe 2015: 69; Georgiadou 2018). That pattern contrasts with other regions on the island that show a more widespread dispersal of Levantine imported wares (Rupp 2005). Comparanda with script or markings from Amathus are enigmatic, but may reveal an administrative system connecting sites through island-directed trade using local pottery or recycling vessels produced on the Levantine coast. The discovery of locally made transport amphorae within the palace on the acropolis hill “may denote villages or farming communities that paid the king a tax in kind” (Hermary 2015: 18; see also Fourrier 2009a: 11–13). Numerous examples of these amphorae were also discovered in the fills of the harbor at Amathus and its associated workshop (Empereur 2018). Although speculative given its status as a surface find, the fragment from Asgata Kambos may indicate Amathusadministered trade connecting the mines and laborers to the town. While my own resurvey in the Vasilikos and Maroni regions has shown that small sites did have some imports, mostly in the form of Aegean or Levantine transport amphorae, the Vasilikos and Maroni world of the

A South-Central Small World?

Archaic horizon does not seem to have been bringing significant numbers of non-local ceramic vessels or containers inland for use or reuse except those found in tombs (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). This lack of abundant evidence for the consumption of imported vessels among rural sites is not surprising, as similar trends appear across the island, especially in survey evidence surrounding major sites (Rupp 2005). From the middle and upper parts of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, the sea and coast is not visible nor easily accessible, and movement becomes threaded along the foothills and mountainous paths leading north, west, and east into and across the Troodos mountains (Knapp 2008: 27). It seems probable that in tandem with some coastal mobility and maritime exploitation, likely for ease of bulk transport to sites such as Amathus or Kition, the populations of this region were taking more advantage of interior modes of terrestrial travel for the distribution of goods and people as they came to settle more widely and required forms of inter-village communication and interaction. The natural route moving east and west above the coastal plain, now utilized by a major highway connecting the capital of Lefkosia and the southern city of Limassol, was undoubtedly a significant artery for movement and communication, as suggested above for the salience of the sanctuary at Maroni Vournes. These hypotheses are not meant to deny the Archaic communities of the Vasilikos and Maroni region any interconnections with regional trade or socially constructed coastscapes, or their own senses and imaginations of littoral identity (e.g. Rainbird 1999; Pearson 2006; Fitzpatrick and Anderson 2008; Constantakopoulou 2010). Many living near the shore were undoubtedly engaged with the sea, using land and seamarks for creating legible routes of movement, and probably at local levels were fishing and hunting marine and marshland resources, whose vestiges remain difficult to see archaeologically without more excavated sites.25 As noted earlier, the recovered shipwrecks for the period suggest a probable model of small-scale shipment of Cypriot agricultural or pastoral goods in locally made basket-handled amphorae around the eastern Mediterranean (Greene 2018). The rescue excavations at several tombs in the Vasilikos and Maroni area also show some acquisition of imported objects, although their numbers are overshadowed by local products. We can imagine that in some modes of infrastructure, Amathusian authorities may have closely monitored the movement of imports or objects of wealth outside their town. In cases such as eastern Crete during the sixth and fifth centuries bce, for example, similar patterns of low levels of imported vessels in survey records have alternatively indicated institutional practices of austerity and intentional limitations on sumptuary practices (Brisart 2014). The activities that brought agricultural producers to the coast, however,

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become attenuated if we measure connectivity only by an index of imported ceramics (Murray 2018). We can instead surmise a “logic of indifference,” for example, which connotes how local groups did not choose or have a preference for keeping hold of or saving non-local, imported vessels or modes of consumption (Dietler 2010: 57; see also Erny 2022: 137–138). When the overwhelming majority of pottery assemblages show local or nearly local production, the implications are that these material practices formed more than an undifferentiated category in opposition to elite commodity vessels (Franklin 2014: 169–170). They instead point to familiar and intelligible ways of making and using vessels among and between local, regional, and interregional scales. For this period, local material modes of work and consumption, in part derived from Amathus, were more salient than non-local ones. The imported or non-local iron swords, knives, and adzes recovered from tombs in this area further suggest an achievable performance of class or potentially warrior status that could echo and dialogue with elite shared practices across the island, from the tombs at Salamis to those closer at Amathus. These preferences are more striking when compared with the preceding Late Bronze Age, when local and regional inequalities were driving more conspicuous practices of acquisition of Aegean and Levantine prestige goods (Manning and Hulin 2005; Andreou et al. 2019). For the later historical periods, as well, numerous examples of fine wares such as black-gloss Attic pottery, sigillata, and variations of Late Antique Red Slip tableware and amphorae attest to substantive engagement with non-local trade networks (Petit 2007; Rautman 2016: 133–134). In the unruly horizon argued for the Archaic period, cultural practices and expectations for marking out social distinctions seem to have been geared inward, rather than outward (Kearns 2022b). This inward perspective draws our attention from the coast to the valleys and raises questions about rural mobilities: how groups occupying and working these terraces and foothills connected to one another, resources, and towns. A series of networked routes connected the upper parts of the Vasilikos River to the Troodos mountain area, linking this region to the inland reaches of polities such as Idalion and Tamassos (Rautman 2016: 138; Figure 5.16; see also Hadjicosti 1999). Indeed, the landscape of copper production in the Kalavasos mining area warranted its own logic of mobility, not just for workers seeking out wood or other resources, but for hauling smelted or raw ores to smaller production sites in the foothills and upper elevations near the mines as well as to sites downriver. As Erin Gibson (2007) has shown, the archaeology of mobility in the Troodos

A South-Central Small World?

Figure 5.16 Map of the southern Troodos massif and foothills showing Roman road network in black and survey area in green box, with possible local routes in yellow dotted lines. 75 m DEM

reveals complicated pathways imbricated in community dynamics that often go unnoticed by survey projects, especially in mountainous, steep terrain, which has historically been understudied. The VVP’s field survey stopped its recording just north of the mines area, owing to the presence of an active military training ground and the construction and infilling of the Kalavasos dam, which covered the northern parts of the survey. We can only surmise, at this point, how the copper mining area was networked with smaller mountainous routes inland. An interior pass from the village of Kalavasos to the west, meeting the village of Asgata, is the probable candidate for an overland route for copper, people, or other goods towards the northern boundaries of Amathus and to more northwest routes. Evidence for the Roman route network in this area indicates a major artery between Amathus and inland sites such as Idalion using the Pyrgos Valley to the west of the Vasilikos, cutting very close through the higher-elevation hills to the area of Asgata (Bekker-Nielsen 2004).26 A tantalizing detail from the Peutinger Map, a Late Antique depictive itinerary

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dated roughly to the third or fourth century ce and preserved in late medieval copies, further indexes a road connecting Amathus through these foothills to the north to the town of Tamassos.27 Studies of least cost path analysis in this region heuristically reaffirm the likelihood of inland routes traversing the foothills and connecting smaller-scale rural networks with urban ones (Papantoniou et al. 2015). Building a geospatial analysis for the sanctuary site of Vavla Kapsalaes, Papantoniou and Niki Kyriakou (2018) have recently hypothesized a route leading west across the ancient mines in the Kalavasos and Asgata areas, and then south to the coastal plain just east of the acropolis at Amathus. While these kinds of analyses only test for the “cheapest” and most rational ways to connect two sites within a given surface, with less attention to the myriad social, political, or cultural reasons for human decision-making for travel, they offer experiential suggestions for the kinds of overland movements that actors made for the Vasilikos and Maroni region. More importantly, they help us consider this near-shore world of the Archaic timescale not just from the perspective of the coast, which so often dominates studies of Iron Age exchange and interconnections, but also in terms of the rich complexity of inland landscapes. They further complicate the idea that cities are sites of mobility and inherently connected to the wider world and rural expanses stagnant and unconnected, as if the practices of interconnection forged through economic or political strategies are a static, essential trait of urbanism.

Conclusions The unruly patterns and transformations occurring by the eighth and seventh centuries bce in the Vasilikos and Maroni region begin to contextualize the performance of rurality operating within the central register of the Amathus amphoriskos that opened this chapter. What kinds of ruralizing or other-than-urban landscapes would be perceptible to an Amathusian audience? While the iconographic elements suggest an idealized setting, perhaps a Near Eastern royal garden or a Greek banquet, the diversified integration of Amathus and its surrounding territory would have offered more proximate engagements. At a prosaic level, this chapter has laid out evidence for dynamic countrysides, whose Archaic populations created the gathering spaces potentially shown on the vessel but who had differentiated access to the kinds of material wealth required for high-status performances. These were populations of prominent landowners but also of

Conclusions

miners, farmers, craftsmen, and others who together created differentiated rural landscapes. With a more conjectural tone, we could envision scenes such as the “countryside banquet” happening through mortuary or social feasts at places in these eastern countrysides that likely accommodated wider audiences, such as at Vavla Kapsalaes. The intensive engagements with a journey from Amathus over the lower foothills and up the ridge of the Maroni Valley to a sanctuary or feasting place brought town dwellers into evocative lands opposite the town. Exploring how the temporalities and cultural dynamics of this area upset a conventional picture of static countrysides helps expose how the categorization of landscapes and site hierarchies masks inherent diversities and contradictions. In doing so, we can ask different questions of the material practices of these communities as more than the homogeneous foil to the town. The Vasilikos and Maroni region afforded a near-shore world that provided opportunities for maritime systems of communication and trade, but whose inhabitants did not embrace many ceramic or other prestige imports within their social practices. For most of the rural populations, we should think of their deployment of Amathusian ceramics, for example, not just as commodities but through the things they held or contained and the practices of eating, drinking, or serving they afforded. Translocal mobility was likely critical to the forging of senses of community and solidarity, but equally left different and more ephemeral kinds of material and environmental traces that our methods and interpretive frameworks struggle to accommodate. Above all, we need to envision the region as relationally connected to Amathus through flows of goods and people, all contributing in various ways as household producers or consumers for the larger center or within more informal economies, but whose inhabitants also utilized their position to construct their own modalities of detachment or preference (Fitzpatrick and Anderson 2008: 12). At this watershed scale, the complexities emerging during the period not only reveal the heterogeneity of countrysides, in a region with connections to polities inland and to the west and east, but equally expose the fuzzy temporalities of the Amathusian urban landscape itself. Especially when contrasted with the material available from the acropolis and its associated cemeteries, the local archaeological records indicate how communities were producing social boundaries that seem ill-suited to narratives of topdown urban or royal control of a subordinate hinterland, and that suggest scales of place-making that engaged in novel ways with the remains of prehistoric and Bronze Age installations. Implicit town-based or city-centric

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understandings of political economy often presume that the essentialized masses of the countrysides needed to be coerced into economic production for urban markets (D’Altroy 1992: 17). For the evidence along the seams of Amathus and its eastern countrysides, a more critical interpretation makes space for the probability of community members gaining status and wealth from their land use capabilities and aggrandizing choices that were resonant with local groups as well as aristocrats, authorities, or prominent urban families. Importantly, the horizons of possibility created over this period were mediated by the capacity of individuals to manage novel weathering conditions. Those who established productive yields early on, who claimed ownership of salient places with landesque capital or access to resource materialities, or who adapted their technologies and land use practices to build on productive years and buffer against bad ones, were the ones who established footholds on social power by the eighth century bce. Settlement evidence for this region, admittedly coarsely resolved as a result of our current abilities to discern Iron Age ceramics through surface survey, reveals a series of clustered sites and patterns of land use that were not consistent across the watersheds. As Archaic communities shifted from more temporary to more permanent installations, investing in productive soils or taking risks to initiate cultivation in more marginal areas, they fostered new spaces for community gathering that created senses of solidarity in relation to developing local and regional authorities. Sanctuaries and shrines offered one means for group events and spectacles, whether they involved ritual processions to prominent ridge tops, such as Vavla Kapsalaes, or used the ashlar masonry left behind at Maroni Vournes to imbue their rituals with a heterotemporal sense of monumentality or ancestry. For some sites, such as Vavla Kapsalaes, surface collections suggest the participation of town dwellers from numerous polities, while for others, such as Vavla Metaxas, the audiences may have been inward-looking rural communities, shoring up senses of solidarity defined against the town. Burial schemes likewise offered chances for social action, in the forms of rituals and feasts performed by the living in celebration or worship of the dead. For this region, in addition to engaging with broader island-wide trends in shifting tombs and interments outside settlements, local communities also created novel mortuary terrain, associating relic marine terraces with deceased community members. Yet tombs and funerary rituals were not entirely closed off from outside worlds, and rural networks building up the status of some local members brought the urbane markers of social difference within the mortuary dynamics of the countryside. This access

Conclusions

to an externality, whether viewed primarily through engagements with the town sphere of Amathus, with its highly visible royal tombs and markets, or through their own maritime activity in coastal harbors, was actively manipulated by some while potentially disregarded by or inaccessible to others. There are tantalizing signs in the archaeological and textual records, fragmentary as they may be, that Amathusian powers also generated inclusive practices to accommodate unruly actors and to cultivate a regional identity above a singularly urban or aristocratic one. The amphoriskos that opened this chapter introduced us to arguments for the local orientations of Amathus-style pottery, even if it borrowed from east Greek styles, while ceramic analyses from the sanctuary of Aphrodite reveal an almost exclusive preference for local pottery for ritual or devotional practice (Fourrier and Hermary 2006; Hermary 2015: 11). More provocative are the numerous inscriptions in the local Eteocypriot language and syllabary found within the Amathusian region, beginning in the seventh century but clustering during the fourth century bce (Steele 2013). Scholars have argued that the relative singularity of this epigraphic habit at Amathus, given ancient testimony to the site’s autochthonous disposition, marks intentional efforts by ruling authorities to preserve ancient traditions and to exalt the city’s unique claims to origins in a heroic, singularly “Cypriot” past (Petit 2007; Papantoniou 2012b). A fascinating if weakly dated tomb at the top of the acropolis, the so-called Tomb of Ariadne, has thus engendered interpretations that people were cultivating an epic past to associate with their local origins (Papantoniou 2012b: 304). Some bilingual inscriptions, moreover, include the Eteocypriot language written above the alphabetic Greek texts, highlighting its official value (Pestarino 2020: 65). It is compelling, if speculative, to hypothesize that Amathusian authorities aimed to include and to mediate the needs of already established, notable households in places such as the Vasilikos and Maroni region who spoke a local language and who were close to desired resource materialities. The earliest example of this local language is an enigmatic inscription on the handle of a massive, human-size stone krater, likely one of three that originally adorned the sanctuary of Aphrodite during the seventh century bce, made of locally sourced limestone and arguably functioning partly as a water cistern (Hermary 2015: 10).28 The vase’s handle, recording only a few syllables and therefore undeciphered, faced east towards the sanctuary’s entrance, visible to a multilingual group of worshippers.29 Two later Classical examples of the Eteocypriot language come from fourth-century bce

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bilingual inscriptions dedicated to the goddess that mention the name of the town’s last sovereign, Androkles, in Greek alphabetic and local syllabic scripts, which introduce a convention for naming the king together with “the polis of the Amathusians” (Cannavò 2011: 183). Was the recording of this local, non-Greek language first aimed at incorporating rural “others” into the religious sphere of the state, recognizing non-ruling actors as participants in regional cult? Did a shift in local population during the fifth and fourth centuries bce then require other public ways of representing a more inclusive political community? While conjectural, the greater numbers of discovered inscriptions in the local language during the fourth century could represent the inmigration of previously rural, non-Greekspeaking inhabitants from places such as the Vasilikos and Maroni region into the lower town of Amathus, working its chorai and requiring more linguistic representation. A fragment of a CG alabaster vase with ten signs in this local script was found somewhere around Maroni, unfortunately lacking any provenance and therefore impossible to date or contextualize, but suggestive of non-Greek speakers in the region.30 Even more conjectural is a small town (πολίχνη) that Strabo (14.6.2) calls Palaia, “old,” and lists between Amathus and Kition in his geographical survey of the island, which would extend discursive local claims to transhistorical “oldness” in regions such as the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys into the Roman period (see also Hermary 2015: 45). This south-central coastal region, particularly when viewed as relationally integrated with the polity of Amathus to the west, became a series of country-sides during the long Archaic timescale. By this, I mean that the divergences or idiosyncrasies happening in these valleys were not altogether isolated, removed, or detached from the cultural flows emanating from the monumental rooms of the political center, but co-constituted alongside them. During the later ninth and eighth centuries bce, inhabitants were making unruly landscapes through the cumulative structures that they had been developing over time in the area, as well as through engagements with wider environmental and social dynamics (Parasher-Sen 2015). The rural communities taking shape along the Vasilikos River or Maroni littoral were tied in complex ways to the classes and institutions of power and kingship at Amathus. The patterns of ceramic consumption that appear in survey records highlight how even those rural communities with strong economic and social connections to the town could still lack outward markers of “transplanted urbanity” while others sought out the material practices of Amathus (Just 2000: 18–28). Local developments in social differentiation

Conclusions

also opened up space for urban dwellers to imagine or identify with a world beyond the city walls, apparent in some form on the small Amathusian amphoriskos. In Chapter 6, I consider these possibilities in more detail and through a constellation of unruly materials and places that trace the fitful and weathered contours of town–country complexity at even smaller scales.

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Gypsum, Copper, Soil Archaic Countrysides

Introduction

204

A bird’s eye view of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, explored in Chapter 5, revealed significant variation among the smaller settlements and their landscapes that troubles the stereotype of a dependent hinterland of resource extraction. We see a developing social history during the ninth and eighth centuries bce that appears more dynamic than the neat interlocking of port, support villages, and copper exploitation. Along the seams of cupriferous pillow lavas and sedimentary slopes, for example, emerged sedentary communities with clear investment in maintaining access to harbors, arable soils, woods and minerals, and pastures. As environmental conditions changed, and with them local experiences and perceptions of material landscapes, they catalyzed the weathering of these communities as they became more permanent and more integrated in emerging urban economies. Rural groups built settlement areas with new grounds for burial and ritual gatherings and reformed routes of translocal movement and interaction. Yet the top-down gaze necessary for interpreting the coarse signatures of archaeological survey can often reinforce the cartographic reduction of these sites into dots on the static map, masking over their fitful engagements with changing landscapes (Given 2013). At smaller scales of analysis, are there different indications of unruly patterns of inhabitation, social interaction, or deeper entanglements with landesque capital and resources that together generated these countrysides and the Amathusian polity? During the ninth and eighth centuries bce, the parameters of what instigated the organization and practices of relational rural and town spaces were changing in unpredictable ways. As argued in Chapter 3, a focus on countrysides aims to push aside the a priori assumptions of undifferentiated rural subjects by analyzing how small sites, farms, quarries, or shrines articulated with diverse and often contrasting social groups in a period of unruly transformation. I resist the urge to impose urban conceptions of community development onto non-urban landscapes, with their own practices and mentalities, without critical inquiry. Looking more closely at the kinds of elements fostering the concomitant growth and abandonment of

Introduction

countrysides and towns helps move us further towards the questions posed in this book’s introduction: not just “what is the countryside,” but “how did it take shape?” How did diverse communities come together under scaled constructions of political and cultural affiliation and solidarity, or wealth competition, through vernacular networks of exchange and interaction, and through towns and trends of urbane or non-local culture? How did their landscape rhythms, practices, and interrelationships produce social inequalities and local temporalities, and how were their ways of using space calibrated with or against those emerging in the city? This chapter undertakes a fine-grained study of material and environmental assemblages from the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys that attest to developing countrysides and weathering practices. Through close analyses of three separate places, selected from recent survey, excavations, and geomorphological studies, I follow particular unruly materials whose transitions from available mineral or resource to commodity and valued thing anchor new interpretations of first-millennium bce social change in tension with shifting environments. Building on the regional contours of development in the south-central valleys explored in Chapter 5, these three examples provide a more granular perspective on the asymmetries forming between settlements, place-making practices, novel institutions, and changing environmental constituents tied to valued tasks: arable cultivation, metal production, building construction, and pastoralism. These landscapes, from pine and juniper forests to marine terraces, entangled local social groups within the regional processes of state-building. The following cases privilege the component matter of weathering landscapes undergoing dramatic alteration as the region became more intensively inhabited, worked, and entangled with the growth of Amathus. Taking a cue from William Cronon’s (1991) magisterial story of the unfolding of Chicago and its western hinterlands, Nature’s Metropolis, the chapter presents different accounts of unruly networks between natural systems and developing contours of production, consumption, and social time. In each selection, a material substance is situated within its historical, spatial, and environmental contexts to explore how it became and acted as a resource, conditioned not just by oscillations in environmental or weathering factors but equally in the local and urban values shaping its technological transformations. These materials consist of gypsum, typically associated with plaster in walls and architectural design, copper and its more conspicuous role in political economies of metal, and the soils and sediments of arable fields along the coastal plain. These three examples each shed light on the material and ideational ways in which substances

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participated in the making of political landscapes. I have selected these three foci as deliberate complements to the spatiality of assumed Iron Age territoriality: control over a productive hinterland, ownership of copper mines, and management of a coastal harbor and plain. On the seams of the polity, these examples provoke new questions on the reach of city-power and the possibilities for heterogeneous modes of action outside the town.

Gypsum Gypsum, the mineral calcium sulfate (CaSO4·2H2O), was a ubiquitous resource in the ancient world and continues to be one, used primarily for building purposes and most commonly evident in what we call drywall. Heating and adding water to gypsum can form Plaster of Paris (hemihydrate) or can create mortar when mixed with other additives such as lime. The relatively low firing temperatures (130°C) and necessary tools for baking (calcining) gypsum distinguish it from other lookalikes, such as limestone plaster, which requires much higher firing temperatures (around 900°C). Indeed, the physical similarities between limestone and gypsum plaster have confused writers from at least the fourth century bce (Wright 1992: 393–393). By the early Hellenistic period, Theophrastus (On Stones 64–66) could link gypsum and its stony qualities to Cyprus, where it was plentiful and dug away from the earth rather than quarried: Gypsos occurs in large quantities in Cyprus and can easily be seen; for only a little soil is removed when it is dug up. Its natural properties are distinctive; for it is more like stone than earth … its stickiness and heat, when it is wet, are remarkable; for it is used on buildings and is poured around the stone or anything else of this kind that one wishes to fasten. Its strength, too, is remarkable; for when the stones [of a building] are broken or pulled apart, the gypsum does not become loose, but remains stuck hard onto the dismantled blocks. And it can even be removed and burnt and made fit for use again and again. And all this is especially the case in Cyprus and Phoenicia.

Although spotted on the surface and removed from the soils with seemingly little effort, gypsum was “more like stone than earth,” with useful glue-like propensities. Like Strabo’s account of Cypriot copper, in these descriptions there is already a recognition of the distinctions between a naturally occurring material substance and the technologically manufactured and dehydrated product, gypsum plaster. Gypsum’s plasticity made it particularly

Gypsum

sensible in the production of stucco, plaster-cast figures, decorative moldings, or as the grouting of rubble-cored walls in buildings. Pliny (HN 36.182–83) equally noted gypsum’s likenesses to limestone and its physical propensities: “When moistened, it must be used immediately as it hardens with great rapidity; nothing to prevent it from being pounded and reduced again to fine powder.” Strabo’s (5.4.6) description of gypsum as a mineral that “makes sand facile” in the southern Italian region of Cumae likewise accounts for its weathering in certain conditions: if it became wet or interacted with water, its solidity weakened and in turn affected the structure of its surrounding sediment matrix. Once assembled with calcite aggregates and other add-ins to make plaster, on the other hand, this malleable material was concretized into a hardening agent suitable for forming and molding it into new shapes. Natural formations of gypsum can also occur in sheets that plane easily into thin slabs, making it convenient to produce paving tiles (Philokyprou 2010). The relationships between gypsum, gypseous (high-gypsum) and gypsiferous (low-gypsum) sediment matter, and worked things such as wall plaster implicates the material in the resource entanglements of shifting environments and emerging social practices. The diachronic uses, manipulations, and valuations of gypsum as a resource on Cyprus have so far received scant attention, but a cultural history of the material reveals a persistent if historically constituted resource politics through which we might infer how techniques of gypsum plaster manufacture and application were controlled and used in targeted ways (Johansen and Bauer 2018; see also Heldal et al. 2009). Gypsum is first evident in a few Neolithic buildings on Cyprus as flat paving tiles, coverings for stone walls, or as plaster, often with paint added, such as at Kalavasos Tenta in the Vasilikos Valley (Philokyprou 2010; Todd 2013: 11–13). By the protohistoric period gypsum appears more in monumental stone industries as a facing plaster on ashlar masonry or embedded into architectural features (Fisher et al. 2019: 489, 495). Recent compositional analyses, for example, have shown a socially selective use of gypsum in coordination with the more common limestone plasters at the Late Bronze Age site of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios (Wallace 2017). Gypsum and lime plaster mattered in different ways for the display and decoration of spaces within the built environment, perhaps to enhance the gatherings of select groups of high-status or privileged members (Fisher 2009). Similar practices occurred during the palatial periods on Crete, where analyses have revealed selective applications of gypsum plaster in prominent areas, indicating that craftsmen employed substances for special visual, tactile, or other effects beyond their functional capacities (Chlouveraki 2006; Chlouveraki and Lugli 2009).

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By the later eighth and seventh centuries bce of the Archaic period on Cyprus, gypsum was incorporated as a wall plaster or as cement mortar within rubble walls faced with masonry, such as at the fifth-century bce complex at Vouni (Wright 1992: 394).1 At Amathus, recent analyses have confirmed the presence of gypsum in the mortars used within the Sanctuary of Aphrodite and the later Christian basilica built there during the mid-first-millennium ce (Tsakiridis and Toumbakari 2010). Gypsum appears as slabs of floors and in wall mosaics in other early Christian churches, such as Kalavasos Sirmata in the Vasilikos Valley (Rautman et al. 2003). By the historical periods of the twentieth century, evidence for local quarries indicates where the material was calcined or heated in wood-burning brick kilns or in larger commercial installations, while large amounts were and continue to be exported from the island for various uses around the world (Pantazis 1967: 96–98; McClellan 2003; Todd 2013: 13). We can posit that gypsum has historically taken on a more complicated politics as a material with added-value commodified forms that came to be appreciated and perhaps used diacritically but whose accessibility was not tightly monitored, as we often imagine for copper. Gypsum is particularly abundant in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, and significant amounts were exported in twentieth-century quarries southwest of the village of Kalavasos (Todd 2013: 13; Figure 6.1). Significant to the region’s geological history is the Messenian salinity crisis, occurring sometime around 7 to 5 million years ago, when the Mediterranean basin gradually became closed off near Gibraltar and the sea level dropped about 2,000 m. These fluctuations of water level and the regression of ocean in-flow caused the formation of thick salt deposits in a period of intense atmospheric and climatic change (Manzi et al. 2016; Varol and Atalar 2017). In several places around the Mediterranean the lithology records this long event through the presence of gypsum, formed by the evaporation of water, and its manifestations on Cyprus have received considerable attention in geological and geomorphological studies (e.g. Robertson et al. 1995; Rouchy et al. 2001; Manzi et al. 2016). Gypsum occurs in various forms on the island, from laminated sheets locally called marmara to crystallized formations in different sizes of translucent selenite and chalky patches that resemble alabaster. In Cypriot geology, the Kalavasos Formation, named after the village in the Vasilikos Valley, especially marks the salinity crisis with the abundant presence of gypsum deposits alternating with chalks and marls, overlain by landforms with a moderately high density of drainages (Pantazis 1967, 1978; Rouchy et al. 2001; Figure 6.1). These gypseous landscapes consist of a dynamic system with contorted landform and drainage

Gypsum

Figure 6.1 The Kalavasos Formation (yellow) shown over geological zones, with photographs of local gypsum outcrops

patterns that shift with disappearing and reappearing streams and channels as well as with precipitation, even in semiarid areas with infrequent rainfall (Poyiadji et al. 2010; Zomeni 2012; Casby-Horton et al. 2015: 233). Gypsum is indeed a unique material substance and substrate whose creation, deposition, appearance, and decay all in various ways record multitemporal climatic changes in water availability and temperature. These mutable physical features of gypsum rocks and their interactions with water, temperature, and other organisms lead to soil formations that are “a problem and a puzzle” (Casby-Horton et al. 2015: 232). The soils in the Vasilikos and Maroni region and the Kalavasos formation in particular, sitting at the complex interface between semiarid lime-rich and gypsum-rich geomorphological formations, have restricted water retention and a high potential for dissolution and erosion, resulting in reduced agricultural productivity (Gomez et al. 2004: 10–11). Studies in soil and plant ecology have shown that gypsum-rich soils high in sulfates and sulfides can be thin and poor for cultivation and that agriculture is challenged by nutrient limitation, water scarcity, and unusual soil chemistries that can be more vulnerable and responsive to changes in precipitation and temperature (Zomeni 2012). This soil climate makes the archaeological landscape of this

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Figure 6.2 Geological map of Kalavasos Vounaritashi showing interface of gypsum and limestone formations (Lefkara and Pachna) with the site of Kalavasos Mitsingites, and inset showing location on the Vasilikos River. 5 m contours

region particularly complex, as taphonomic processes are compounded by the erosional and destructive effects of the karstic topography as well as significant tectonic activity (Poyiadji et al. 2010; Waters et al 2010; Murray and Robertson 2020). The soils in these areas are thus materially unique, owing to both the dust and sediment dispersion of fracturing sedimentary interfaces as well as past and present acid mine drainage from the Kalavasos copper mines area on the Vasilikos River, which generates higher levels of sulfates in the soils (Zissimos et al. 2014). Recent investigations at and around a site called Kalavasos Vounaritashi have provided preliminary evidence for an Archaic community and its engagements with the weathering of gypsum in marginal landscapes. Initially documented by the Vasilikos Valley Project’s field survey in the 1970s, Kalavasos Vounaritashi is situated in a small tributary of the Vasilikos River roughly 5 km from the coast, on a limestone ridge delimited by two terraced drainage channels and in an area with small springs with water availability in wetter years (Johnson and Hordynsky 1982: 65; Todd 2004: 58–60; Figures 6.2 and 6.3).2 Overlaying the chalks and marls of this ridge are gypsum deposits from 1 to 9 m in thickness, ranging from large,

Gypsum

Figure 6.3 View of the site of Kalavasos Vounaritashi (looking north)

massive crystalline boulders to flatter translucent selenite and marmara outcrops with scrub vegetation. The initial VVP survey recorded a large, integrated, and multiperiod settlement on several parts of the ridge, moving clockwise around a central hilltop with single phases of occupation typical of Cypriot settlement patterns, specifically clusters of Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Archaic, and later Roman material (Figure 6.4). Several square cuttings in the surface of gypsum outcrops on the ridge, recorded by the previous survey and possibly connected to a gypsum firing kiln 0.5 km away, indicate at least some form of historical exploitation of the sources in this area. The Archaic assemblages at Vounaritashi are close to important east– west routes across the region and have clear views to the coast. A system of well-used cross-channel walls in the side drainages to the south and east suggests long-term investment in water management (Figure 6.5). Field and terrace walls are notoriously difficult to date because they share similar typologies of construction over millennia and often lack easily identifiable material culture, such as pottery. Nevertheless, a preliminary study of this system of terracing, leading to the area of the Neolithic site of Kalavasos Tenta overlooking the river, suggested early construction and possibly intermittent maintenance stretching back to the Bronze Age (Wagstaff 1992). Undoubtedly, the nearby Late Bronze Age site of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios supported the residence of farmers and pastoralists

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Figure 6.4 Topographic map showing outlines of estimated site areas at Kalavasos Vounaritashi and ascribed periods, identified by the Vasilikos Valley Project (adapted from Todd 2004: 58–60)

Figure 6.5 Satellite image of Kalavasos Vounaritashi showing survey grid and relic cross-channel wall system in red with inset photograph of one wall

Gypsum

who lived in town but worked in the immediate surrounding cultivable soils, which would have required some form of soil erosion and water management efforts with channel walls and terracing (Manning and Fisher 2018). Wagstaff (1992) further hypothesized that the walls near Kalavasos Vounaritashi and extending towards the river were collectively managed, given the diversity of types and their signs of periodic rehabilitation, as opposed to a centrally or singularly controlled system. The site of Kalavasos Vounaritashi offers an interesting case for exploring these engagements at finer scales. Pedestrian survey methods identified a discrete, 0.5  ha area of mostly utilitarian and coarse ware vessels such as amphorae and storage vessels such as pithoi, stone grinding vessels and implements, and mortaria, indicators of processing, which together contextualize the site as a small, agropastoral activity area with possible domestic structures (Kearns 2019; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). Ceramic analysis revealed that the surface materials were chronologically contained to the Archaic and Classical periods, with little Late Bronze Age or later Roman material, and that they shared technological and stylistic affinities with Amathusian workshops. Over half of the recovered assemblages consist of amphorae, closed wares for storage, such as jugs, and large-scale storage pithoi, confirming the production and storage aspects of the site. Especially conspicuous are fragments of basket-handled transport amphorae, indicating local manufacture connected to Amathus, which are markers of the CA and CC ceramic traditions but extend into the Hellenistic period (Winther-Jacobsen 2002; Leidwanger 2006). The amounts are similar to the abundant examples of these transport amphorae found across the Vasilikos Valley, the common Amathusian type of the CA I period especially (Georgiadou 2016: 100). No kilns dating to the Archaic period have been found in the area, but it is probable that some pottery was made locally, given the large sizes of many of the recovered fragments. Survey in the surrounding drainages and terraces revealed scarce contemporary material and confirmed the discrete assemblages of the site, which sits in a particularly eroded part of the ridge with extensive and deep gullies separating it from the earlier occupations (Kearns 2019: 284, fig. 9.6; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). Archaic material was noted in earlier survey work across the range of diachronic occupations of the ridge, which may indicate off-site activity related to fields, pens, or other quarrying installations. Geophysical survey over the areas of dense Iron Age surface material, using fluxgate magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar, further indicates the presence of linear and circular anomalies roughly 30–70  cm below the surface (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021: fig. 7).3 Soil augur tests correlated the geophysical

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Figure 6.6 Excavation of Building I at Kalavasos Vounaritashi, showing probable continuation of walls

findings of relatively dry soils with gradated levels of gypsum inclusions weathered from the parent gypsum outcrops surrounding the site. Excavations have confirmed the presence of subsurface remains, as well as the intermittent tempo of occupation of this part of the gypsum landscape. Multiple exposed wall and wall faces of a small stone building (Building I) suggest that it may have been modified over more than one phase or subphase, although the spatial scale of the building is still difficult to discern from the preliminary results (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021; Figure 6.6). Comparanda for farmhouses or domestic buildings on the island for this period are scarce, as several sites such as Panayia Ematousa and the Hill of Ayios Yeoryios in Nicosia record only pits or small segments of Archaic walls.4 These sites do, however, suggest long-term functioning of rural buildings from the later Iron Age to the Hellenistic period. The

Gypsum

exposed features at Kalavasos Vounaritashi generally find coarse parallels in what Mediterranean archaeologists have associated with non-urban structures: a stone wall foundation with partition walls creating internal divisions of space, likely with a courtyard or open area branching off and evidence of multiple kinds of tasks (e.g. Foxhall 2004, 2020; Nevett 2005; Ghisleni et al. 2011). The presence of at least one pounding stone in the excavations of Building I, as well as a stone basin recorded in the surface surveys, suggest tasks related to agropastoral processing, but more work is necessary to further delineate the everyday activities of the site. Beyond cereals, the hills and alluvial terraces in the area would have served the domestic processing of olives, grapes, or carobs. While the material assemblages of the classical “farmstead” are debated, the Vounaritashi building represents significant investment in permanent foundations and architectural features, and would not map easily onto assumptions of impoverished farmers whose housing or architectonics would be more ephemeral (Pettegrew 2001; Ghisleni et al. 2011; McHugh 2017; Foxhall 2020). Dating this structure with these preliminary results has proven difficult given the unstable terrain and disturbed stratigraphy, which have produced contexts of mixed dates and badly worn fragments. Painted ceramics at the site indicate activity by the eighth century bce, while the excavations show only two in situ contexts of material from the sixth to fourth centuries bce (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021: fig. 10). Roughly half of these assemblages consisted of Plain ware fragments, as well as some cooking and storage vessel pieces. The painted tableware indicates food and drink consumption, including common forms of Bichrome, Black-on-Red, and Red and Black Slip bowls, jugs, and amphorae. While no secure floor contexts have been found yet, the intersection of two walls with gypsum plaster fragments and interior rubble construction appear to be of Classical date, which would imply that the inhabitants decided to construct a permanent building here after two or more centuries of activity in the area. This main phase of occupation involved seemingly domestic practices, evident not just in the utilitarian and cooking wares but also in the pounding stone and mortaria that imply some forms of quotidian processing and manufacturing (Figure 6.7). The ceramics recovered, like those found through surface survey, suggest close production and consumption relationships to workshops at Amathus (Georgiadou 2018). An abandonment phase for the building may date to the fourth or third century bce. The characteristics of the soil, particularly in the abundance of lime and sulfate-rich clays, made the preservation poor, and the project has so far not recovered any animal bones, charcoal, or seeds in flotation, which future investigations will collect and analyze.

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Figure 6.7 Mortaria fragments found in survey, Kalavasos Vounaritashi (drawing courtesy of Anna Georgiadou)

The instability of the karstic, gypseous landscape surrounding the exposed building, centuries of ploughing and mid-twentieth-century bulldozing to level the plateau, as well as localized tectonic activity have contributed to a significant slope downward from north to south, making it difficult to tell in what ways the building was constructed on natural slopes. Not only was most of Building I reduced to concentrations of rubble and rock fall, but the walls themselves showed significant weakening and disturbance, indicating that under iterative moments of construction and maintenance, efforts were made to stabilize walls with deeper foundations or auxiliary materials and platforms. A long, thin stone course stretching northwest to southwest from the building was surrounded with thick carbonate concretions of soil, possibly representing the remains of surface collection drainage or enclosure feature and correlating with a large magnetic

Gypsum

Figure 6.8 Photograph of Building I with plaster adhering to southwest-facing wall

anomaly observed in the geophysical data (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). Although potentially bordered to the south and the north of the ridge with well-watered tributaries, the higher elevation of the site itself would likely have required some form of surface water collection system, possibly using drains and catchment basins. The fragment of one possible water pipe discovered from a mixed context may then be interesting evidence of intentional water management, but more work is needed to discern water use and consumption at the site. The plaster in pieces and still attached to the southwest-facing wall of Building I is intriguing (Figure 6.8). Compared with wall plaster at Late Bronze Age urban complexes in the region, the plaster at Kalavasos Vounaritashi has properties that may suggest a high percentage of added gypsum, giving it the look of naturally produced concretions of carbonate that can form over time on exposed rock surface.5 In another partially excavated trench, a highly friable and jagged rock formation of whitish substance may have, in more recent periods, served as a natural foundation for a low field wall or boundary for an olive or carob trees still visible in 1960s aerial photos. The presence of such material indicates weathering processes of parent gypsum interacting through erosion events with the underlying limestone-rich layers of the ridge, creating an intermediary, thick concretion that obscures archaeological activity. Another interpretation, given the

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unusual shape of the exposed formation, is a highly eroded processing area where gypsum was calcined and converted into plaster. Known historically throughout this microregion, and close to a visible and recurring source of surface gypsum rock, a calcining kiln would make sense if water and wood sources for the heating and manufacturing technology were available (Pantazis 1967: 96–98; McClellan 2003; Todd 2013: 11–13). The emergence of the Archaic occupations at Kalavasos Vounaritashi during the eighth century bce occurred alongside a series of changes in local habitats, environments, and social boundaries that created new historically contingent political and economic entanglements. To the east, CG III material on the high alluvial terrace of Kalavasos Mitsingites attests to an early site of activity nearby, situated in close proximity to the Vasilikos River (Figure 6.2). Inhabitants used the terraces likely for pasturage and initiated small-scale cultivation in an area of significant Bronze Age use. This positioning right off the river corridor can also suggest that its occupants were in some capacity still interested in access to easy mobility. After a generation or two of households establishing cultivation and livestocking in the area, the ridge of Vounaritashi afforded means for exploiting gypsum. This taskscape was attractive to urban residents looking for plaster sources, as well as exploitable by a household or group with some level of resource wealth and extra or accessible labor. How might the extraction of resource materialities such as gypsum have interconnected this region with the town? As Amathusian authorities required more conspicuous monuments and ornaments for visibly shoring up their legitimacy around the acropolis, the substance of gypsum re-emerged as a valued resource for architectural signaling. Gypsum and limestone are plentiful in the hillier areas around Amathus, but the local availability in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys also made sites such as Kalavasos Vounaritashi convenient for sourcing the construction of the polity’s self-image. Those living in the Vasilikos Valley who were able to scale up their holdings into what were more challenging soils could harbor the  risks to create new gypsum entanglements. Although the site’s soils were challenged by their gypseous attributes and instabilities, settlers would have taken advantage of agricultural intensification in the surrounding well-watered drainage channels. Springs at the northern edges of these drainages, under wetter conditions in the eighth and seventh centuries bce, had more reliable year-round flows and may have further incentivized a community to take up diverse agropastoral strategies, using the ridge as one part of a fragmented plot and grazing system in addition to gypsum quarrying (Gomez et al. 2004). The probable landesque features

Gypsum

left behind by Bronze Age inhabitants in the form of terraced cross-channel walls with patches of stable soils carried, with some maintenance, less risk. The earliest ceramic materials recovered at Kalavasos Vounaritashi, CA I, may attest to these initial re-establishments on the ridge some four hundred years after the abandonment of Late Bronze Age populations in the area. These settlers forged new dwelling practices alongside predictable forest growth in the hills nearby to the north of the site, where pine and oak woods provided timber for domestic uses and firing fuel for kilns, as well as more vegetation cover on the exposed gypsum outcrops. In this early phase of use and place-making, land use practices weathered the area through the removal and maintenance of pine and oak woods and the slow creation of routes and paths from the site towards the major coastal routes to the south and up the valley to the north. At Kalavasos Vounaritashi, routinized practices came to require a built environment that accommodated various tasks and everyday actions oriented towards diversified rural land use. Resurvey collections point to production and storage tasks and to domestic consumption. There were small amounts of cooking wares and open vessels as well as a fragmentary bull figurine recovered (Todd 2004: 58–61; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). By the fifth century, these people decided that a more permanent structure was necessary, likely to afford year-round residence within an active agropastoral taskscape. The preliminary excavations have not yet revealed the full scale of the establishment, but geophysical data suggest more than just a single structure, and thus the possibility of one or more households. Local limestone and sandstone blocks, as well as large rocks of gypsum, were used for the construction of walls that needed at least intermittent maintenance owing to the dynamic terrain and weathered soils vulnerable to changes in precipitation and temperature. While inhabitants took up new opportunities for linking to trade networks and investing energy and infrastructure in their land use practices, they also sought out the ceramic furnishings and affinities of Amathus to mark out their own social worlds. Whether these additions were conspicuous acts in approximating the styles of urban residents with more readily available and “cheaper” material is more difficult to say. The small number of imports at Vounaritashi indicates that the social relationships created here did not require the aesthetic or material conditions of nearby trendsetters. These social relationships instead involved a local network of sites that stitched communities together through their accessibility to cultivable land and pasturage, water and other resources, routes of access, and sacred spaces. Within an half-hour’s walk from Kalavasos Vounaritashi were

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Figure 6.9 Situation of Kalavasos Vounaritashi around other Archaic settlements west of the Vasilikos River. 5 m contours

other small (under 1 ha in area) Archaic ceramic scatters stretching up the slopes of the relic river terraces such as Kalavasos Pidieri to the northwest, Kalavasos Yeroskhinia to the south, and Kalavasos Latomari and Argakia to the southeast closer to the alluvial plain (Figure 6.9). Missing in this area of approximately 250 ha of Archaic activity is direct evidence for tombs or mortuary grounds, which may no longer be extant or were missed in earlier surveys. The communities working or living here may also not have created their own mortuary gathering places, but may have utilized the coastal plain for larger collective burials (Todd 2013: 101). A cemetery on the prominent ridge of Mari Moutsounin tou Rirou to the south, founded at least by the later CG III period based on surface scatters around looted Archaic tombs, may have been an early mortuary grounds for initial settlers in the lower valley exploiting the gypsum, limestone, and strips of alluvium in this area (Georgiadou 2016: 104). The building at Kalavasos Vounaritashi may therefore have been one of several multifunctional sites, taking advantage of landesque features as well as renewing mineral resource materialities, which made up a social field of emerging communities. Entanglements with gypsum and soils shifted by the fourth century bce and may have come to trap the inhabitants in deteriorating relationships,

Copper and Trees

leading to the site’s abandonment. While ceramic analysis of resurvey material found several pieces of late Hellenistic to Roman material, including transport amphorae and tablewares, suggesting some continued activities, the main temporal phasing of the day to day activity at the site seems to end by the fourth century.6 Having invested in the area, the soils and terrain may have shifted from “puzzle” to “problem,” leading inhabitants to at least discontinue living on the ridge and move to the coast or to the town, as seems likely with the growth of Amathus’ lower town in this period. The constraints of living, farming, and exploiting this area may have put too many demands on a landscape already susceptible to the shifting weathering of forests and water, with effects on the local topography, stability of cultivated soils, and even the foundation levels of buildings. Since evidence at Amathus suggests a thriving economy during the fourth century and the growing interregional prominence of its sanctuary of Aphrodite, Kalavasos Vounaritashi arguably highlights the different trajectories of this region and the unique temporality of a landscape that ascended under particular environmental and social forces. Set against the broader political shifts occurring on the island with the transition to Ptolemaic imperial control, however, it also becomes compelling to see the ends of Archaic activity here resulting from the breakdown of local community structure and the withering of investment in its maintenance. Seemingly permanent reoccupations of this part of the plateau only appear by the first century ce, centering on the Roman and Late Roman periods (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021).

Copper and Trees Scholars have argued for the vital status of the Archaic and Classical mines and smelting areas of the Vasilikos Valley as an additional supplier of copper for the political economy of Amathus, a city depicted in the Roman period as “rich in metals” (e.g. Ovid Met. 10.220, fecunda metallis) and with evidence for mining in its foothills and copper workshops on the acropolis (Petit 1996: 179; Petit 2002; South 2002; Todd 2013: 15–27; Georgiadou 2018; Figure 6.10). The massive deposits of ancient copper debris in the Kalavasos area, such as at Kalavasos Platies, have indeed produced radiocarbon dates from charcoal beginning in the Archaic period and extending to the Hellenistic period, concurrent with the regional transformations happening in settlement and land use on the edges of the Amathusian polity (Kassianidou 2013; Socratous et al. 2015; Table 6.1). These recovered dates are intriguing for connecting ancient mining in the Vasilikos area to the

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Table 6.1 Published radiocarbon dates from charcoal in slag heaps in the Kalavasos area (from Kassianidou 2013: 75, Appendix I). Site Name

Context

Kalavasos “biggest” slag heap Kalavasos Slag heap Platies Kalavasos Slag heap Platies

Published date (Zwicker 1986)

14C date before present

Calibrated date (68.2%)

Calibrated date (95.4%)

Period

430 +/– 85 BC 2376 +/– 83 BP 552–382 BC 770–354 BC Cypro-Archaic 410 +/– 70 BC 2357 +/– 68 BP 541–375 BC

670–352 BC Cypro-Archaic

450 +/– 40 BC 2399 +/– 30 BP 510–434 BC 544–396 BC Cypro-Classical

Figure 6.10 Presumed copper mines (black circles) and metallurgical sites (black stars) associated with the control of Amathus, with upper and lower pillow lavas and basal groups shown in pink. 75 m DEM (after Kassianidou 2013: 66, fig. 10)

Archaic period, and not to the Late Bronze Age, a period when many scholars assume copper had contributed to the regional economy. Recent compositional investigations on slags and objects from the Late Bronze Age site of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, for example, have shown no clear links to the nearby mines, although scholars cannot rule out an undiscovered local

Copper and Trees

Figure 6.11 Interface (yellow line) between igneous geology and copper-bearing pillow lavas (left foreground) and sedimentary chalks (looking southeast across Kalavasos Petra)

source (Van Brempt and Kassianidou 2016). Thus the dramatic reorientation of Archaic settlement to the area of copper ores and forests by the eighth and seventh centuries bce, and the investments in copper mining and metals production, offer an entry into analyzing emerging rural industries and resource materialities of the growing Amathusian city-state. If we attend more closely to the environments around the mines during this period, we can question how communities here generated conditional relationships to the town, their own social rhythms, and metallurgical work (Knapp et al. 1998). The landscape of the copper mines of Kalavasos Platies and the associated remains around it, roughly 8  km from the Mediterranean coast, consisted of shifting mineral and soil constituents, vegetation, and water sources. Along a side channel of the Vasilikos River, one can see the striking geological seam between the lime-rich terrain of hillslopes of alluvial terraces and the igneous sediments and pillow lavas of the Troodos massif (Figure 6.11). Here, where the Kalavasos Mining Company has recently renewed copper extraction after a hiatus from the mid-twentieth century, are massive heaps of copper slag. The ancient slag heaps represent some of the largest concentrations on the island outside of the major operations at Skouriotissa in the northern Troodos foothills (Kassianidou 2013: 66). Underneath the slag heaps at Kalavasos Petra and Kalavasos Platies are traces of ancient activity such as adits or mine entrances, some well preserved, which recent investigations have studied to learn more about

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ancient metallurgy (Kassianidou 2013: 75).7 Surrounding the mines and largest heaps are additional concentrations of slag, including one on the lower edge of a large multiperiod settlement site called Kalavasos Spilios, indicating the working of copper outside the mines. After the abrupt cooling period of the eighth century bce, increasingly warmer temperatures with more reliable water availability created more vegetation along the foothills of the Troodos where pine and juniper forests stand now. Changes in water and vegetation cover altered the configuration of woods and soils near the pillow lavas, where copper ore could be identified through its properties of color and texture. We currently lack high-resolution data on the possible extent of local forests for the period. It is important to mind the declensionist factoid of Eden-like conditions of great forest growth in earlier periods that have since been deforested, producing a teleological Mediterranean woodland history (Ellis Burnet 1994; Rackham 1996: 27–30; cf. Hughes 2014). Such exaggerations are largely taken from sources such as Strabo (14.6.5) without much actual positive evidence for deforestation (Thirgood 1987; Ellis Burnet 1994; Harris 2012). It is reasonable, however, with the available paleoclimatic sketches that we have for Cyprus in this period, to hypothesize a greater woodland extent in the river valley during the eighth century bce, and the concomitant decrease in drier shrub and maquis vegetation that would have been more characteristic of the preceding arid phase of the tenth and ninth centuries bce. More vegetation growth, helped by fewer interannual droughts or flooding events or extended periods of low rainfall, not only would have generated forest cover, but also would have induced less erosion on the surrounding hillslopes. Water was a critical element of copper production and miners would have sought access to more regular stream or spring sources, such as in the gullies and ravines around sites like Kalavasos Spilios. For these reasons, scholars conventionally assign copper production to the wetter spring and autumn seasons, when rivers could provide enough water for production as well as for floating logs from higher elevation forests down to mining installations. Avoiding the winter months would equally remove the risk of mine adits flooding (Kassianidou 1998). At present, aside from the mines and relics of production in the form of slag heaps, no discrete copper working site with kilns has been discovered in the area that can provide evidence for the technological steps taken from the extraction of ores to their roasting and smelting in kilns to remove the metal from its rocky contexts. There are also no local indications of whether it was shaped into bulk ingots, for transport overland or down river, or if there were metallurgical workshops nearby that

Copper and Trees

produced copper or bronze objects. Nevertheless, scholars have estimated that Iron Age copper production activity, while not as massive or extensive as the industrial production regimes of the Roman period, probably fashioned enough for export, whether to Amathus where there are clear signs of workshops or to interregional markets (Todd and Warren 2012: 52; Kassianidou 2013). The scope of mining in the Vasilikos Valley during the Archaic period was likely “larger and more organized” than that of small-scale or village-based operations (Todd and Warren 2012: 52; see Raber 1987: 301–302). More extensive and more cultivated forest and vegetation cover in the foothills region of the middle Vasilikos River provided one of the other critical resources for copper production: wood charcoal. Estimates for ancient metal production on Cyprus, and from places such as the Laurion silver mines of Attica active primarily during the fifth century bce, indicate how significant wood resources were for the smelting and processing of ores into copper products and how forests could be depleted in the pursuit of intensive metallurgy (Brown 2011; Todd 2013: 19; Hughes 2016). To produce about 1 ton of charcoal, or burned wood, which was used to roast and smelt ores, required roughly 7 tons of cut wood. Extrapolating these numbers for the Laurion area, J. Donald Hughes (2016: 228–230) has estimated that around 5,000 tons of charcoal were necessary for annual metal production in classical Attica, requiring the cutting and logging of almost 52 sq. km of surrounding pine, oak, and other woodlands. Combined with the weathering effects of continuous logging, such as the lag time in forest regrowth and the replacement of vegetative cover with brushland and low-growing scrub species, as well as increased soil erosion without enough rooted trees, the Athenian silver mining operations would have soon run out of nearby charcoal resources. The increasingly unwieldy entanglements of Athenian military and commercial practices with woods and metals during the fifth century also had significant implications and altered the terrain of the Laurion mines as major furnaces were relocated to ports, where imported timber was more accessible (Hughes 2016). While coarse, some estimates for the total production of copper on ancient Cyprus have produced similar results. Smelting and logging would have lasted in cycles of roughly forty years before becoming unsustainable (Brown 2011: 24). With high-resolution pollen archives, we could surmise whether the Vasilikos Valley area’s pine and oak resources may have become depleted during the Archaic period, also as a result of increased forest-clearing for intensive agriculture, but it seems more probable that copper production could continue at some scale with diversified wood-collecting strategies. Gathering of branches and limbs for charcoal would have occurred

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Figure 6.12 Situation of Kalavasos Skouries and copper mining area with geological zones and contemporary Archaic settlements and tombs (red stars)

in proximity to the smelting installations placed close to mines and with access to water. Arguably, arboriculture in the vicinity of copper production would have supplemented forest resources with a more targeted supply of charcoal (Brown 2011). At known Archaic to Hellenistic smelting sites such as Ayia Varvara Almyras, for example, botanical investigations have revealed that the largest percentage of wood burned for charcoal in the copper production areas was from olive trees (Fasnacht 1999). Orchards that were managed to produce olives as well as firewood would therefore have leveraged a more sustainable or complementary supply than smelting operations that relied only on the felling of pine or oak, creating localized effects on woodlands and erosion. This calculus of wood fuel also does not include the woody matter needed for daily use in houses and other industries, such as building construction, pottery manufacture, and shipbuilding, further reiterating the likelihood that communities were managing orchards and semi-wild groves near production sites. The settlements appearing by the later eighth century on the hillslopes surrounding copper mines would have supported this shifting terrain and worked landscape (Figure 6.12). While these upper elevations, at 200 m asl or above, seem to have been largely underutilized during the preceding

Copper and Trees

Late Bronze Age, the early Archaic period was one of dramatic investment in pockets of stable cultivable soil and rocky outcrops overlooking hillslopes and deep gullies around the copper ores (Andreou 2016; South 2016). Several sites recorded by the VVP within 1 km of the slag heaps of Kalavasos Skouries and Platies on the west side of the river exemplify these trends. The site of Asgata Neron tou Phani overlooks gullies to the east, while to the west of this likely settlement were a grouping of twenty or more rock-cut Archaic tombs at Asgata Kambos, visible from Asgata Neron tou Phani across a deep ravine. Bordering an intermittent stream to the south of the mines is the site of Kalavasos Petra, in a pocket of arable soils facing the igneous pillow lavas, seemingly established only by the Archaic period (Todd 2004: 93). Kalavasos Spilios, a sprawling and large multiperiod site on several slopes facing north towards the mines, contained abundant amounts of Archaic pottery and possibly its own tombs (Todd 2004: 101–104). While Todd initially envisioned the site as ca. 40 ha, resurvey found considerably smaller clusters of post-Bronze Age material and slag heaps, suggesting a smaller settlement or grouping of households. The ceramic assemblages in this area included both utilitarian and fine wares, probably from domestic residences and activities (Todd 2004: 103). In the northern parts of the original VVP survey extent, the site of Ora Aspro Khorapha revealed CG III and CA I material as well as two looted Archaic tombs, with Archaic ceramics also recovered at Ora Betaleyi, Ora Loures, and Kalavasos Markotis, vestiges of a broader network of settlements and production areas that straddled the river and likely associated with the copper ores (Todd 2004: 126–127; Georgiadou 2016). Given the large amounts of Archaic ceramics scattered across this area, Todd (2004: 93) suggested a cluster of settlements and activity zones related to copper mining and production (see also Georgiadou 2018: 158): “the sites of Petra I and II, Spilios, Asgata Neron tou Phani and Asgata Kambos must all be considered together in any study of the post-prehistoric utilization of this area.”8 How were they interrelated? Resurvey at the site of Asgata Neron tou Phani indicated the presence of a small group exploiting the conditions of arable cultivation on the eastern end of a low spur that slopes down to a seasonal drainage, where a number of small check dam walls cut across the gully. As opposed to the low cross-channel walls meant to retain soil moisture in the lower valley drainages, check dams are shorter and act more as capture systems for erosional runoff associated with eventful precipitation and water flow, such as flash floods. This area has stable fields created from several paleolandslides, which brought soil down from the upper talus slopes and established concave saddles with

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deeper pockets of carbonate-rich soil. Sitting at roughly 240 m asl, the site “has a commanding view northwards to the Petra mine area … and across the Vasilikos valley” (Todd 2004: 32; see also Todd 1989: 44). Most of the site today is covered with dense, thick maquis overgrowth of spiny burnet and other small bushes, and with noticeable erosion on either side of the eastward facing spur. At Asgata Neron tou Phani Todd (2004: 32) noted only a small number of ceramic fragments from the Chalcolithic and Middle Bronze Age periods, and then a high frequency of Archaic material, especially pithos sherds and the common White Painted ware fragments, with a few later Roman pieces. While recent resurvey in these fields found a number of decorated Black on Red and Bichrome fragments of the Archaic period, the assemblage consistently took the shape of body fragments of coarse wares and some handles, rims, and bases similar in composition and production to those found at Kalavasos Vounaritashi further south. Recent analysis of the catalogued finds has confirmed the earliest occupations in the mid-eighth to seventh centuries bce, or the CA I period (Georgiadou 2016, 2018). In addition, the VVP found chert flakes throughout the spur and significant numbers of small pieces of slag that “appeared to be eroding out of adjacent deposits and not just the remains of road metalling” (Todd 2004: 32). The presence of numerous stones, many in linear features indicating retaining walls, suggested to Todd the possible indications of a building, although he was unclear of their dating. Across a gully from Asgata Neron tou Phani, and also likely separated from that settlement by a now hidden water channel draining down towards the river, these inhabitants established burial grounds at Asgata Kambos, in an area of roughly 0.5 ha, although the full extent was not clear at the time of original survey (Todd 2004: 30–31). We can start to see the outlines of a group of settlements occupying various parts of the limestone slopes, each with different relationships to the immediate surroundings but linked through collective burials at Asgata Kambos and Kalavasos Spilios. Settled areas were concentrated in areas such as Spilios, while processing sites, farming plots, pens, and grazing sites took advantage of conditions at Kalavasos Petra, Asgata Neron tou Phani, and the Ora area. The connection between emergent settlements, access to woods, metallurgical resources, and arable land and orchards finds a parallel in the Late Bronze Age site of Aredhiou Vouppes, which is located at a similar geological interface of sedimentary and igneous zones (Steel and Janes 2005; Steel 2009, 2016). The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project originally identified Vouppes through pithos fragments, ground-stone tools, and utilitarian wares such as wall brackets, suggesting a small settlement (Given

Copper and Trees

and Knapp 2003: 179–182). An excavation team set out to investigate the site as a potential LC rural community that may have supported the local mining industry (Knapp 2008: 140–141; Steel 2009, 2016, 2021; see also Knapp 1997: 59–60). The research concluded that the site had several activity zones, many of which included evidence for large storage containers and domestic materials, suggesting involvement in agricultural production and storage, as well as rooms for social gathering (Steel 2021). Louise Steel (2009: 137) also interprets the site as a secondary center integrated with intra-island patterns of trade and with access to imported commodities. The example provides a template for discerning the community practices near the copper mines of the Vasilikos Valley. After households had experimented with settlements at places such as Ora Aspro Khorapha during the ninth century, some were able to take on the risks of initiating copper mining during the early Archaic period. Once established by the eighth and early seventh centuries, these mining communities required their own gathering places to manage affiliation: collective tombs, shrines, and paths stitching together small settlements across the upper Vasilikos Valley. Settlements such as Asgata Neron tou Phani and Kalavasos Spilios thus grew out of unruly relationships with the emerging Iron Age political economy of copper. The metallurgical establishments in this area arguably spurred the consumption logics at Amathus, leading royal authorities to negotiate access to the transport and distribution of copper ingots or objects. A tantalizing, if conjectural piece of evidence for direct Amathusian engagement comes from the tombs area of Asgata Kambos, where the VVP survey found the fragment of a Levantine amphora with incised signs on its neck mentioned in Chapter 5 (Georgiadou 2016, 2018). As noted, similarly marked amphorae of local production found at Amathus seem to suggest an institution of supply or redistribution linking the town to its outer edges (Hermary 2015: 18). Other inferences of an outside interest in the Kalavasos mines area are the longevity of settlements in this sedimentary and igneous interface, with material from the ninth century, through the CA I and II periods, as well as some of the only surface collections dating to the Hellenistic period in the entire valley (Todd 2013: 104; Georgiadou 2018). At a time when Amathus was flourishing, renewed copper production was happening around Kalavasos Skouries in the fourth century bce that seemed to override local connections to the small sanctuary, covering it in smelting waste and slag. On the one hand, we can surmise that the community sought different places and practices for gathering, sharing information, or building ties, perhaps at larger sanctuaries such as Vavla Kapsalaes or in town. On the other hand, if the Ptolemaic administration

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that assumed sovereignty over the island sanctioned more exploitative conditions for copper production, and more surveillance of its associated labor groups, the covering of this earlier shrine may also indicate the imperial destruction of local ties of belonging and senses of place in order to limit chances for empowerment of the colonized.

Soil and Water Cyprus was not consistently “self-sufficient” in grain or orchard crop production in all periods of its history, despite Strabo’s (14.6.5) claims, and the low amounts of average rainfall over much of the south-central coast as well as its dynamic underlying geologies would have mediated not just soil health but the opportunities for agropastoral economies (Iacovou 2013a). As I have been arguing, marginality or fertility of dirt and sediments used in cropping or grazing are not transhistorical but constituted by the encounters of settling communities with changing landscapes and their dynamic terrains. The Vasilikos and Maroni region shares a complex series of soils, from the pillow lavas and mines area in the upland foothills through the chalks, marls, and gypsum of the sedimentary zone to the coast, uplifted through dynamic tectonic activity (Murray and Robertson 2020). A typical feature of the area is the locally termed havara, soft carbonate accumulations and lenses rhythmically bedded with soils and resulting from soil formation processes linked to aridification, as well as kafkalla, more developed carbonates in harder, limestone-like layers (Zomeni 2012: 168, 180). Indeed across most of the chalk plateaus sit shallow, lighter soils with higher limestone contents, which are more prone to erosion and typically host endemic wild vegetation. The Vasilikos and Ayios Minas rivers and their estuaries and plains near the coast, in contrast, have deposits of alluvium and colluvium ranging in depth, carbonate content, and nutrient quality, associated with their courses and side tributaries that have changed over the last several hundred thousand years. These attest to the widespread transformations in valley shape and geomorphology through tectonic activity and in periods of abundant or reduced water flow. Research has articulated periods of outsized alluvial deposition in the Vasilikos valley, for example, linked roughly to the Bronze and Roman periods, which may account for the patchiness of survey finds in areas of deeper overburden (Wagstaff 1978; Gomez and Wagstaff 1987; Gomez et al. 2004; see also VitaFinzi 1990). Parts of the Maroni littoral are also associated with the welldrained and clayey terra rossa soils conducive to cultivation, particularly

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of commodities such as carob and citrus plants and horticultural goods, as evident in the stretches of greenhouses currently along this part of the coast (see also Christodoulou 1959: 168, fig. 93).9 These soil formations tend to occur after weathering processes cut and expose underlying carbonates. Soil and soil formation processes thus play a critical part in the entangled transformations of land, rocks, water, vegetation, biota, and weather into landscapes (Given 2017; see also Horden and Purcell 2000: 231–234). The resource materialities of this region to the east of Amathus included the habilitation and development of soils targeted for different kinds of cultivation and pasturing. The thinner and lower-quality soils of the hillier valley sides would have been riskier for large-scale cultivation owing to their propensities for erosion, and would have required certain technological innovations such as terracing, while the deeper profiles closer to the rivers and the sea were likely overexploited and subject to degradation in quality (Andreou 2014: 91–92). What might the rural agropastoral economies of this region have looked like? As argued in Chapter 1, our understandings of land acquisition and property holding remain speculative, and knowledge of plant and animal economies for the Cypriot Iron Age is impoverished. Nevertheless, the evidence from available survey and excavation records points to a world of farmers, horticulturalists, shepherds and those tending animals, and industrial workers joined together through forms of trade and exchange, but equally through modalities of rising productivity that secured the footing of some local community members into ascendant structures of stratification and power. The soils of the coastal lowlands enmeshed local inhabitants in translocal networks of farms, pastures, and manufacturing workshops between Amathus and the countryside. A sketch of this presumed agropastoral productivity can help outline the choices made to occupy these eastern hinterlands. Undoubtedly grain and cereal harvesting played a role, although the lowland region was likely more attractive for orchard cultivation, particularly of olives but also other fruits and crops such as carob (Andreou and Sewell 2015). The flatter coastal terrain of the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds consists of the kinds of limestone base and deep deposits of accumulated colluvial soils sought after for polyculture (Noller 2010). Ethnographic studies of Cypriot intensive plot fragmentation have led scholars to posit similar multiplot systems for much of antiquity (e.g. Sallade and Braun 1982; Yerkes 2000; Halstead 2014; Stewart 2016). If households managed and rotated fragmented plots during the Archaic period, the littoral soils would have offered accessible arable fields within short walking distances of known lowland settlements such as Maroni Vouni, on a ridge overlooking the Ayios Minas River. The

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reinvestments in cultivation argued for the Archaic period were also constrained by decision-making with regard to owning multiple plots managed for different parts of the harvesting cycle. Among the common olives and carobs in plot arrangements further afield, there would also have been vegetable and other plant gardens closer to residences, creating the sort of soils typically ploughed with animal manure in historical periods and studied through ethnographic analyses (Marks 1999; Sallade and Braun 1982; Yerkes 2000; Stewart 2016; Halstead 2018; see also Wilkinson 1982; Alcock et al. 1994). While there has yet been no study of recovered animal remains from Iron Age sites nearby, the cultivation schemes would have likely included mixed plots to accommodate livestocking and grazing (Rupp 2001: 123). Currently, the lower Vasilikos and Maroni valleys are used for pasturing with numerous locations for mandra, folds for sheep and goats, whose enduring presence has furnished several local toponyms (Gomez et al. 2004: 14). Although these kinds of assumptions are not yet born out through archaeological evidence for this region, they offer a heuristic model of the ways that cultivation stitched sites to broader parts of the emerging landscape, as farmers walked distances of one to five hours to various holdings. Legacy survey, recent resurvey, and excavations in the fields immediately adjacent to the Late Bronze Age administrative buildings at Maroni Vournes have revealed indications of the kinds of persistent settlement and exploitation changing these littoral soils over time (Kearns 2019; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). The Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project recorded a likely settlement at Maroni Vouni and cemetery at Maroni Viklari, the latter having been identified previously as a Neolithic and Chalcolithic occupation (Swinton 1994: 354). The survey’s collection strategy had also produced denser concentrations of Archaic wares near the locality Maroni Yianes, west of a tributary, and to the south and southeast of the monumental area at Maroni Vournes, which confirmed the interrelationships of cultivation and settled practices in the area with the figurines and sanctuary assemblages found within the site (Manning and Conwell 1992; Manning et al. 1994; D. Sewell pers. comm.; Figure 6.13). The materials collected were largely CA I and CA II amphorae and tablewares, as well as storage and cooking vessels, indicative of Amathusian production of the eighth to fifth centuries bce (Swinton 1994: 355). Hotspot analysis of the earlier MVASP records conducted by Andreou has further shown clustering of CA surface materials in an area southeast of the LC site and the Archaic sanctuary, which directed the placement of geophysical and intensive resurvey units in 2017 (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021: 11, 15,

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Figure 6.13 Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project survey findings and hotspot analysis for the Iron Age, with names of recorded sites and square showing 2017 survey grid. 5 m contours (data courtesy of Georgia Andreou and MVASP)

figs. 8 and 12; Figure 6.14).10 The geophysical survey, combined with test excavations of targeted magnetic anomalies, produced enigmatic results that suggest more recent modifications to the lowland terrain, including probable field walls and drainage ditches, associated with the twentieth-century shift to mechanized commercial agriculture (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). These excavations and pedestrian surveys furnished diachronic assemblages that suggest long-term investments in the littoral, as well as close relationships to Amathusian production for CA wares, as seen at Kalavasos Vounaritashi and in the inventoried ceramics from the Vasilikos Valley (Georgiadou 2016, 2018). Despite the seemingly dense concentrations of utilitarian wares recovered in pilot surface collections in this locality, however, including many that suggest processing activities, no Archaic architectural remains associated with the fields around Maroni Vournes have been found yet. At the site of Maroni Aspres, however, about 400  m west of Maroni Vournes, MVASP did surmise the presence of an Iron Age building. MVASP targeted Maroni Aspres to explore the relationship between the regional center and agricultural processing sites around it during the Bronze Age,

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Figure 6.14 Photograph of excavations at Maroni Aspres, Trench 4, showing Walls S1 (left foreground) and S3 (perpendicular wall in center) associated with Iron Age reuse of an earlier Late Cypriot structure (seen in Wall S4) (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning and MVASP)

and test excavations there revealed a large LC structure whose remains were reused at some point during the early first-millennium bce for a large built feature of unknown purpose. Several walls made of large facing stones, including a repurposed ashlar block with rubble cores, were built on top of earlier LC walls and the occupants probably used an earthen floor to create rooms and a courtyard (Nakou and De Mita 1997: 18–19; Figures 6.14 and 6.15). While these remains were heavily disturbed by plough activity and their function is thus difficult to interpret, the activities here suggest similar choices to inhabit and reshape existing old walls during the eighth and seventh centuries bce at Maroni Vournes. It is possible that other LC structures in the dispersed urban fabric of Maroni, yet to be excavated or identified, provided a rich field of existing architecture and land use features for Archaic populations. While the combination of legacy and recent surveys around Maroni did not confirm intensive olive cultivation linked to the workings of this small sanctuary, the religious orientations of the practices held within the remnant monumental walls suggest the regular inclusion of olive oil.11 The abundance of basket-handled transport amphorae also affirms its local production, perhaps associated with Amathusian workshops. At the Iron Age sanctuary site of Ayia Irini, similar arguments for agricultural activities at the sanctuary have connected the practices there

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Figure 6.15 Plan of Trench 4 at Maroni Aspres with remains of large Iron Age structure in blue (Walls S1, 2, 3, 7, 9) and multiple phases of earlier Late Cypriot structure underneath in yellow (S4, 5, 8) (courtesy of Sturt W. Manning, Sarah Monks and MVASP)

to land use regimes (Gjerstad et al. 1935: 667–668, 820–821). As opposed to the synchronic signatures at sites such as Kalavasos Vounaritashi, the more diachronic assemblages recovered around Maroni Vournes attest to the enduring and intensive use of terra rossa and carbonate-rich soils. The settlement patterns for the coastal plains of this region have, as discussed earlier, been intensively disrupted by recent agriculture and industry. The later twentieth-century economic shifts away from pastoralism towards mechanized agricultural technology and development caused widespread landscape alteration to the lowlands, and the material history of herding and regional mobility, in the form of small field shelters or the traveler’s khan, has all but disappeared (Todd 2004: 22–24; cf. Jones et al. 1958; Christodoulou 1959). Ethnographic and historical information for

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the Kalavasos, Tochni, Mari, and Maroni villages, moreover, attests to lasting modifications to land use practices during the 1960s and 1970s, as plot fragmentation was shifted through land consolidation schemes and irrigation projects in an effort to strengthen agrarian economies (Burton 1988; King and Burton 1989; Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources 1993; Marks 1999; Stewart 2016). Field boundaries were erased, roads built, and massive soil engineering projects leveled the littoral fields for more intensive citrus and greenhouse cultivation. Excavations along the Maroni coast over the last decade have, for example, uncovered up to 2 m of overburden in some places above Late Bronze Age remains, in addition to signs of mid-twentieth-century irrigation ditches and water retention features (Kearns and Georgiadou 2021). The construction of the main highway linking Nicosia to Limassol also cut through several archaeological sites, some of which were excavated under rescue operations (Todd 2013: 5). As argued in Chapter 5, the near-shore and off-coast areas were also heavily disturbed through the refurbishment of municipal harbors as well as the growth of large-scale industrial operations, particularly the Moni and Vasilikos power plants, the Vassiliko Cement Works, and the Vasilikos Energy Center that has recently created the infrastructure for refining liquefied natural gas (Andreou et al. 2019). For these reasons, survey projects in the area have noted the likelihood of significant destruction and geomorphological effects obscuring traces of earlier occupations, especially those visible in surface remains. All these factors expose the difficulties of understanding the patchiness and invisibility of rural materials (see also Ghisleni et al. 2011; Attema et al. 2017). Nevertheless, the coastal plains preserve compelling facets of the persistent contours of social life emerging there during the Archaic period at the intersection of agriculture and cultivation, pastoralism, and coastal trade. An interesting area of first-millennium bce settlement and land use offers one example of a near-coastal place with signs of emerging complexity and a dynamic weathered environment. The municipality of Tochni, a small village between Kalavasos and Maroni, sits within a subwatershed between the Vasilikos and Ayios Minas rivers with its own smaller drainages and tributaries leading to the coast. Below the village opens the flatter valley bottom, surrounded by the chalks and marls of the sedimentary zone as well as the local lithological signature of gypsum. On the western edge of a buried river channel, sitting on terrace deposits overlooking deep alluvium, the VVP identified a large Archaic assemblage of roughly 3.5 ha called Tochni Petreli (Todd 2004: 139–141; Figure 6.16). It consists of a settlement, which Todd labeled Tochni Petreli North, and clear evidence

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Figure 6.16 Geological map showing estimated area of Tochni Petreli North and Petreli at interface of alluvium and marine terrace deposits. 5 m contours (adapted from Todd 2004: 139–141)

of a cemetery at Tochni Petreli, occupying one of the smaller exposed carbonate terraces that dot the coastal plain. The tombs provided enough evidence of rectilinear, subterranean features and dromoi to discern multiple types, although they had clearly been looted. The surface assemblages confirm the likely orientations of this near-coastal zone to cultivation and animal husbandry. A fragment of a rectangular stone basin was noted on the edge of the site, as well as dense concentrations of field stones in linear arrangements, which were still visible during resurvey in 2013. Todd (2004: 141) suggested that the stones and associated artifacts “may indicate the presence of domestic structures with storage facilities; alternatively a more agricultural or industrial function may be posited.” Recent resurvey also revealed a greater spatial distribution of coarse wares and pithos fragments and Plain ware body fragments. About 0.5 km south of Tochni Petreli is a much larger spur of marine carbonates called Tochni Mesovouni that preserved four dromoi of ancient tombs. While the VVP found some indications of Middle Bronze Age use of this high ridge, the most predominant fragments were of Archaic and Hellenistic date, and may relate to an associated cemetery for the inhabitants of the area.

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The surface collections in this area are interesting to contrast with the cases of Kalavasos Vounaritashi and the Kalavasos mines area discussed earlier, for several reasons. Hugging dynamic and relatively recent alluvial soils at the interface between the sedimentary chalks and the coastal lowlands, and with direct access to deeper alluvium in periods with more reliable year-round freshwater, the terrain around Tochni Petreli clearly provided a salient position for agropastoral practices stretching between the ninth and fourth centuries bce. There are no indications of Late Bronze Age occupations in this area. The Petreli cluster shows inhabitation by the CG III period, making it one of only a handful of sites with clear attestations of the later ninth and early eighth centuries bce (Georgiadou 2016: 104). After this period, the site is interesting for being long-lived, with fragments of imports from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, otherwise little-attested in the region (Rautman 2016). It is therefore a vestige of what I have been arguing is an unruly transitional landscape, as settler communities started to establish more sedentary and permanent occupations along the water courses of the Vasilikos and Maroni region. After a few generations, these settlers had been able to establish forms of landesque capital such as walls and channels to support their claims over well-watered soils, which became more reliable into the eighth and seventh centuries bce. According to the survey evidence, communities of this Geometric-Archaic horizon enacted the first significant occupation of the area, suggesting a reorientation by the ninth century bce to the extensive coastal terrain and flatter valley bottoms that were more conducive to a mixed land use regime of cereal cultivation, livestocking and pasturage, and polyculture of olives and other orchard crops (Keswani 2018: 147). The households that created permanent domestic and rural installations here benefited from early productive yields and were then able to establish a long history of residence. In addition to the frequent abundance of White Painted wares and coarser utility vessels suggestive of production and storage, the surface finds include numerous fragments of painted fine wares. At Tochni Petreli North, the presumed domestic and processing part of the site, were substantial quantities of Black-on-Red, Bichrome, and Red and Black Slip finds. Many of these undoubtedly point to the activities of mortuary feasting and stray grave goods associated with the proximate cemeteries, including one of only four fragments of imported wares for the Archaic period, a possibly Late Geometric Euboean skyphos fragment (Georgiadou 2016: 117). The Tochni Petreli find represents one of the few discovered outside Amathus’ acropolis (Georgiadou 2016: 105–106). If there were a limited and controlled distribution for prestige goods such as Aegean

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dining plates and vessels, diacritically marshalled for feasting, the evidence suggests that an individual or household at Tochni Petreli had established early connections to Amathus but had reasons for enacting and embodying that privilege in the eastern edges of the state and through local performances (Crielaard 1999). While this is a tentative suggestion, the import may represent a community member’s early advantage in accumulating social power through settling and weathering the productive coastal terrain, affording access to the cultural trends at Amathus. Because this area was identified ad hoc and was not part of the VVP’s systematic survey in the surrounding area, the environs of Tochni Petreli appears as an anomalous outlier to the denser Archaic occupations of the Vasilikos valley. Undoubtedly, given the proximity to large alluvial fans and colluvial deposits, there were more sites around it that have yet to be surveyed. The Tochni Petreli assemblage seems to represent one large settlement, placed along the edge of a seasonal alluvial stream, and one or two possible associated necropoleis on ridges at Tochni Petreli and Mesovouni overlooking the drainage and the coastal plain. The prominent intervisibility of Tochni Mesovouni, in particular, may have anchored the local community’s central claims to mortuary place-making. The wealth on display in the tombs just north of Tochni Petreli, at Kalavasos Kafkalies, and presumably also at Tochni Mesovouni or nearby at Tochni Styllos, invokes the maintenance and curating of this local power into the later Archaic and Classical periods (Figure 6.17). There is also the possibility that inhabitants at Tochni Petreli used their position closer to the shore to secure anchorages for maritime trade, acquiring goods such as Euboean skyphoi through autonomous channels. I argued in Chapter 5 that although local anchorages were undoubtedly used, and Tochni Lakkia certainly shows continued and intensive exploitation during this period, it is more likely that prominent families received prestige objects through direct engagement with town dwellers, specifically to appropriate urban material practices for local conspicuous consumption (see also Kearns 2022b). The overall lack of imports for the Archaic period in this region aligns more with a model of limited acquisition through exchange with the town, rather than hypothesizing a very sparse form of locally autonomous maritime trade with the Aegean and Levant. The coastal soils of the lower Vasilikos and Maroni valleys around Tochni Petreli were persistently oriented to diversified rural land use practices, as argued, for example, for the importance of olive oil cultivation for the Late Bronze Age urban sites of Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and Maroni (Keswani 2018). For the Archaic horizon, Tochni Petreli was likely situated in an area of intensive orchard cultivation. Roughly 1 km to the southeast

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Figure 6.17 Situation of Tochni Petreli among other mentioned Archaic assemblages. 5 m contours

from Tochni Petreli, the VVP found remains of a similarly sized settlement at Tochni Mouthkia, with evidence of olive oil processing in the form of pierced limestone weights and a probable vessel used for settling oil (Todd 2004: 136–137; 2013: 32; see also Hadjisavvas 1992: 66). The numerous quantities of Archaic ceramics situate this olive oil production within the eighth to fifth centuries bce and suggest one aspect of the local agropastoral economy in an area of greater access to stable soils and water supply. Scholars have posited that the estimated scale of the equipment at Tochni Mouthkia indicates a community investment in oil production, consumed locally and possibly traded outside the lower valleys (Hadjisavvas 1996). Collective action or the patronage of local officials or wealthy families would have tied together non-elite inhabitants of the region through shared use of grinding and pressing equipment, especially for those who did not own installations and who may have been required to provide small amounts for local or regional authorities. Tochni Petreli, with its persistent landscape history and signs of access to the accoutrements of status differentiation, may represent the kinds of long-lived prominent families who possessed their own olive oil processing equipment and may have created social relationships of asymmetry with those who wanted or needed to use such tools and infrastructure.

Conclusions

Conclusions In Strabo’s (14.6.5) description of Cyprus for his imperial geography, mentioned in Chapter 1, the matter of the island’s terrain featured prominently: its grains, grapes, and olives, as well as its metals, minerals, and trees. Inventoried among other Roman interests in the eastern Mediterranean, these materials served mostly as proxies for an imagining of provincial commerce and industry. For the Archaic communities figuring out how to live within the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, these materials were intimately entangled in their everyday lives, their interactions with emerging local and regional forms of social organization and governance, and their senses of community. They had a more widespread social field and mediated between groups in more complex ways than we tend to consider. These settlers also encountered and fashioned weathering terrains into new economic and social structures. Gypsum was not only an ingredient for making buildings; it was a substantive extension of settlement and processing life at small sites such as Kalavasos Vounaritashi, where its physical instability urged continuous mitigation and required maintenance for permanent architecture. Copper, usually considered at the statewide scale of royal political economy, traveled around the foothills of the Kalavasos Spilios area in the form of slag, metals, ores, and microfragments in soils and streams. It fostered social relations in the networks of arable settlements supporting investments in metal or wood production by the sixth century bce, eventually centering religious gatherings in spiritually charged geologies at Kalavasos Skouries. The varied weathering of the valleys’ soils, especially between chalks and alluvium near the coastal plain in places such as Tochni Petreli, produced diversified agropastoral investments by which some could plant early roots of community. These vignettes of buildings, slag heaps, and surface assemblages of utilitarian wares and imports begin to expose the complexity of Archaic countrysides over generations of social change. The localities explored through their material entanglements do not conform to a static, singular archetype of peasant farmstead producing for the state nor of wealthy estate owners mobilizing large amounts of labor, although they hint at how local actors experienced and reproduced forms of social differentiation. At Tochni Petreli, early signs of sedentism make it likely that founding households sought productive coastal terrain for initiating cereal agriculture, polyculture, and pastoralism. In a setting without clear signs of Bronze Age landesque features, these family or kin networks began the work of weathering the alluvium and low hills for olive and grain cultivation, turning a

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well-watered drainage into a productive agropastoral landscape. Within a few generations, these earlier settlers were able to use their yields and forward-thinking strategies to accumulate the kinds of drinking equipment and associated material wealth circulating in the town, such as Euboean skyphoi. By the seventh and sixth centuries, the households inhabiting and working the Tochni Petreli area had established prominent ancestral grounds on relic marine terraces, such as Tochni Styllos, perhaps to signal their status as long-lived eminent lineages. At Kalavasos Vounaritashi, on the other hand, Building I represents the extension of household networks into rural industries such as stone quarrying, catalyzed by the demands of urban interests but also using these materials for their own consumption. Whether managed by a larger suprahousehold organization or through one group, the site was not privileged for everyday social performances but for its access to valued resource materialities. Although shorter lived than Tochni Petreli, Kalavasos Vounaritashi also raises questions about how Archaic settlers were interacting and choosing to maintain the landscape features of earlier periods. Around the mines, we gain insight into the bounding of community. Local groups carved out horticultural plots on stable paleolandslides and settled on the edges of watersheds and springs, supporting mining operations with foods and other goods as well as sources of cut wood. Here, social gathering happened in the rites of burial, and also eventually took the form of small-scale spectacles at places such as Kalavasos Skouries, in dialogue with urban religious trends but directed at local groups. These relational accounts of gypsum, copper, wood, and dirt sit uneasily in conceptions of static or immutable resource fields. Their weathering, through meteorological phenomena, ecological and geophysical processes, and human interventions, made them unruly participants in the growth of new kinds of social life during the ninth and eighth centuries bce. At sites such as Kalavasos Vounaritashi, for example, plaster production may have been constrained in part by periods of wetter conditions, when vegetation growth and evaporation rates affected the makeup of gypsum outcrops. The precarity of living on gypseous soils may also have made forward-thinking strategies of accumulation or permanence less viable. The entanglements of alluvial soils and marine terraces near Maroni and Tochni Petreli, on the other hand, conditioned a more established environment for longterm use and the possibilities for senses of ownership and ancestral social time to saturate mortuary grounds on prominent ridges such as Tochni Mesovouni. These communities also navigated the rhythms of low amounts of rainfall along the coast that had real effects on soil quality and water

Conclusions

availability. And while copper is certainly bonded to the igneous pillow lavas encircling the Troodos massif, its substantive transformations, particularly because of erosion and mining and smelting practices, situated the metal within a dynamic landscape of water and trees. Archaic occupations in the mines region articulated with weathering experiences to forge new entrapments of copper production, requiring water and soil management, wood harvesting, and paths and routes stitching the upper parts of the river valleys to towns and inter-polity networks. These entanglements, like those underlying the political landscape of the Idalion Tablet, integrated different kinds of political belonging and economic interdependency within the Vasilikos and Maroni region when compared to the more immediate chora of the town of Amathus and its harbor. They also created other-than-urban places at the same time that urban ones were forming. Woods such as oak and pine made their way from mining operations around the forested foothills for various workshops, building projects, and residential uses around the acropolis. Gypsum and lime plasters were salient to the engineering of social spaces within the administrative and royal environment and required distribution flows from the Kalavasos area, while matrices of soils and water helped establish the kinds of conspicuous production in oil and wine critical to status-building. The eastern seams of the polity were working in part within these constraints of political economy and authority, while also navigating their own consolidating senses of local community, competition, and systems of social bounding. We can surmise, as Andreou (2019b) has for the Late Bronze Age, that social actors were manipulating their own informal economic practices in and around the more targeted mechanics and watchful eyes of the state. As argued throughout this book, these more independent or autonomous actions brought local resource materialities into connection with small-scale exchange networks, allowing inhabitants to participate alongside or underneath the system of Amathus and its emporia. These registers are deciphered most clearly through the multiple socially constructed scales of living and working within the taskscapes of town, chora, and countryside: those oriented to community affiliation and kinship networks, to signs of legitimacy in royal claims to land ownership, and to interregional economics linking bulk grains, added-value goods such as olive oil or plaster, and prestigious matter such as copper to other Mediterranean ports.

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What might a hypothetical Amathusian Tablet have listed, if the same kinds of inventories were common institutional measures across fifth-century Cyprus? Would it have included the copper mines at Kalavasos, or the sanctuary at Vavla Kapsalaes, or the numerous fields and terraced plots of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys? In this book I have entertained questions such as these as heuristic entryways to analyze the emergence of forms of social complexity from roughly the ninth to early fifth centuries bce – from the production of urban and rural places, to their representations in things like the amphoriskos from Amathus, to the imagination of landscapes in the Idalion Tablet. These inquiries have thrown more light onto the lived places that have so far received less scholarly attention: villages, mines, rural tombs and shrines, and their material connections to the town. These were sites of political intervention, by small and large actors alike, which underwrote the possibilities of town forms but which were equally generated by principles salient to smaller-scale social fields (Krause 2013: 40). These relational landscape examinations have privileged ruralization not as an end in itself but as a means to understanding the dramatic and long-lasting transformations in forms of landscape during the first-millennium bce. The social changes initiating these practices in this period were, I argue, constituted through novel kinds of human–environment relationships linked to oscillations in weathered landscapes, permanent and persistent settlement, and integrations of town and countryside. I have framed them as unruly to interrogate what we mean by rule and authority during the Iron Age, and to suggest that relationships of power and differentiation emerged through new encounters with and mediations of dynamic terrains. Methodologically, these kinds of social changes require multiscalar investigations, moving beneath the generalist pictures provided by longterm records of Holocene climatic variability, or by approaches that privilege the longue durée over the rhythms of generational, yearly, or seasonal experiences. Integrating these datasets and timescales with closer attention to other scales of lived experience opens more avenues for understanding how landscapes were instrumental to Iron Age social changes. My goals have been to take the environmental matter of these semiarid landscapes

Relational Countrysides

seriously by situating various kinds of evidence for shifts in settlement, place-making, and land use beside environmental histories. In doing so, we help decenter the catastrophist preoccupations of climate-society narratives that pit societies against reified climates, putting ancient environments and communities into a narrow language of failure and success, as if there were a possible singular outcome. I have instead offered analyses that support a more critical landscape archaeology, drawn from an environmental humanities perspective, which explores humans encountering, experiencing, perceiving, and imagining their surroundings in socially and materially constrained ways. As an analytical project, these methods have helped to understand certain kinds of local and regional variation, and as a recuperative project, they have brought much-needed attention to the social actors, political economies and ecologies, and complexities of the Vasilikos and Maroni region of south-central Cyprus. In this final summary chapter, I begin with an overview of my arguments for the ruralization of Cyprus taking shape during the ninth to seventh centuries bce, entangled with the concentration of forms of authority and growing urbane practices in regional towns. With special focus on Amathus, I synthesize my explanations for the settlement and land use patterns discernible in the material records from the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, articulating local heterogeneities with signs of social difference at the coastal town. I then zoom out to consider why these Cypriot histories of human– environment relationships matter in larger conversations about structural change and complexity. At more global and futurist registers, I contend that the Archaic countrysides of Cyprus also matter to conversations happening among scholars of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, as well as broader public audiences, on the seemingly threatening mediations of society and inequality that our current climatic regimes present. Continuously debated, but clearly salient to late modern preoccupations, is the unruly epoch of the Anthropocene (Tsing et al. 2019; Howe and Pandian 2020). How might the weathering practices evident in Archaic Cyprus help elucidate the social and political dimensions of our contemporary anxieties?

Relational Countrysides The landscapes of the eleventh to ninth centuries bce on Cyprus remain enigmatic, but as synthesized here, modes of less permanent settled existence and demographic shifts generated them. Numerous paleoenvironmental proxies are revealing that these centuries were more arid than the

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mid-second-millennium bce, and in contexts such as Cyprus, such aridity pushed most households and communities into more stressful schemes of risk-averse agropastoral production and water management. Following the close of the Bronze Age, we infer signs of nucleated populations living in and even amplifying their social presence at sites such as Palaipaphos and Kition, while much of the island seems to have turned towards less rooted sedentism and to have experienced daily and seasonal life through shorter-term occupations in higher elevation areas that retained more moisture. While the data are not available to argue definitively for demographic declines, the lack of settlement evidence for these centuries may reflect some reduction in populations and sources of agricultural or industrial labor. The close of the Late Bronze Age, the LC IIIB period, seems short enough – fifty to seventy-five years – to have caused traumas related to livelihoods and subsistence perceptible within one’s lifetime. The available evidence points to some reduction of investment in industries such as copper and timber production as well as craft specialization. These inferences do not require conceptual frameworks of cultural stagnation or “dark ages,” and if anything, the remarkable indications of continued use of syllabic writing systems prove that some cultural and pragmatic habits were preserved and used for new purposes across this transition (Steele 2019). The archaeological records for these centuries in fact hint at a pivot towards the social power of the household or kinship groups instead of regional or centralized authorities, sharing in broadly similar material practices of vessel production and consumption. I forward this hypothesis on admittedly shaky ground, since we still lack much in the way of empirical evidence for houses, domestic contexts, or bioarchaeological evidence of nucleated family structures, and much still needs to be tested in field-based analyses. Nevertheless, the inferences from survey records and ongoing work on protohistoric economies, as well as the later evidence of the central role of Onasilos’ household in the Idalion Tablet, suggest that family and lineage groups were becoming important civic and political units during the transition to the first-millennium bce. Social units such as these would arguably have focused on diversified land use practices instead of long-term and labor-intensive production regimes (e.g. Halstead 2014: 295). The heightened vagaries of semiarid environments in this period created more opportunities for experimentation and, arguably, more horizontal social fields for newcomers to settle on the island: those from the Aegean, the Levant, Egypt, and Anatolia. The bronze roasting spit found at Palaipaphos Skales with the name of a Greek person, Opheltas, likely captures this kind of dynamism within multicultural social settings

Relational Countrysides

of feasting and kinship. Prominent families who managed to sustain access and even control over productive land held onto their wealth, the ability to mobilize dependent labor, and the patronage of craft production, and began establishing their own conspicuously elaborate mortuary grounds. There are fewer signs of widespread or deepening social inequalities. These eleventh- and tenth-century configurations were not what I call unruly landscapes, although we cannot deny the very impartial nature of the evidence. Everyday life and even momentous social occasions of feasting or ritual seem to hinge on the creation of an island-wide koine and more collective action, the social bounding of family and household, and fewer ventures in the conspicuous or everyday demarcation or control of social difference, especially outside towns. I have avoided identifying “isolated” agricultural groups who only sought self-sufficiency, to emphasize instead the maintenance of some forms of exchange and social commonalities. Such exchanges were critical to meeting collective conceptions of surplus and subsistence in a period likely marked by resource stress. Social inequalities between those with material prosperity and those without existed, but they seem to have been normalized for increasingly mixed populations across the island navigating the risks of agropastoralism and mercantilism. Horizons of expectation during the early Geometric period of the eleventh and tenth centuries bce were therefore scaled to surviving bad years, paying attention to the frequency of droughts and failed harvests, and not to anticipating much in the way of special surplus that could mobilize social gains. During the ninth century bce, the CG III period, signs of more permanent sedentism in the archaeological record across the island reveal that things had started to change. This oscillation in permanence manifests in visible accumulations of pottery, especially larger storage vessels, and signs of settlement in most available survey evidence; in larger, nucleated settlements with higher population densities and articulations of administrative, civic, and sacred space; in mortuary grounds that began monumentalizing the tombs of some households; and in a variety of sanctuaries and shrines serving differentiated communities. While the evidence is still limited, practices of land management and agricultural technologies were undoubtedly also taking on more persistent forms as families staked claim through ownership or control of arable land and the mobilization of labor, and started clearing woodlands in pursuit of more reliable fields. The precarity of cultivation in many areas above seasonal streams or rivers still limited the scope of forward-thinking strategies, but the management of resource materialities such as upland terraces had given some

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households the options to intensify their production. Some had made the choices earlier to claim existing landesque features, taking over remnant terraced hillslopes and orchards or utilizing the enhanced soil attributes of already-existing fields, and had started to accumulate and to mobilize more labor and more efficient technologies. While this claim is conjectural without more evidence, these families presumably owned oxen, ploughs, and more slaves or could hire more labor, and could ride out the expectations of one or more bad years and diversify their cultivation in numerous plots of land in order to build up more risk-tolerant strategies. These households had also maintained access to interregional mercantile trade, some undoubtedly initiating their own maritime commerce, and likely also intermarriage with foreign families. The capacity to produce not just cereals such as barley or wheat for survival, but also semi-luxuries such as olive oil, wine, or other tree crops afforded these households new ways of solidifying contours of status distinction. Large-scale, visually conspicuous storage vessels re-emerged and evidently required built spaces in civic and administrative buildings at nucleated town sites, as well as began to spur on their production and imitation in rural communities. With them came new entanglements of forward-thinking accumulation strategies and risk calculations. Competition between households was amplifying, as choices about where to cultivate, which woodlands to exploit, or which harbors to utilize became more constrained by inter-group dynamics. At the same time, growing local and regional solidarities were forming, requiring more permanent places to enact novel kinds of politics. As large settlements with wealthy patrons and with increasingly critical access to coastal harbors grew, the possibilities for local actors created uneven and patchy fields of power and asymmetry in a period when forms of authority were not yet legible. What helped shape this sort of “field of endless dispute” were claims to property and especially to productive, long-lived plots with the accumulations of landesque investments (Mackil 2017: 77). The Idalion Tablet is provocative testimony that institutions had emerged by the early fifth century bce to intervene in these disputes, but these regulatory transactions were likely initiated or at least set in motion in the horizon of the ninth and eighth centuries bce. It is thus during this transitional period that unruly landscapes began to produce and reproduce diverse political formations across the island. They gave rise to senses of instability and unpredictability, as social differentiation appropriated regional and interregional guises that started to break away from the expectations of a collective koine and constructed lower-status “others.” Unruliness made new guidelines for political relationships, and emerged in the gaps between

Relational Countrysides

social groups staking claim to unanticipated practices of settlement, wealth accumulation, and material prosperity, and it helped to generate systemic ways to embed the socially excluded. Despite the persistent lack of local paleoenvironmental records, it is probable that Cyprus’ semiarid terrains and mountainous interiors became on average wetter and experienced more regular, and fewer, inter-annual droughts during the eighth and seventh centuries bce. New norms of weather, climate, and landscape were forming. These shifts generated diverse physical changes across the terrains and microregional topographies of the island. Water was more reliably consistent in ephemeral streams or rivers, and in some places created near-perennial sources of freshwater. Pine and oak woodlands and steppe-like vegetation cover expanded, reducing soil erosion on hillslopes and along alluvial channels but also creating wetlands in other areas. Wetter conditions also altered the configuration of resources such as gypsum or the copper ores in pillow lavas closer to the Troodos massif. By the seventh century bce, transformations in settlement networks were entangled with these shifts and generated contours of land use that enabled opportunities for the wealthy and amplified the diversity of access to agropastoral prosperity. Prominent families or other actors, looking for ways to build their own wealth, undoubtedly took advantage of longer and more reliable growing seasons to accumulate material surplus as well as to expand their production into what had been the kinds of marginal land deemed too risky for subsistence farming. These areas were especially attractive if situated in relation to resources regaining value in interregional patterns of consumption, and for those who had amassed more dependent labor. Copper is an important example as, by all accounts, evidence of renewed smelting activity in the form of slag heaps near copper mining areas appears only by the eighth century bce. So are trees, which not only fueled these ventures into metallurgical wealth but equally sustained more permanent sedentist practices and reinvigorated economies of timber for other uses, such as shipbuilding, building construction, or ritual. I have argued that gypsum, and equally limestone, were also increasingly sought for their material propensities to transform civic and palatial built environments into monumental places. Water, trees, gypsum, and copper invigorated new weatherings. Households and suprahousehold collectives could widen their expectations and anticipations of their settled and worked landscapes and seasonal rhythms, allowing for the possibilities of sustaining family wealth for more than two or three generations. Others have acknowledged that this long three-century phase, the CG III to CA I periods, represents the hardening of social differentiation and

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inequalities evident in mortuary records (e.g. Rupp 1989, 2001; Janes 2013; Diakou 2018). The political economies of agropastoral production that had become more rooted during the ninth century escalated during the eighth and seventh centuries bce with less irregularity in harvests, new land use strategies to exploit, and with enough removal from the stresses of the twelfth and eleventh centuries bce to afford the crafting of unique senses of place and territory. This was the period when authorities utilized weathering experiences to make legible their claims to regional authority and cultural identities. We come, perhaps egregiously late in the final chapter of this book, to the institution of kingship better articulated during the later Archaic and Classical periods, when coins, inscriptions, iconography, and monumentality personalize Cypriot kings with names and dates (Raptou 1999a; Satraki 2013; Hatzopoulos 2014). These were arguably hereditary autocracies, concentrating regional power in certain prominent households legitimized by the rest of the population (Isoc. 9.32). Some have hypothesized that kings (written in the local script as (w)anax, derived from the wanax of the Bronze Age Aegean) filled a distinctly hieratic form of royalty in states such as Palaipaphos, with its sanctuary of Aphrodite of trans-Mediterranean fame, basing the Cypriot institution in some form of ritual sovereignty (Maier 1989, 1999). While this claim is tantalizing, we lack the kinds of evidence from most of the Iron Age regional centers to advocate for priest-kings shored up by divine rights to rule, although it seems evident that kings held high religious status and authority within their polities. Such developments were perhaps possible in some cases or periods once ideologies of kingship had permeated other religious institutions and individual households or kinship groups had absorbed the interregional status of heroic lineages during the Classical period. More provocative is Iacovou’s (2006: 328) suggestion that the Iron Age basileus descended from lingering Bronze Age occupations such as the qa-si-re-we of Linear B texts, the pa-si-le-wo-se of the Cypriot syllabary, who seems to have been a manager of the kinds of resources and technological knowledge shoring up Archaic landscape transformations. While still attenuated by lack of evidence, this proposition aligns more with the arguments I am making on the conscription of social powers to those who had made visible their ability to reap surplus production in desirable arable commodities and pastoral wealth, who could harness sources of freshwater as well as exploit dependent labor, and who could access and replicate the kinds of trendsetting practices known from off island, such as Euboean drinking wares or Phoenician silver bowls, perhaps through formal marriage ties to other Mediterranean elites. They made materials such as

Relational Countrysides

copper, trees, and murex shells more valuable for Iron Age economies and cultural tastes. We can also revisit the dozens of plain basket-handled transport amphorae that filled one of the most opulent of the Royal Tombs from early Archaic Salamis, placed to signal the deceased’s capacity to make such an excess of olive oil or wine and to keep it for the afterlife (see also Hadjisavvas 2002). It is therefore not likely to be a coincidence that it is only by the end of the eighth century bce, generations into this Archaic timescale, when Cyprus gains the attention of Sargon II. For rising authorities and legitimate kings, or at least those with the sort of charisma and wealth to demand power, there were incentives for becoming clients of the Neo-Assyrian Empire created by intensifying trade relationships with Phoenician and other Levantine, Egyptian, Anatolian, and Aegean markets. The Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds of the south-central lowlands, oriented culturally and undoubtedly politically towards the city-state of Amathus, exemplify many of the aspects of this trajectory, but equally offer a chance to explore the messiness of emerging countrysides. After the abandonment of the region’s Late Bronze Age complexes, Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios and Maroni, evidence points to the contraction or increased impermanence of local groups during the eleventh to early ninth centuries bce. The archaeological record is biased towards the lower parts of the valleys, and it remains likely that these communities initially sought pockets of land in the higher slopes of the western Vasilikos Valley or the northern reaches of the Maroni Valley closer to the Troodos foothills and more tolerant of extensified subsistence agropastoralism. The ninth century bce (CG III) marks the horizon of more permanence, when small groups began occupying terraced slopes and ridges on or along the main river courses, such as near Kalavasos Mitsingites, exploiting the riverine corridor for travel and movement. These places tended to be positioned on top of or next to Bronze Age settlements, suggesting the resettling of the valleys by people seeking out terrains of possibility afforded by landesque features such as terrace and cross-channel walls, check dams, and other modifications. Growth seems evident through more persistent place-making practices in CG III burials at Mari Moutsounin tou Rirou, for example. The coastal settlement at Tochni Lakkia was equally reutilized in this period, and may have had a more persistent signature given its maritime position for seagoing communication and travel. Survey evidence clearly indicates some of the highest measures of occupation in these neighboring valleys during the subsequent mid-eighth to seventh centuries bce. Social groups planted roots in the coastal lowlands, the various minor side drainages of the rivers with detached, well-watered

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channels of deeper alluvium, as well as the uplands stretching into the Troodos massif at the seam between sedimentary and igneous geologies. The variability in site sizes prohibits the identification of a single “central place” and instead reveals several clusters of inhabitations that supported suprahousehold communities. While many of these settlements continued to take advantage of residual landscape interventions by reoccupying sites with protohistoric remains, what becomes clear during this period is the creation of place-making practices. Mortuary grounds on particularly visible relic terraces along the coastal lowlands are one example, as are local shrines and sanctuaries. For the former, cemeteries point to new kinds of prominent individuals, such as interred in tombs at Mari, Maroni, and Khoirokitia, who may have been founding ancestral burial grounds and their own politics of time. Old walls at Maroni Vournes, severed from their Bronze Age milieu but clearly salient to new ritual communities, helped instantiate novel senses of time and the past. Politics were also performed at what seem to be local shrines, such as Vavla Metaxas, as well as sanctuaries open for regional audiences, such as Vavla Kapsalaes, with its evidence for life-size sculpture. It is compelling, if speculative, to reconstruct the processions from Amathus up the steep ridge of the Ayios Minas River to Vavla Kapsalaes that brought spectacles of town ritual to local subjects. For the communities congealing in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, these local gathering places provided anchors for solidarity. Radiocarbon dates drawn from charcoal found in the slag heaps around Kalavasos Platies, moreover, indicate that copper smelting began in this period, which would have included woodcutting and orchard production to supply kiln sites with enough charcoal to sustain what seems to have been moderate-scale copper production. I have suggested that copper production here was conditioned partly upon demand at places such as Amathus, and likely involved the state’s infrastructural support, but that the tasks taking root around the Kalavasos mines equally generated small-scale politics salient to these local collectives. The transformation of substances such as copper into valued commodities was enacting new social and economic fault lines. The Vasilikos and Maroni region was thus becoming rural while built environments appeared on the acropolis at Amathus that served ruling authorities, forming a relational countryside that underwrote the growth of the polity. The terrains stitching these countrysides to the town were weathered through different forms of land use and community placemaking and would have had malleable connections to Amathus’ sovereign bodies. I would also conjecture, while awaiting more information on Amathus’ residential or civic spatial fabric, that it is only during the seventh

Relational Countrysides

and sixth centuries bce in the unfolding of these unruly processes that we can begin to think of Amathus and other contemporary regional centers as urban. It was then that inhabitants had cemented and legitimized the spatial imaginations of what it meant to live in town and outside it. It is in this context that we can grasp the attraction of the Amathusian amphoriskos mentioned in Chapter 5, as an imaginary of countryside places and powerful vegetation only familiar because its audiences had come to understand what their town and its non-town surroundings meant and looked like. Ruling authorities built perimeter walls with fortified gates at the end of the Archaic period, and reinforced or added to them during the fifth century bce, making more permanent and visible, even from the sea, the spatiality of the town (Aupert 1996: 89, 147; Balandier 2000). Becoming rural in the Vasilikos and Maroni region, in other words, also points to the ways in which Amathus was becoming urban through their construction of non-urban and non-Amathusian “others.” Such a claim may overinflate the importance of something like a city wall, the material manifestation of western town–country binaries since at least Homer and Hesiod, and even earlier in other traditions, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. But the walled lower town of Amathus that appears arguably ideological, and not defensive, suggests a need to display political belonging. If we compare these ideas with evidence from sixth-century Athens, for example, where land ownership within the polis’ walls may have been measured on the scale of a day’s ploughing, it further suggests that the visceral and material experiences of the chora gradually endorsed new spatial imaginations of the town (Foxhall 2003: 88). Amathus by the later Archaic period was forging its own kind of urbanism: at once outward-facing, creating marks of distinction through its remarkable sanctuary of Aphrodite, dynastic rule, and the public display of foreign imports, as well as localizing and publicizing a non-Greek language written in Cypriot syllabic in civic places and conditioning its religious practices on the exclusion of non-local accoutrements. Mortuary grounds were positioned in such a way as to be seen from their chorai, as at Amathus Loures, yet the most common funerary assemblages bore the interregional, and perhaps cosmopolitan, aesthetics of the warrior. Some rural actors similarly constructed the town in their own image, accumulating or emulating through imitation the kinds of imports in high-elite tombs to index their status but doing so within locally situated mortuary grounds. Others, as I have suggested through ceramic analysis of survey evidence, were more indifferent to the consumption of imported pottery and to their status as foreign commodities.

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These tensions come into focus when we conduct landscape archaeologies of town and country comparatively and take their material interrelationships seriously. Their histories are better served by considering how other-than-urban landscapes become sites of political intervention, not just by passively receiving the interests of the town, but by actively constructing new entanglements with their environs. The most archaeologically visible actors in these interrelationships of the Archaic period were local wealthy families who extended royal authority into the countryside, but we should also be cognizant of the majority of the population who worked farms and the surrounding landscapes of copper, stones, timber, livestock, and other commodities. Frustratingly difficult to trace materially were these communities progressively constrained into schemes of dependency as the wealthy gained and maintained status through access to property. If some of the patterns for mortuary grounds or shrines in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys suggest orientations towards inclusivity and social affiliation, the current sparsity of evidence for rural economies masks the quotidian and institutional ways that differentiation and subjugation were policed and preserved. Most of the rural populations of Archaic Cyprus were undoubtedly non-elites without recourse to oxen, ploughs, or dependent labor. If we look comparatively again at the example of later Archaic Athens, with testimony for the creation of property classes ranked through equivalents of amounts of grain, the evidence would suggest that land property systems were geared towards demarcating strata of the wealthy, who fixed the rules of membership for each other (Foxhall 1997; Mackil 2017). In the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, only some would have been included in schemes such as this, while the majority were suppressed through systems of tithes or taxation or threatened with violence. We could envision that some of the former came from long-lived prominent families as well as those taking advantage, particularly during the eighth century bce, of competition for well-watered land and experimenting with production in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys. These actors were creating their own opportunities for upward socioeconomic mobility. Such suggestions, while speculative, reinforce that in Archaic Cyprus “favorability” of landscape conditions was not a given just because climates became wetter; rather, it was socially and politically constituted and increasingly constrained in unruly relationships between people and their environments. In Chapter 6, I highlighted three cases of constructions of weathered vulnerability and favorability for diverse political ends. At Kalavasos Vounaritashi in the western Vasilikos Valley, an Archaic group engineered a seemingly marginal plateau, with erratic gypseous terrain

Relational Countrysides

detached from the main river valley, into a productive site that catered to multiple rural tasks. While the analyses of the site are preliminary, these activities arguably included mineral quarrying and processing, cereal agriculture or arboriculture in an alluvial channel system with reliable freshwater and existing terraces, and herding along the hillslopes. Vounaritashi was likely only made productive by a household or households with access to technologies and labor. Such groups would have taken on the risk of poor harvests on gypsum-rich soils, as well as sought out or complied with markets interested in creating value for transformed gypsum plaster. At Asgata Neron tou Phani on the edge of a paleolandslide and overlooking the Kalavasos copper mining area, favorability was entangled with access to and technological knowledge of resources that opened possibilities for urban political economies. While the survey evidence does not suggest the presence of very wealthy households, fragments of local transport amphorae link these sites to regional distribution networks, and their dating suggests developing economic interests in mining after productive agriculture had been established. At the same time, and although marginal to the more suitable arable land in the valley lowlands, the communities who settled here created landscapes favorable to the pursuit of small-scale community life and social bonding, with access to land for subsistence farming and arboriculture, plentiful streams and springs, and woodlands. Tombs at Asgata Kambos and Kalavasos Spilios were visible to the cluster of settlements in the area and ritual practices had become integral enough that they came to require a permanent, if small, cult site at Kalavasos Skouries. Finally, Tochni Petreli on the edge of the coastal plain exemplifies the kind of prominent household that tolerated the risks of a smaller alluvial channel without direct river supply, and without conspicuous landesque features, to establish agriculture during the ninth century bce. Here, landowners and laborers engineered soils and gentle hillslopes to produce long-term favorability for intensive agropastoralism, as evident in the site’s continuity into the Classical and Hellenistic periods, when settlement in the region drastically contracted. Hints of access to Aegean imported dining wares, as well as local mortuary grounds, further indicate that these land use efforts and potentially forward-thinking investments in semi-luxuries such as olive oil had generated material prosperity. What these three cases articulate is not just the developments of local complexity on the edges of the town, but the diverse processes by which kin groups and communities appropriated resources such as gypsum, trees, or soils in a developing political economy and weathered new senses of favorability.

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As I have posited throughout this book, discerning unruly landscapes in the context of the ninth to later seventh and sixth centuries bce is a means to asking more questions about social change and diachronic histories of state formation. Unlike the urban farmers working the immediate chorai surrounding Amathus between the Amathos and Pyrgos watershed areas, embedded more tightly within an apparatus of residential and landscape movement back and forth from town to fields and pastures, local actors in the Vasilikos and Maroni region were joined to the state in uneven ways. Given the current state of evidence, however, it is difficult to speculate further who these actors were and the politics gradually separating or cementing together rulers and ruled. One argument could go as follows. Settler households around Amathus in the eleventh and tenth centuries may have fissioned, sending family members to discern potentially productive areas further to the east, where the recent traces of Late Bronze Age infrastructure were more conspicuous. Once established by the earlier eighth century as owners of productive lands, later generations sought to protect their properties. They helped build villages and roads, as well as social spaces such as shrines or mortuary grounds for increasingly dependent laborers and rural inhabitants. Wealthy households would have distributed among descendants their diversified holdings in town, the chora, and the farther fields of the Vasilikos and Maroni region as part of the polity’s malleable territory. These families reserved special tombs outside the town for themselves to promote their aristocratic status for local audiences. With early affiliation through intermarriage to ruling or high-status families at Amathus, who bestowed patronage and security, they maintained incentives to shore up the legitimacy of the ruling house. These actors were entangled with the quotidian processes of the city, using and distributing Amathusian materials to rural communities and sending taxes or commodities towards the town. They may have been involved in the more momentous spectacles of rulership, travelling back and forth from the town for political performances such as festivals. They may also have devoted their attention to, and were incentivized to regulate and comply with, the kingly norms and worldviews of Amathus and to enforce them at smaller scales on the polity’s seams. On the other hand, this reconstruction only offers part of the story, and as I have hypothesized in previous chapters, more autonomous households and small community networks also populated the Vasilikos and Maroni region through their own initiatives. Some of the people reengineering features remaining from the Late Bronze Age landscapes were using forms of local knowledge from earlier generations of intermittent

Relational Countrysides

and less permanent occupations in the region. These were not just leaders but communities of people who required places for social interaction and affiliation. By the eighth and seventh centuries bce, and in relation to the growth of settlements at Amathus, these local groups established their own settlements, mines, or shrines to maximize their salience for new understandings of social belonging. Mortuary grounds were positioned on highly visible ridges along the coastal plain to make them legible as rights to land for passersby or outsiders, creating signatures of landscape persistence. They used or adopted some of the state’s equipment, such as dining wares and common vessels for shipping and production, but equally seem to have ignored other trends. While they likely produced their own household wares such as large storage vessels, these groups were clearly consuming Amathusian ceramics for most other practices, establishing common cultural habits that could be scaled for local and urban purposes. I have suggested that the systems of hierarchy and governance of the state extended probable infrastructural and organizing aid to maintain the town’s agrarian, pastoral, or other rural industrial wealth. These collectives were thus arguably tied in intimate ways to the apparatus of authority at Amathus but embedded in and attentive to the small-scale politics of their rural worlds. Local elites were able to negotiate and strategize their upwardly mobile positions at scales of community as well as at scales important to Amathusian prerogatives, as Nicola Terrenato (2019) has recently argued for local elite dynamics in first-millennium bce Italy. The power of the numerous households and communities during this dynamic horizon, even with the rise of their own internal hierarchies, may help us understand why this region created and sustained a seemingly village-oriented sphere for three centuries and not an urban one. The situation in this region towards the end of the Archaic period and into the fifth and fourth centuries bce further highlights the interwoven trajectories of Amathus and its eastern edges. While some evidence of settlements, tombs, and sanctuaries exists in survey and excavation records for the Classical period, there is a clear contraction of occupation into more dispersed settlements in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys. As polities to the east and west saw a height of building activity, for example in the massive rebuilding of a port at Amathus during the fourth century bce and in the urbanization of Kition, the Vasilikos and Maroni watersheds remained sparsely inhabited until the later Roman period. At the time when Amathus’ king first minted his own coins and the city gained trans-Mediterranean celebrity through its fateful choices in the Greek and Persian wars, this disjuncture between town and countryside settlement trends seems striking.

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The pattern is further remarkable given the comparatively opposite case of mainland Greece, when the fifth and fourth centuries bce represent a height of rural occupations, creating thick webs of countryside populations surrounding city-states. It is certainly possible that uncontrolled growth of Amathus’ political economies led to landscape degradation, shuttering intensive agriculture or rural industries in one of its eastern territories. Shifts in the duties of the city-state to pay taxes to the Achaemenid Empire during the earlier fifth century may have been generating increased productivity as well as resource depletion (Pestarino 2022). The entrapments of tasks and extractive industries, such as agriculture, gypsum quarrying, or copper mining, may have become too unwieldy for people to maintain. These remain only hypotheses until future geomorphological and environmental analysis can provide more data. Drawing upon the available settlement and landscape evidence, I have posited that the Vasilikos and Maroni region may actually have become more stabilized and less autonomous by the later Classical period. The crystallization of kingly or autocratic authorities at Amathus, achieved through the security of membership through property ownership and perhaps also through the threat of physical violence, amplified the increasing inequalities between prominent households and non-elites and steadied the pursuit of local power. The hardening of distinctions between private or more communal lands may have reduced the opportunities for profitable agropastoral production for most laboring classes. While forms of unruly complexity may have lingered in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, they were subsumed within the nucleated properties of larger landowners, whom the state would likely have protected through interventionist regulations of property inheritance. Amathus must have, in other words, managed much more of its territory through politically constrained transactions, as with the land grant to Onasilos at Idalion that began this book. In effect, Amathus’ waxing demanded the migration of many rural dwellers into its lower town to work its immediate chorai, enacting a putative land consolidation of numerous small landowners or commoners as well as the kinds of rus in urbe imagined for the classical city (Horden and Purcell 2000: 89–120): a fabric of productive farms, orchards, gardens, and industrial areas that crisscrossed the town with fields and forests. The undeciphered fragments of a local language that occur more frequently during the fourth century bce are tantalizing to speculate upon as indicating the state’s absorption of these rural migrants from places such as the Vasilikos and Maroni region. Such groups retained their own ways of speaking as they shifted into permanent citizen-subjects. Given the appearance of a

Relational Countrysides

language of “republicanism” by the Classical period across several polities, particularly the magistrative conjoining of king and city, it further suggests that popular assemblies were becoming part of governmental procedures. Strabo (14.6.5), attuned to the vegetal and mineral politics of shifting environments recounted by the Roman period, could historicize a time when the growth of trees on Cyprus threatened the viability of productive agriculture. The long Archaic timescale currently lacks similarly rich textual sources to illuminate contemporary perspectives on woody or metallic resources and senses of social time. I have instead sought to explain how these kinds of material agency generated novel landscape experiences supporting the constitution of states through the relationships between towns and countrysides. If we can imagine an Amathusian land survey of the fifth century bce like the one preserved in the Idalion Tablet, it would have mapped royal, civic, and private orchards, arable fields, and productive wetlands against the polity’s territorial landmarks: its numerous rivers, sanctuaries such as those to Aphrodite, Apollo, or maybe even Bes, coastline and harbors, and perhaps even state-controlled quarries and mines. Ownership information would have included glimpses into the onomastic diversity of the polity, with Greek, Semitic, and local families, and its uneven politics. Some of the state’s plots were in the Vasilikos and Maroni district, connecting the built fabric of the fifth-century bce town to the commodities it needed further afield as well as promoting and protecting ownership over land, materials, and routes coastal and inland. But as with all maps, these discursive statements would have intentionally obscured other features. Available environmental, archaeological, and historical evidence can plot places and things that would have been left out of the central town’s messaging, but that were equally instrumental to the workings of the polity. These are the rural communities and their meaningful places, as well as constituents such as gypsum, dirt, trees, and water that structured these landscapes and co-constructed the practices that turned marginal conditions into profitable ones. The persistent landscape signatures that they created and the historical transformations that they introduced did not appear with classical kingship, nor in the close of the Late Bronze Age, but in a particularly transformative horizon stretching between the ninth and sixth centuries bce. Such social and environmental entanglements hopefully reinstate regions such as the south-central lowlands from inert backgrounds into unruly formations. The arguments made here relate more broadly to enduring questions about the rise of the Iron Age Mediterranean and help situate Cyprus as a charged place within Braudel’s metaphorical electromagnetic grid. Compelling and provocative work in the last two decades has helpfully settled

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any notions that Cyprus passively absorbed interregional developments, or that it lacked any internal complexity driving its own mechanisms of change (e.g. Knapp 2013; Iacovou 2014b; Georgiou and Iacovou 2020). Although Snodgrass (1988: 5) could remark more than thirty years ago that historians were treating ancient Cyprus as a “backwater, away from the main currents of history in the millennium which the classical sources illuminate for us, occasionally touched by those currents but never initiating them,” we are in a better position to acknowledge Cyprus’ integration in Mediterranean-wide phenomena. While this book has sought to trace the contours of entangled social and environmental change on the ground, without a priori assumptions of external influence , the island can serve as a compelling case for understanding these spatial and temporal transformations across the eastern Mediterranean, and for discerning where and when unruly landscapes may have emerged in diverse ways. In prevailing debates on processes of continuity and rupture between the second and first millennia bce, scholarly focus has tended to give outsized attention to the longevity of cultural or political forms of ritual, trade, or administration, and not to dynamic continuities or oscillations in the pertinence of terrains: orchards, forests, terraces, mines, springs. Even acknowledging the widely disparate methods and research aims of rural surveys and archaeologies of the Aegean, the Levant, or the Near East, we can frame new questions of Iron Age historical transformations. Whatever the reasons for the widespread collapses around 1200 bce, how were ruralizing landscapes instrumental to the shifting of social orders in places such as the Aegean or the Levant? How did place-making practices forge social inequalities within the local and regional developments of the Greek polis or the Levantine city-state? These comparative questions push beyond the remit of this book but offer space for future analyses. The rise of first-millennium bce polities and their interregional connections remains as fascinating as it does because the context defies easy answers and introduces questions or overturns existing hypotheses as more evidence appears. It was a horizon of unruly meeting points where rules of belonging, authority, and wealth were being negotiated, fixed, and legitimized. The post-collapse landscapes of the eastern Mediterranean were highly relational. We do not see, moreover, a clear “climatic kick-start” for Iron Age statehoods (Weiberg et al. 2010: 168). Environmental contexts were only effective if they inhered to the salient structures and mechanics of a given social and political order. In future work, we can push more focus not just onto the -scaping of Iron Age polities, but also to the land- relationships of rising inequalities and the demands of urban and other-than-urban actors.

Unruly Anthropocenes

Unruly Anthropocenes As the twenty-first century seems to hurtle towards a cascading series of environmental, economic, and demographic crises, it would be remiss to finish a book examining the social and political dimensions of human– environment relationships without giving closer attention to the concerns swirling around the proposed epoch of the Anthropocene, introduced briefly in Chapter 2. Initially offered as a provocative challenge for taking our contemporary millennial climate seriously, the Anthropocene has taken on lives of its own, some of them more outsized than others (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Lewis and Maslin 2015; Ruddiman et al. 2015). We read about a big “A” Anthropocene as a novel geological era, a recent planetary age of man, voted by scientific commission in 2019 to have a starting date in the middle of the twentieth century ce, right after the onset of our nuclear age (e.g. Zalasiewicz et al. 2019).1 But we also hear of little “a” anthropocenes, the deeper historical configurations of human technological development, land use interventions, and efforts at varying scales that have created widespread transformations of land, sea, and atmosphere (Ruddiman 2018). These anthropocenes envelop more than the human: animals, plants, inert matter. Scholars have identified patchy anthropocenes (Tsing et al. 2019) and unseen ones (Howe and Pandian 2020), early capitalist variants (the Capitalocene, Moore 2016), and those studied in discursive form in literature, art, architecture, and media (e.g. Lorimer 2012; Gan et al. 2017; Tsing et al. 2017). Uniting much of this scientific, heuristic, and public attention to the Anthropocene, as well as its critiques, is the main contention that we have entered a new timescale in which humans have joined forcing agents such as the sun, volcanoes, or tectonic plates as geophysical actors capable of changing planetary climate. Given this core premise, it has become increasingly apparent that archaeology, as a discipline fine-tuned to thinking on millennial and centennial scales, might have something to say on the Anthropocene’s utility as an historiographical mode. Archaeologists have critiqued the overt ways in which the concept and its implications for geological thinking threaten to divorce millennia of human engagement with the earth from a pre-1800 “natural history” (Bauer and Bhan 2018; see also Chakrabarty 2009; Malm and Hornborg 2014; Kearns 2017). An encompassing debate crisscrossing numerous fields, from earth systems science to anthropology, continues to poke and prod the epoch’s hypothetical starting point, and archaeologists and historians have increasingly marshalled data-based arguments in an effort to demonstrate how significant human modification of earth systems has

261

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Conclusions

been occurring since at least the beginnings of the Holocene (e.g. Edgeworth 2014; Head 2014; Ruddiman 2018). Joining others in pointing to the overwhelming responsibility for contemporary climate challenges in imperialist, colonialist, and now capitalist extractions and commodification of nature, often through slavery, archaeologists have also drawn focus to the Eurocentric and predominantly western modalities that currently support most scholarly and public engagements with the Anthropocene’s development and history (Orlove et al. 2014; Morrison 2015; see also Yusoff 2019). Discussions that have favored Euro-American narratives rarely look at the energy consumption or extractive practices of societies in the global south or Asia, especially in the context of their different histories of colonialism (Chatterjee 2020). And as important work is showing, transdisciplinary, collaborative investigations between archaeologists, social scientists, and climate scientists on histories and configurations of land use and land cover across the Holocene are critical to providing more resolution for global climate modeling in earth systems science (e.g. Morrison et al. 2018; Morrison et al. 2021; see also Crumley et al. 2015; Weiberg et al. 2019). The debates about the onset, duration, and futures of these new geophysical conditions of A/anthropocene(s) have amplified as projections for carbon emissions and global climatic conditions threaten tipping points of livelihoods in regards to issues such as food security or resource survivals. After these relational thresholds, it will become “too late” for humanity and our institutions to survive in something like their current form. Ticking clocks that count down to a conceptual doomsday have indeed become powerful metaphors to urge social action and mitigation of environmental destruction, as have “deadline” refrains that collapse our futures into an eleven-year window for decisive action (Hulme 2019).2 While many of these arguments have successfully brought climate change into the consciousness of younger generations, telling a convergent story about humanity’s impacts on the planet’s systems, they presume knowledge about how regional and global futures will unfold, constricted around concepts of linear time and measures of average temperature and precipitation (Nixon 2020). The discursive idea of a carbon budget surely helps us imagine or even quantify what is “dangerous” climatic change in terms of global average temperatures, but it has the same problems of neoliberal resilience theory: it narrates climate through the language of growth, accumulation, and capitalism rather than through nonlinear complexities and the voices of those sidelined by relentless progressivism. Who is the “we” whom deadline-perspectives aim to reassure? Whose precarities or tipping points of poverty, conflict, or migration are instead put aside? As Rob Nixon (2020:

Unruly Anthropocenes

16) has written, a primary goal should be to “resist the imposition from above of a quick-and-easy ‘we’ that becomes complicit in disenfranchising the many.” I have argued, following the work of Hulme (2015, 2016), that one of the problems of current discussions of late modernities’ struggles with the possibilities of global warming and cascading ecological degradation is the reification of climate through the lens of scientific measurements rather than as a mediation of lived experience (see also Ghosh 2016; Gonzalez-Ruibal 2018; Fornoff et al. 2020: viii). Using case studies such as Archaic Cyprus to replace agonistic metaphors of humans “winning” or resiliently “coping with” or “controlling” climatic hazards invites us to examine ancient worlds through the scope of particular actions and power dynamics, and helps uncover the social and political dimensions of human–environment relationships in time and place (Rosen 2007; Kearns 2017). It further reminds us to be especially wary of embracing a nostalgia of premodern environments and a fear of dangerous future ones. To put it differently, we must think more critically about the nonlinear temporal frameworks of people experiencing, perceiving, and interacting in material ways with weathering surroundings. The stories we tell about climate, and whose stories we seek to understand, are critical to how we interpret past changes, present crises, and future conditions. As Kathryn Yusoff (2019: 23) has written: “in the discourse that surrounds the empirics of fossil traces, foundational myths of how and why ‘we’ got here are being instigated. But this ‘we’ cannot be immune to who is writing and mobilizing this history and the implications of its telling for who is granted agency in shaping the present and future.” This dimensionality of human–environment relationships is further necessary to examine how ongoing and upcoming climatic shifts may exacerbate existing inequalities or create new ones within or across generations. In a time when average summer temperatures are shattering historical records and forming megadrought conditions, for instance, as is happening now across the American West and Canada, the “heat gap” between those able and unable to survive will be unavoidable (Newkirk II 2020). Asking “for whom might a future warming be too late” draws upon archaeology’s disciplinary strengths to fracture the singular anthropos and to consider the material and historical interconnections of empire, economics, inequality, and culture in human–environment relationships (Whyte 2019). In the PAGES LandCover6k working group, for example, archaeologists work together with climate scientists to understand land use practices in the past, especially their relationships to structures of authority and economy, in order to create better and more historically robust

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Conclusions

datasets for climate modeling (Morrison 2021). There are also calls to understand how landscape practices effect social differentiation and how some human actors or groups seek to exploit inequalities, set new rules of membership, or regulate certain economic practices emerging from varied experiences and entanglements with shifting surroundings (Shaw 2016; Stahl 2020). Looking to the past to trace the formation of these practices and the histories of oppression, disenfranchisement, or exclusion from modes of land and resource wealth creation opens ways to bring humanistic inquiries into the study of our own entanglements with environments in flux. As others have noted, large “A” Anthropocene conversations have tended to neglect these social inequalities, the political forcing of investments and interventions in environmental variables such as soils, waters, or mineral resources, or the imbalance in the spatial and material distribution of pollution or below-subsistence productivity (Bauer and Bhan 2018; Stahl 2020). Similarly, historians and archaeologists now researching ancient climate change regularly frame social responses in economic terms rather than political, and at scales that relate more to bigger questions of national policy than to those of human bodies and communities and their material surroundings. As I have suggested in the case of the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys of Cyprus, multiscalar questions of how particular landscape changes produced or were manipulated to be beneficial for some at the expense of others are more important than synchronizing coarse patterns of wet climates with the rise of historical kingdoms. Choices in when and how to harness or regulate resources were made by social groups but were also constituted, in varying ways, by the unruliness of landscape matter. For some, similarly, precarity carried cross-generational challenges in subsistence and livelihoods. In an immediate post-Bronze Age series of landscapes, dislocation and impermanence grouped people around the family, mobilizing labor and landscape investments to suit the needs of shorter-term ties to place and land use. Without the oversight of regionally centralized authorities, these small-scale communities sought out different modalities of mercantilism and arable production. Included were daily tasks of land use, such as managing terraces, and I have tried to expose what I consider an archaeology of mundane human–environment relationships, which helps expand our focus beyond “bad” or “dangerous” climate change featuring in most scholarship. In doing so I have further aimed to avoid the climate reductionism that views historical change solely through the lens of wetter or drier conditions. The landscapes and communities of Archaic Cyprus were co-constituted not just through technological adaptations to

Unruly Anthropocenes

perceived climate, but also through political responses to migration, cultural practices, and emerging markets. Even without a robust archaeology of Cypriot households, we can discern how the vagaries of semiarid environments could help some maintain their leverage and gain the kinds of wealth to make more conspicuous and permanent regulations for access: opulent tombs, monumental buildings, sanctuaries within the walls of older generations. The majority of populations of the eleventh to ninth centuries bce bore the brunt of risk-averse cultivation and pastoralism to survive bad years. These people had likely internalized, for the moment, that flows of water and healthy soils could sputter out, requiring constant interventions to sustain households into future generations. In doing so, they came to weather their cultural and social needs around the community and family. By the eighth and seventh centuries bce, people encountered altered weathering processes that shifted ideas of seasons, land, and daily experiences with the environments around them. People created new senses, in other words, of familiar climates. Did the rich invest further in these gaps of environmental knowledge when growing conditions improved with wetter conditions, securing their ownership over the best land and likely schematizing systems of dependency of non-elite subjects? It does seem so. Wealthy families could project beyond one or two mediocre harvests and make more on riskier, forward-thinking economies, reinvigorating rural industries around the social demand for copper, wood, and stone resources. The long Archaic timescale is unruly not only because it exposes some of the fits and starts of these forms of inequality in the ancient world, but also because it foregrounds how these political changes happened in heterogeneous and complex ways. The complicated intersections of social and political change with shifting environments evident across Cyprus during the ninth to fifth centuries bce highlight how antiquity is one richly textured locus for examining climate as a mediation of human experience. I have explored the material remains of one dynamic rural system, but there are other avenues for questioning the discursive strategies of these groups and the interlinked dynamics of human–environment relationships. Mediterranean antiquity offers a unique series of datasets – textual, material, geophysical – with which to explore ideological and prosaic categories of these mediations across ancient and current eras. Greek and Roman archives, papyri, and inscriptions, to name only the most conspicuous, afford a fascinating if fragmentary perspective into the values of environments and power in ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds. These can track, in diverse ways, the often asymmetrical relationships between collectives and

265

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weathered contexts. In Greek and Roman thought, for example, we follow deeply scored fault lines between those who were citizens or were not, those who held land and used it for social capital, and those who worked it as slaves or who burned forests for hire. These are the social contexts of inequality that reside outside the predominant narratives of deep historical anthropocenes and that are ripe for analysis. The Mediterranean makes for a dynamic political construction with its own challenging modernities and mentalités that unsettle straightforward categorizations between urban and rural, east and west, pagan or monotheistic. In our current moment, confronting what the field imaginary of the Mediterranean means as a canonical space underscores its potential to discern the unruliness of essentialized anthropocenes and to question how our contemporary human– environment relationships are forging new rules and rule-making.

Appendix List of Survey Sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni Valleys

This appendix provides a table of Iron Age artifact scatters designated as archaeological sites in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys, drawing primarily upon the published Vasilikos Valley Project (Todd 2004; Georgiadou 2016) and Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project (Manning et al. 1994; Swinton 1994) surveys as well as my own resurvey of targeted Iron Age areas (Kearns 2016; 2017; 2019). The table lists the site and toponym name1 and the point UTM coordinates (UTM zone 36S) and where relevant, the VVP identification number. Beyond the sites that I visited in person to map with differential GPS (Leica Viva RTK; “resurveyed”), most sites were plotted in an ArcGIS database using legacy survey records that lack georeferencing and single points may not reflect the current extent of the existing surface assemblages. Sites that are known from the publications of singular tombs or finds are included but also lack georeferenced coordinates. The table consists of certain categories of information relevant for the spatial analyses discussed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. These include the elevation and estimated area, the type of site, the presence of copper slag and figurines, and the presence of built features such as house walls, floors, or industrial features such as olive presses (e.g. Tochni Mouthkia). Site designations by function are largely drawn from published assessments (Swinton 1994; Todd 2004) and targeted resurvey, and to avoid overparticularization, include only settlements, tombs, sanctuaries, and activity areas. The latter refers to scatters of Archaic material that were thin or less dense and suggest presence and likely work but not permanent settlements, without more investigation. Site continuity (temporal phasing) is primarily intended to illustrate how Archaic groups interacted with the remains of previous occupations at multiperiod sites. In addition to noting the evidence of CG or CA material, the sites are categorized by relation to phasing and the presence of Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Middle Bronze Age, or Late Bronze Age features, as discussed in Chapter 5 and presented visually in Figure 5.5. The presence of later material beyond the Hellenistic period is otherwise not noted except at several type sites of the Roman and Late Roman periods that had some Archaic presence, notably Kalavasos Sirmata, Kalavasos Sokopra, Zygi Petrini, Maroni Vrysoudhia, and Maroni Yialos. Size groups are used primarily to highlight the overwhelming presence of small artifact scatters of the Archaic period: size group 1 includes those up to 0.3 ha; size group 2 up to 0.5 ha; size group 3 up to 1 ha; size group 4 up to 2 ha; size group 5 up to 5 ha; and size group 6 over 5 ha in area.

267

268

Appendix Anna Georgiadou (2016) conducted analysis of the inventoried ceramic fragments collected by the VVP during the 1980s and 1990s, which was not an exhaustive corpus and skewed towards painted diagnostic wares picked up through intuitive methods. Many sites therefore lack closer ceramic analysis. The table provides the number of inventoried fragments per site as well as the interpreted phases for the material. MVASP material has not yet been fully studied, but includes the work of Andrea Swinton (1994) in assessing Iron Age material in the lower Maroni Valley. The main published references for each site are also included.

NAME

UTM EASTING

UTM NORTHING

VVP ID

RESURVEYED

PERIOD

CONTINUITY (TEMPORAL ELEV AREA SIZE PHASING) (m) (ha) GROUP TYPE

Asgata Ayia Marina

523913.191

3851054.337

1

Asgata Kambos

524519.332

3849922.026

110

Asgata Neron tou Phani

524326.441

3849871.294

109

Kalavasos Alonia tou 527086.605 Pano Zyou

3848488.101

Kalavasos Ammos

527354.829

Kalavasos Andronikidhes

526662.153

Kalavasos Argaki

526159.372

3845839.822

129

CA

MC, LC, CA

104

0.375

2

Settlement

Kalavasos Argaki tou 527388.357 Yeoryiou

3846426.125

7

CA

MC, CA

73

0.9

3

Activity

Kalavasos Argakia E

CA

MC, (LC), CA

147

2

4

Settlement

x

CA

CHAL, (MC), (CG), CA

226

0.42

2

Tombs

x

CG, CA

CHAL, (MC), (CG), CA

243

0.81

3

Settlement

3

CA

(CHAL) MC, LC, CA

127

2

4

Settlement

3847884.596

4

CA

MC, LC, CA

100

1.5

4

Tombs

3845368.464

5

CA

MC, LC?, CA

84

0.5

2

Settlement

VVP INVENTORY (numbers of CERAMICS BUILT BY PHASE FIGURINES FEATURES fragments)

SLAG x

REFERENCES Todd 2004: 29–30

x

x

5

CA I, CA II

Todd 2004: 30–32

2

CA I

Todd 2004: 32

x

Todd 2004: 33–34 4

CA I, CA II, CC-CH

Todd 2004: 34 Todd 2004: 34–35 Todd 2004: 36–37

2

CA I

Todd 2004: 37–38

527227.782

3845714.127

125

CA

NEO, (MC), CA 86

0.175

1

Settlement

Todd 2004: 38

Kalavasos Ayiasmata 528058.919

3848203.112

9

CA

MC, LC, CA

173

0.2

1

Settlement

Todd 2004: 40–41

Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios

527739.617

3845431.667

10

CG, CA

MC, LC, CA

52

0.2

1

Settlement and tombs

Kalavasos Ayios Kaloyeros

526231.639

3849141.898

11

CA

MC, CA

124

2

4

Settlement

Kalavasos Ayious

528579.007

3845525.584

14

CG, CA

MC, (LC), CG, CA

59

0.5

2

Kalavasos Draconikiaes

528260.087

3846660.821

17

CA

MC, LC, CA

88

1.5

4

7

CA I

South 1995; 2002; Todd 2004: 41

4

CA I

Todd 2004: 41–42

Activity

4

CG III, CA I

Todd 2004: 43–44

Settlement

2

CA I

Todd 2004: 45

1

CA I

Todd 2004: 48–49

Kalavasos Gipsari

527550.483

3847061.55

19

CA

CA

85

0.01

1

Tombs

Kalavasos Kafkalia I, II

527178.403

3845133.876

22

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

96

0.5

2

Settlement

Kalavasos Kafkalia III

527221.299

3845302.6

23

CA

(MC), CA

88

0.01

1

Tombs

Kalavasos Kafkalia V

526909.589

3845434.147

25

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

94

5

5

Settlement

Kalavasos Kafkalies

529117.296

3846003.232

26

CA

CA

66

0.01

1

Tombs

x x

Todd 2004: 46–47 x

Todd 2004: 49–50 x

Todd 2004: 51–52 CA II, CC

Karageorghis 1969: 19; Johnson and Hordynsky 1982: 65; Todd 2004: 53–54

(cont.)

NAME

UTM EASTING

UTM NORTHING

VVP ID

RESURVEYED

PERIOD

CONTINUITY (TEMPORAL ELEV AREA SIZE PHASING) (m) (ha) GROUP TYPE

VVP INVENTORY (numbers of CERAMICS BUILT BY PHASE FIGURINES FEATURES fragments)

SLAG

REFERENCES

Kalavasos Kaparovouno

527237.481

3848136.056

32

CA

MC, LC, (CA)

105

0.1

1

Settlement

Todd 2004: 56

Kalavasos Kaphkalia C

528924.669

3844331.478

35

CA

(MC), CA

52

0.01

1

Activity

Todd 2004: 57

Kalavasos Kharkolymbos

525619.756

3849896.783

36

CA

MC, LC, CA

132

0.5

2

Activity

Kalavasos Khorapheri W

526080.763

3846794.933

135

CA

MC, LC, CA

155

1

3

Activity

Todd 2004: 60–61

Kalavasos Kokkino Kremmos

527656.582

3846744.641

38

CA

MC, LC, CA

63

3

5

Activity

Todd 2004: 61–62

Kalavasos Krommidhia

528453.312

3844488.597

42

CG, CA

(MC), CG, CA

48

1

3

Settlement and tombs

Kalavasos Laos/ Pamboulos

526379.339

3845274.193

43

CA

(NEO), CA

102

6

6

Settlement

Kalavasos Laroumena 526516.628

3848270.168

44

CA

(NEO), MC, LC, CA

112

6

6

Settlement

1

CA I

Todd 2004: 67–72

Kalavasos Latomari/ Argakia

3845902.67

45

CA

MC, (LC), CA

83

1.1

4

Settlement

2

CA I

Todd 2004: 72–73

2

CA I

Todd 2004: 75

526976.392

x

x

Kalavasos Lourca

527742.072

3846937.276

47

CA

MC, CA

105

1

3

Settlement

Kalavasos Lourca N

527840.986

3847314.618

130

CA

CA

118

0.45

2

Settlement

x

Todd 2004: 58

x

x

7

CA I

Johnson and Hordynsky 1982: 65; Todd 2004: 65–66 Todd 2004: 66–67

Todd 2004: 73–75

Kalavasos Loures

529364.603

3843420.187

48

CA

MC, (LC), (CA) 40

0.1

1

Activity

Todd 2004: 75–76

Kalavasos Mandres tou Sani

527908.042

3847649.899

50

CA

MC (LC), CA

155

1

3

Settlement

Todd 2004: 77–78

Kalavasos Mangia III 528359.04

3846122.636

53

CG, CA

MC, LC, (CG), CA

82

4.5

5

Settlement

x

Kalavasos Markotis

525952.101

3850822.826

56

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

230

5.25

6

Settlement

x

Todd 2004: 82–83

Kalavasos Mazeri

525897.57

3850234.127

57

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

133

1

3

Settlement

x

Todd 2004: 83

Kalavasos Mitsingites 527136.897

3846761.405

59

CG, CA

NEO, MC, LC, CG, CA

110

0.35

2

Settlement

x

8

CG III, CA I

Todd 2004: 85–87

Kalavasos Pamboules 528798.974

3845148.498

60

CA

CHAL, MC, LC, CA

67

2

4

Settlement

x

3

CA I

Todd 2004: 87–89

Kalavasos Perivolia II

3846409.361

62

CG, CA

MC, CA

79

0.56

3

Settlement

1

CA I

Todd 2004: 90

527958.334

x

x

5

CA I

Todd 2004: 79–80

Kalavasos Pervolia

527103.369

3849175.426

126

Kalavasos Petra I

524614.338

3850538.399

111

x

CA

MC, LC, CA

136

1.35

4

Settlement

CA

CA, CC, CH

180

1.75

4

Tombs

x x

Kalavasos Petra II

524723.146

3850145.089

112

x

CG, CA

(CG), CA, CH

160

0.65

3

Settlement

Kalavasos Pidieri

526164.583

3846241.72

134

x

CA

MC, (LC), CA

126

2

4

Settlement

1

CA I

1

CA I, CC, CH Todd 2004: 92 CA, CH

Todd 2004: 90–92 Todd 2004: 93 Todd 2004: 93–94

Kalavasos Potamia

526432.807

3848035.472

140

CA

MC, CA

124

0.1

1

Settlement

Todd 2004: 95

Kalavasos Potima II

526734.56

3849393.359

64

CA

CHAL, MC, (LC), CA

111

0.38

2

Settlement

Todd 2004: 96

Kalavasos Potima III 526629.103

3849758.394

65

CA

MC, LC, CA

133

2.65

5

Settlement

Todd 2004: 96–97

Kalavasos Psoumadhes

526630.729

3845085.65

66

CA

MC, LC, CA

82

1

3

Activity

Todd 2004: 97–98

Kalavasos Sirmata

528516.159

3845776.974

67

CA

(MC), LC, CA, LR

80

1.27

4

Activity

Kalavasos Skouries

524812.776

3850399.492

146

CA

CA, CC

142

1

3

Sanctuary, activity

Kalavasos Sokopra

528704.702

3843703.001

69

CA

(NEO), (LC), CA, LR

26

0.01

1

Settlement

Kalavasos1 Spilios

524806.161

3849883.554

70

CG, CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

205

3

5

Settlement and tombs

Kalavasos Tenta

527793.411

3845682.703

71

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

62

2.6

5

Activity

Kalavasos Vounaritashi

526399.279

3846191.428

39

CG, CA

MC, LC, CA

140

1

3

Settlement

Kalavasos Yeromano

526774.782

3850246.607

115

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

160

1.5

4

Settlement

Kalavasos Yeroskhinia 526316.491

3845839.822

78

Kalavasos Yirtomylos 526131.055

3849460.415

79

Kalavasos Zoulofdidhes

525688.014

3845682.703

128

Mari Village

527447.749

3844362.902

Mari Alonotopo

527793.411

3843860.12

x

x

x

x

2 x

x

x

CA I

x

Todd 2004: 98–99 Flourentzos 2008; Kassianidou 2013; Todd 2013: 135–140

x

1

CA I

Todd 2004: 100–101

x

10

CA I, CA II, CH

Todd 2004: 101–104

2

CG III, CA I

Todd 2004: 104–105

2

CA I, CA II, CC, CH

Johnson and Hordynsky 1982: 65; Todd 2004: 58–59; Kearns 2019; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021

x

x

x

Todd 2004: 109–110

CA

MC, LC, CA

94

0.75

3

Settlement

1

CA I

Todd 2004: 110–111

CA

NEO, CHAL, MC, LC, CA, CH

116

6

6

Settlement and tombs

16

CG III, CA I, CA II, CH

Todd 2004: 111–114

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

120

0.2

1

Settlement

3

CA I

Todd 2004: 114–115

92

CA

CA

79

0.01

1

Tomb

Hadjicosti 1997b; 2002; Todd 2004: 124–125

82

CA

CA

69

0.01

1

Tomb

Todd 2004: 116

x

(cont.)

NAME Mari Kalotsikous

UTM EASTING 528013.378

UTM NORTHING 3844928.531

VVP ID

RESURVEYED

83

PERIOD CA

CONTINUITY (TEMPORAL ELEV AREA SIZE PHASING) (m) (ha) GROUP TYPE MC, CA

40

0.45

2

VVP INVENTORY (numbers of CERAMICS BUILT BY PHASE FIGURINES FEATURES fragments)

SLAG

Settlement

Mari Kopetra

525865.79

3843492.394

84

CA

CA, CH, R

60

0.01

1

Settlement

Mari Kremnos tou Sani/Livadhia

529081.788

3842885.982

85

CA

MC?, LC, CA

16

0.81

3

Settlement

1

CA II

3

CA I, CA II

Mari Mazera

527761.987

3843263.068

86

CA

CA

64

0.01

1

Tombs

Mari Mesovouni

528579.007

3843200.22

87

CA

NEO, MC, (LC), 52 CA

0.75

3

Settlement

Mari Moutsounin tou 527392.095 Rirou

3844899.898

88

CG, CA

NEO, MC, LC, CG, CA

82

5.2

6

Tombs

Mari Paliambela

528233.345

3843985.816

89

CG, CA

NEO, MC, LC, CG, CA

33

0.7

2

Tombs

Ora Aspro Khorapha 525494.079

3851603.349

118

CA

MC, LC, CG, CA 196

3.5

5

Settlement and tombs

x

REFERENCES Todd 2004: 117

x

Todd 2004: 117–118 Todd 2004: 118 Todd 2004: 119 Todd 2004: 119–121

x x

8

CG III, CA I, CA II

Todd 2004: 121–122

12

CG III, CA I, CH

Todd 2004: 122–123

3

CG III, CA I

Todd 2004: 126–127

Ora Beteleyi

524290.223

3851510.744

122

CA

MC, LC, CA

222

2.5

5

Settlement

x

Todd 2004: 127–128

Ora Klitari

525143.506

3850941.889

117

CA

NEO, MC, CA

155

0.5

2

Settlement

x

Todd 2004: 128–129

Ora Koshaes

525559.799

3852989.537

139

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

350

3

5

Settlement

x

Ora Laxxia Constandi 526230.645

3851721.022

119

CA

MC, LC, CA

305

0.15

1

Settlement

Ora Loures

3850862.514

116

CA

MC, CA

176

0.65

3

Settlement

x x

525500.694

Todd 2013: 153–154 Todd 2004: 129–130

Ora Mandres

524521.719

3851960.037

141

CA

MC, LC, CA

248

0.75

3

Activity

Ora Mersinia

526346.23

3851505.264

120

CA

MC, LC, CA

290

1

3

Activity

Ora Mutti ton Katamaton

525130.841

3853429.935

138

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

360

1

3

Settlement

x

Ora Paleodrapia

525268.107

3852909.465

137

CA

NEO, MC, LC, CA

320

7.5

6

Settlement

x

Sanidha Moutti tou Ayiou Serkou

518441.03

3852552.584

123

CA

LC, CA

520

0.5

2

Activity

Todd 2004: 130 Todd 2013: 155 Todd 2004: 131 Todd 2013: 152–153 x

Todd 2013: 150–152 Todd 2004: 161–171

Tochni Kapsala

528276.851

3848236.64

97

x

CG, CA

MC, LC, CG, CA 175

3

5

Settlement

1

CG III, CA I

Todd 2004: 132–133

Tochni Lakkia

529835.96

3842006.114

98

x

CG, CA

LC, CG, CA

2.5

5

Settlement

29

CG III, CA I, CA II, CC, CH

Todd 2004: 133–134; Andreou and Sewell 2015; 2016; Andreou et al. 2019

Tochni Latomaes

528545.076

3847230.798

99

CA

NEO, MC, (LC), 182 CA

0.5

2

Activity

3

Todd 2004: 134

Tochni Mesovouni

530778.675

3844394.326

133

Tochni Mouthkia

529710.265

3844017.24

100

x

CA

NEO?, MC, LC?, CA

53

0.75

3

Activity

CA

(MC), CA

47

3.9

5

Settlement and tombs

Todd 2004: 134–136 x

Tochni Oriti N

527572.762

3849728.639

132

CA

MC, LC, CA

203

6

6

Settlement

x

Tochni Oriti S

527690.11

3849611.291

131

CA

MC, LC, CA

185

1.125

4

Settlement

x

Tochni Petreli

530725.691

3844895.638

101

x

CG, CA

(MC), CG, CA

46

1.13

4

Settlement and tombs

Tochni Petreli N

530715.827

3845148.498

102

x

CG, CA

(MC), CA, CC, CH

36

2.5

5

Settlement

Todd 2004: 136–137 4

CA I

Todd 2004: 137–138 Todd 2004: 138–139

x

17

CA I, CA II

Todd 2004: 139–140

8

CG III, CA I, CA II, CC, CH

Todd 2004: 140–141

Tochni Styllos

529521.722

3843922.968

103

CA

CA

53

0.28

1

Tombs

2

CA I, CA II

Todd 2004: 141–142

Tochni Zorpas

529710.265

3844362.902

104

CA

CA

43

0.45

2

Settlement

4

CA I

Todd 2004: 142–143

Vavla Kapsalaes

525862.433

3854341.913

136

CA

CA, CC, CH

480

0.5

2

Sanctuary

x

CA

CA, CC, CH

n/a

n/a

Sanctuary

x

106

LR

CA, LR

3

2

3

Activity

x

Morden and Todd 1994; Todd 2004: 34; 2013: 35–36; Papantoniou and Kyriakou 2018

Vavla Metaxas

n/a

n/a

Zygi Petrini

530378.434

3842465.754

Khirokitia Gouppes

n/a

n/a

CA

CA, CC

n/a

0.1

1

Tombs

Flourentzos 1985: n.1; Karageorghis 1984: 922

Maroni Village

532664.877

3845751.924

CA

CA, CC

55

0.01

1

Tombs

Karageorghis 1972; A. Christodoulou 1972

Maroni Aspres

534534.869

3844870.471

CA

MC, LC, CA

12

1

3

Settlement

CA

CA

120

0.5

2

Activity

Maroni Laxia tou Kountourou

Flourentzos 2008: 82 2

CA I

x

Todd 2004: 143–144

Manning et al. 1994; Nakou and de Mita 1997 Hot spot analysis (Figure 3.13)

Maroni Tsaroukkas

535297.01

3844633.733

CA

LC, CA, CH

3

0.5

2

Activity

Maroni Viklari

532758.377

3844834.259

CA

NEO, CHAL, CA, CC

64

2

4

Tombs

CA I, CA II, CC

Swinton 1994

Maroni Vouni

533041.191

3845431.312

CA

CA, CC

67

2

4

Settlement

CA I, CA II, CC

Swinton 1994

x

x

(cont.)

NAME

UTM EASTING

UTM NORTHING

Maroni Vournes

535052.316

3844677.14

Maroni Vrysoudhia

534423.84

Maroni Yialos

Maroni Yianes

VVP ID

RESURVEYED x

PERIOD

CONTINUITY (TEMPORAL ELEV AREA SIZE PHASING) (m) (ha) GROUP TYPE

CA

LC, CA, CC, CH 13

0.5

2

Sanctuary

3843913.507

CA

CA, R, LR

12

1.4

4

Activity

534862.747

3844215.366

CA

CA, CC, CH, R, LR

3

0.5

2

Sanctuary

533826.787

3845462.736

CA

CA

47

0.3

1

Activity

x

VVP INVENTORY (numbers of CERAMICS BUILT BY PHASE FIGURINES FEATURES fragments)

SLAG x

x

CA I, CA II, CC, CH

REFERENCES Manning et al. 1994; Swinton 1994; Ulbrich 2011; 2012; 2013; Manning et al. 2014; Kearns and Georgiadou 2021 Manning et al. 2002; Andreou and Sewell 2016; Andreou 2018: Fig 2

x

CA I, CA II, CC, CH, R

Johnson 1980: 6; Swinton 1994; Andreou and Sewell 2015; 2016 Kearns 2015: 198, n 203; hot spot analysis (Figure 3.13)

Notes

Preface 1 “In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” (Trump on Twitter, September 1, 2019). 2 Shannon Osaka, Grist, February 18, 2021: https://grist.org/politics/ governor-greg-abbott-on-texas-blackouts-show-that-even-the-weather-ispolarized/.

1 Introduction 1 Also known as the Idalion Bronze Tablet, with an unknown findspot on the Ampileri hill at the site, the ancient acropolis, and now held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. 2297. It is 21 cm long, 14 cm high, and 6 mm thick, with excellent preservation and legibility. Scholars now date it to ca. 450 bce and the identity of the magistrate or religious official Philokypros is uncertain (Cannavò 2011: 92). For the main transliteration, commentary, and translation, see Masson (1983); mine is adapted from Georgiadou (2010). I provide here an English translation from the transliterated Greek of the original syllabic script. For additional translations see also Chadwick (1987): 55; Egetmeyer (1993); Van Effenterre and Ruzé (1994: 131–137); Pestarino (2022: 48–76). 2 The wording suggests that the siege failed and that Stasikypros still ruled when the inscription was set up, although Kition did eventually subordinate Idalion by the end of the fifth century (Maier 1985: 34; Georgiadou 2010). 3 For the literacy of place and relationships between language and landscape see Macfarlane (2016); see also Feld and Basso (1996). 4 The existing village of Alambra (ancient Alampria) is roughly 3.5 km from the ancient town of Idalion, so within estimated ranges (0–4 km) for daily commutes from town to farm plots or pasture common in interpretations of the Greek polis (e.g. Snodgrass 2015). For the existence of districts in other Cypriot polities, see also Masson (1983: 244); Fourrier (2002: 142); Pestarino (2022). For an extension of plots in “nearer” and “farther” chorai, see Attema (2018a). 5 There is a wide variety of approaches to urbanism in archaeology, from quantitative and comparative work to sociological studies of individual

275

276

Notes to Pages 6–18

6

7

8

9

10

11 12

13

14

15

16

ancient cities; for a review of these developments see e.g. Yoffee (2009); Fisher and Creekmore (2014). “City-kingdom” (or “cité-royaume,” Petit 2019) – a term almost entirely unique to studies of historical Cyprus and justified over contemporary terms such as polis for the parochial institution of kingship – I find problematic and do not employ in this book, preferring the more neutral, if so capacious that it lacks complexity, polity or certainly by the Classical period city-state or state, closer to social-scientific definitions (e.g. Mann 1986: 37). On comparable states in the Classical Aegean see Whitley (2020: 164–165). For reports, see James Bruggers, Inside Climate News, 2019: https:// insideclimatenews.org/news/21112019/appalachia-mountains-flood-riskclimate-change-coal-mining-west-virginia-extreme-rainfall-runoff-analysis; James Bruggers, WFPL, 2019: https://wfpl.org/appalachias-strip-minedmountains-face-a-growing-climate-risk-flooding/. It is Galen, writing in the second century ce , who actually provides an in-depth and personal account of seeing mining operations on Cyprus (De Simp. Med. Temp. ac Fac. 11.12.214.12–15); see also Kassianidou (2000). For arête, “excellence,” meaning “productivity,” especially in relation to land, see, for example, Hdt 4.198, 7.5; Th. 1.2. A few centuries earlier, the writer Theophrastus (Hist. pl. 5.8.1) had also captured this relationality of Cypriot woods: “In Cyprus the kings used to not cut the trees, both because they took great care of them and husbanded them, and also because the transport of the timber was difficult.” There are no local sources of tin on Cyprus, which is necessary for making bronze, and whose supply to the island would have shifted owing to the workings of interregional exchanges systems; see Charalambous (2016) for an analysis of diachronic shifts in the composition of copper alloys from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period. For a recent and sophisticated look at the archaeology of inequality, particularly as generated in the rural landscapes of Iron Age Crete, see Erny (2022). See especially Cloke (2006); Halfacree (2006); Foxhall (2007); Horning (2007); Woods (2007); Gorman-Murray et al. (2008); Heley and Jones (2012); Krause (2013); Brenner (2019); Elden (2021). See for example Van Dommelen (2006); Hritz (2013); Morrison (2014); Knabb et al. (2015); Attema et al. (2017); Garrison et al. (2019); Terrenato (2019); Stoddart (2020). See especially Ingold (2010); Vannini et al. (2012); Barnes and Dove (2015); Neimanis et al. (2015); Hulme (2016); LeCain (2017); Bauer and Bhan (2018); Rosenzweig (2018); Fornoff et al. (2020) On terrain see Gordillo (2017, 2020); Elden (2017, 2021); for weathering see also Ingold and Kurttila (2000); Neimanis and Walker (2014); Bauer and Kosiba (2016). Oxford English Dictionary Online, sv “unruly.”

Notes to Pages 19–29 17 The literature on archaeologies of collapse is now extensive; see, for example, Yoffee and Cowgill (1988); Schwartz and Nichols (2006); McAnany and Yoffee (2007); Middleton (2017, 2020); Weiss (2017). 18 On the administrative and political systems of the island during the Classical period, see Pestarino (2022). In a fourth-century bce text (no longer extant) attributed to the Aristotelian school, called the Kyprion Politeia (Constitution of Cyprus), apparently the brothers and sons of the basileus were called anaktes and the daughters and wives called anassai (see also Isoc. 9.72). This reference comes from a second-century ce compendium of Harpokration, and the context of the terms and the detail of their institutional meanings are missing. Wanax is a much older, Mycenaean term for ruler, suggesting deep historical connections in the language of the state between the Cypriot city-states and the Aegean and the continuity of terms over centuries. Wanax also appears in syllabic inscriptions on the island while wanassa became the reference for the Great Goddess, later affiliated with Aphrodite (Satraki 2013: 134). 19 The term “vernacular” has Latin classist and spatial roots that connote the language of home-born slaves (verna), with clear semantic ties to locality and situational rootedness, extending to such concepts as “nativeness” or “domestic.” As theorized elsewhere, vernacular has come colloquially to represent non-authoritative, informal, local, or native languages or aesthetics (as in vernacular architecture) or more abstractly, local strategies and practices (e.g. Richard 2013). 20 See also Pratt (2021) for the argument that the early Archaic period in the Greek world (ca. 700–600 bce) constitutes the horizon when olive oil and wine developed overt symbolism and reinforced relations of cultural exchange. For a predominantly text-based survey of elite meat consumption and pastoralism in the same period in the Aegean, see Howe (2008). 21 These large buildings are often referred to as palaces, although the comparative evidence is still lacking for articulating specific features of palatial architecture or discerning their “royal” nature; Yon (2002) has called attention to the bias towards finding central, commanding administrative buildings at sites such as Kition. See Pestarino (2022) for a discussion of the palace as a central headquarters of government institutions. 22 In addition to unpublished reports (David Reese pers. comm.), published syntheses of faunal remains come almost exclusively from sanctuary and tomb contexts at sites skewed towards special and/or ritualized offerings and consumption; for example, Columeau (2006); Reese (2011). See Iacovou (2019) for a recent discussion of the new findings of workshops and industry, including olive oil processing, at Palaipaphos Hadjiabdoulla. 23 The late fourth-century bce dating of the harbor, interpreted as a Hellenistic naval port, is enigmatic (Demesticha 2021). 24 The most tantalizing mention of autochthony comes from Pseudo-Scylax (Periplus 103), writing an itinerary around the Mediterranean during the fourth

277

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Notes to Pages 29–37

25

26

27

28 29

30 31 32 33

34

century bce in Greek, in which he contrasts the Greeks on Cyprus at Salamis and Marion with “Amathus (they are autochthonous),” and therefore presents an outsider’s perspective (see also Coldstream 2012: 12–13). He goes on to list “other strange (barbaroi) cities in the interior,” perhaps referencing non-Greek-speaking rural communities. Stephanus of Byzantium, writing in the sixth century ce , also calls Amathusians “Cypriots,” “and thus, by implication, not foreigners who came to settle in Cyprus” (Aupert 1997: 21). For a review of the textual sources for Amathus, see also Petit (2004); Cannavò (2011). The non-Greek language found in approximately two dozen fragmentary and largely enigmatic inscriptions, many centered in Amathus, is commonly called “Eteocypriot” to signal a non-Greek indigenous population (Steele 2013: 101). The corpus is “very approximate … and may not bear a close relation to the linguistic situation” (Steele 2013: 99; for a recent publication of the corpus, see Karnava and Perna 2020). Michael Given (1998) provides a powerful argument for the imperialist genealogy of the term “Eteocypriot” in early twentieth-century British and European scholarship and its weak epistemological and empirical foundations for representing an ethnic group; cf. Petit (1999, 2015). We also know of the names of Amathusian kings that seem more local, or at least rare, such as Rhoikos during the fourth century. For the foundation stories see especially Petit (2004, 2007). There are arguments that Amathus was founded during the eleventh century by remnants of the Bronze Age populations in the Vasilikos and Maroni valleys (e.g. Iacovou 2002b); the earliest conclusive evidence for settlement activity on the acropolis dates to the ninth century bce (CG III; Petit 2019), and I take up these discussions in more depth in Chapters 3 and 5. This observation does not preclude the existence of a late eleventh-century bce population somewhere nearby, as is evident by CG necropoleis. For cultural studies of the Greek town–country spectrum, see also Osborne (1987); Rosen and Sluiter (2006); Roy (2011). On the integration of town and country in historical analysis see, for example, Le Roy Ladurie (1966); Lefebvre (1970, 2016[1956]); Osborne (1987); van Andel and Runnels (1987); Gallant (1991); Horden and Purcell (2000: 89–105); Bintliff (2006); Carter (2006a, 2006b); Andreou (2016); Van Oyen (2019). Bevan and Connolly (2013); Harris (2017); on scale, see also Brenner (2001, 2019); Brown and Purcell (2005); Robb and Pauketat (2013) See for example Smith (2015); Bauer and Kosiba (2016); Khatchadourian (2016); Alt and Pauketat (2020). Smith (2003: 278–279); see also Harvey (1996). The archaeology of Iron Age Cyprus, particularly the Archaic period, lacks a comprehensive volume; Reyes (1994) offers one look at a range of material categories, while Cannavò (2011) synthesizes the textual evidence. Dates from Manning (2013b); Fisher et al. (2019). Note that estimated ranges for the Bronze Age periods are derived from modeled calibrated

Notes to Pages 40–52 C (radiocarbon) data, while the Iron Age periods are determined solely by relative chronologies (Coldstream 1985). On the transition to CG III beginning in 900 bce see Coldstream (1999). 35 In this sense I follow scholars such as, for example, Ian Morris (1998: 8) for looking holistically at the contexts of Archaic history and at as much evidence as possible. 14

2 Reassessing the “Land” of Landscape 1 Hannah Osborne, International Business Times, November 11, 2014: www.ibtimes.co.uk/history-repeating-overpopulation-drought-ledassyrian-empire-collapse-1474250. For the publicization of the 2019 study, see, for example, “Climate change fueled the rise and demise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, superpower of the ancient world,” Nov. 13, 2019, https://theconversation.com/climate-change-fueled-the-rise-and-demiseof-the-neo-assyrian-empire-superpower-of-the-ancient-world-126661. 2 Nicholas Mott, November 9, 2012: www.nationalgeographic.com/ news/2012/11/121109-maya-civilization-climate-change-belize-science/. 3 Niraj Chokshi, February 5, 2019: www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/climate/ little-ice-age-colonization.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesscience/. See also Lewis and Maslin (2015). 4 Roff Smith, March 12, 2014: www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/3/ 140310-genghis-khan-mongols-mongolia-climate-change/ 5 Nina Federoff, January 12, 2016: qz.com/591457/drought-and-unrestsparked-global-societal-collapse-in-the-bronze-age-is-it-happeningagain/. See also Cline (2014). 6 For more extensive reviews of these traditions in archaeological studies of landscape, see, for example, Wilkinson (2003); Given (2013); see also Olwig (2003); David and Thomas (2008); Thomas (2015). 7 Their microecological approach equivocates on the intended usage of historical ecology as an interpretive mode, but ultimately draws inspiration from earlier ecosystemic approaches in anthropology and cultural ecology (e.g. Rappaport 1968; Butzer 1982; see also Horden and Purcell 2000: 45–49). This earlier work was fundamental to new recognitions of the human co-production of environmental contexts, but advances in scholarship had already challenged many of the assumptions underlying a picture of ecosystemic equilibrium (e.g. Erickson 1999). While Horden and Purcell acknowledge these critiques, their discussion of ecology seems both to accept the power of empiricist work but to retain “ecology” for heuristic and perhaps metaphorical purposes (2000: 46, 54; see also Shaw 2001; Fentress and Fentress 2001). 8 Small islands, particularly in the archipelagos of the Aegean, have served as exemplary cases of connectivity and ecology because of their recognizable nature as units, as well as their conspicuous and often discontinuous records

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Notes to Pages 55–77 of human–environment relationships (e.g. Cherry et al. 1991; Broodbank 2000; Bevan and Conolly 2013: 5; see also Knapp 2008: 19–30). 9 See also Kintigh and Ingram (2018) for an example of statistical tests to argue that “climate extremes” were not related to historical transitions in the American southwest. 10 Landscape archaeologies more attuned through their histories of practice to indigenous, non-Western, and decolonized perspectives on other-than-human agency and relational ontologies have carved out heuristic space for the materialities of past landscapes; for example, Fowles (2010); Harrison-Buck (2012); Janusek and Bowen (2018); Grauer (2020).

3 Unruly Landscapes 1 The inscription dates to 707 bce or shortly after, and the stele is now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. It is 2.09 m high with a rounded top, with a rectangular cross-section (68 cm long and previously 45 cm but now 33 cm thick, as a result of damage caused by shipping: Frame 2021: 403). For general discussions see Gjerstad (1977: 237); Reyes (1994: 50–56); Cannavò (2010); Radner (2010); Merrillees (2016). 2 For a discussion of the identity of Cyprus as “Ia’” during the first millennium, see also Reyes (1994: 49–60); Cannavò (2010, 2019: 240–242); Radner (2010); Iacovou (2006); Knapp (2008: 341–345). Iadnana likely derives from West Semitic terms for island, ‘y, and “Danunians,” dynnym, referring to the inhabitants of Cilicia around the town of Adana (Cannavò 2019: 241). Knapp (2008: 342–343) also calls attention to a Phoenician term for Cyprus, ‘y’lsyy (“island of the Alashiyan”), as a variant of the Late Bronze Age name for the island, Alashiya; Cannavò (2010b) likewise discusses an Iron Age alternative for Cyprus, the Levantine word “Kittim,” associated with Kition. 3 Translation from Frame (2021: 402–408, as well as text, commentary and bibliography). There is considerable damage to the stele, resulting in mostly incomplete lines. For more translations see also Yon (2004: 345– 354, no. 4001); Radner (2010); Cannavò (2010: 171–172). 4 The Mediterranean, also inscribed by the Assyrians as the “upper sea,” “great sea,” and “sea of the sunset.” In other annals of Sargon II’s at the palace of Khorsabad (e.g. Room XIV), he lists as military accomplishments that he “caught the Ionians who (live in) the middle of the Western Sea like fish” (Frame 2021: 153–162, no. 1.8, lines 15–18). 5 The number seven, for example, has clear ideological and mythical weight here, as Cyprus is not a seven day sail from the coast of Syria/northern Levant. 6 For extensive (and problematized) discussion of the identity of Cyprus as “Alashiya” in the el-Amarna tablets and other Late Bronze Age documents, see Knapp (2008: 298–335).

Notes to Pages 77–123 7 Volcanic deposits in Syria could also have produced a block of basalt large enough to create the stele (Frame 2021: 403). 8 According to Radner (2010: 442), the mountain mentioned is likely Stavrovouni, the imposing peak that overlooks Kition (Larnaca) and the southeastern coast. For a review of the extensive scholarly debate on where the stele might originally have stood, see Merrillees (2016) and Frame (2021: 408 n. iv 52–53). 9 Known as the Esarhaddon Prism from Nineveh (area SH), a section of the fragmentary “Prism B” (Col. v) refers to Iadnana while duplicative contents on Prism A (Col. V) discuss the context of Cypriot kings sending materials for restoring a palace at Nineveh; now in the British Museum, 121005. For text, commentary, and translations see Leichty (2011: 9–26). 10 Esarhaddon’s prism confirms the identity of eight kingdoms, along with king names, presented in this order: Idalion, Chytroi, Salamis, Paphos, Soloi (?), Kourion, Tamassos, and Ledra. Two additional names, Qartidihast (“New City”) and Nuria, have proven more enigmatic and have generated considerable debate. Currently, scholars tentatively posit that Qartidihast/Qarthadasht and Nuria refer to Kition and Amathus: Satraki (2012: 350); Cannavò (2019: 253–256). See also Cannavò (2011) for detailed discussion of testimony for each kingdom. 11 Another debated source for Cypriot city names comes from a propagandistic inscription of the Egyptian king Ramses III on the temple of Medinet Habu, dated to 1181 bce , famous for its discussion of the “sea peoples” (Knapp 2013: 450). 12 Lines from prism A, col. v 73 to col. vi 1. 13 For a methodological discussion of identifying and listing the known extra-urban sanctuaries, see Ulbrich (2008: 199–250). 14 See in particular the work of Alcock (1993: 33–92; 2012); Alcock et al. (1994); Bintliff (2006, 2014); Carter (2006a); and Snodgrass (1987: 67–92; 2015) on Greek rural settlement formations, and more recently Zuchtriegel (2017) for fourth-century southern Italy and the context of Greek colonial settlements abroad.

4 Pulses in an Electromagnetic Field 1 A minimum is defined as the period of least activity of the sun during its eleven-year cycle, and a grand minimum occurs when several cycles of low activity occur back-to-back (Usoskin et al. 2007). For global records of this grand solar minimum (the largest in the last 3,000 years) and what is called the SubBoreal to SubAtlantic transition in Europe see also Mayewski et al. (2004); Chambers et al. (2007).

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Notes to Pages 123–152 2 In the image, the radiocarbon calibration curve (IntCal04) is represented as A, the dark black line, with an inset showing the first half of the firstmillennium bce , and with ages in years BP (Before Present). The (B) magenta and (C) aquamarine lines show the Δ14C and the residual Δ14C records, the latter with a 1,000-year moving average; see Manning (2010: 36, figs. 15 and 18). 3 This study identified approximately 170 individual samples of wood charcoal and measured carbon stable isotope composition (δ13C) as a proxy for water availability, humidity, and moisture conditions (Ferrio et al. 2006; Riehl 2008; Riehl et al. 2008; Wallace et al. 2013). Seventeen samples of Archaic date (ca. 750–475 bce) from the site of Amathus were tested: four of the genus oak (Quercus sp.), twelve of the genus pine (Pinus sp.), and one of olive (Olea eur.). For data and methods, see Kearns (2015: 131–166, 2019: 273–278). 4 The term comes from analyses of pollen cores from sediment cores in southwestern Turkey on the western edge of the Konya Plain. 5 Life expectancy at birth for Iron Age populations has been roughly estimated between twenty and thirty years; some individuals who reached young adulthood (twenty years old) could have survived into their forties and later (e.g. Morris 2004: 714–715). It raises the possibility that the closing Late Bronze Age disruptions were acutely experienced within an individual’s lifetime. For recent discussions on infant mortality in the period see Fourrier and Georgiadou (2021). 6 For a review of these issues in the Aegean, see Maran (2012); Murray (2017); Eder and Lemos (2021); Nakassis (2020). 7 These latter three kingdoms are known primarily from textual evidence, such as the various Neo-Assyrian inscriptions, and their town or administrative centers are enigmatic. 8 Salamis: Rupp (1989); Lapithos: Diakou (2018); Amathus: Janes (2013); Stefani and Violaris (2018); Palaipaphos: Steel (1993); Janes (2013). 9 Much weaker and more conjectural evidence for slave or retainer burials has been recorded for four earlier Geometric tombs at Lapithos Kastros and Prostomenos, as well as a late seventh-century built tomb at Tamassos, but enough evidentiary problems exist that no convincing identifications of slaves can be made (Steel 1995). 10 As in many Mediterranean cases, the archaeology of slaves and slavery is difficult as their practices rarely appear marked in the material record, and few targeted investigations of slavery have been conducted for Iron Age Cyprus. 11 Such are the problems with examples of apparent rural sanctuaries at Amargetti, Yeroskipou Monagri, or Limassol Komissariato, which all have weakly defined chronologies and therefore ambiguous connections to this horizon; see also discussion in Papantoniou (2012b). 12 See also Haggis (1993: 133; 2020: 1079) on similar hypotheses for settlement patterns in seventh-century bce Crete.

Notes to Pages 152–160 13 For reviews of the complexities of landscape transitions after the Bronze Age on Crete, see Haggis (2020). Rich archaeological survey across Crete has been able to document contractions in rural settlements as well as shifts to upland mountainous areas after the thirteenth century, followed by new patterns of mobility and residence after the tenth and seventh centuries; see also Moody (2012); Todd and Warren (2012); Foxhall (2014); Erny (2022).

5 Beyond Amathus 1 The “Amathus-style” amphora, in Bichrome V ware with incised, black-figured painting, was excavated from Tomb 129 at Amathus and is currently held at the British Museum (C855); it is 22.5 cm high. For discussion see des Gagniers (1972); Karageorghis and des Gagniers (1974: 516–517); Reyes (1994: 111, pl. 32); Aupert (1996: 39, fig. 12); Raptou (1999b); Stach (2007: 47). 2 Dentzer (1982: 148) suggests that the lack of klinai in vase painting indicates a “simplified” outdoor setting, rather than orientalizing styles, for example; see also Fehr (1971); Stach (2007: 47) refers to them as mattresses. 3 Of the so-called Fikellura style, originating on Rhodes, and one of a small number of comparanda showing gatherings outdoors, see Wescoat (2012: 169). For the “Hellenization” of Amathus beginning as early as the fifth century bce , especially in the uptake of Aegean iconographic and material styles of banqueting, see Petit (2007); and for the incorporation of Greek iconographic and technical styles in this sixth-century period at Amathus, see Karageorghis and des Gagniers (1974: 91–93); Raptou (1999b); Stach (2007: 47); Fourrier (2009c: 133). 4 For this take see des Gagniers (1972: 56) (“the impression that emerges from this representation is that of relaxation, of enthusiasm, in the heart of a landscape whose charm the painter has evoked”); Dentzer (1982); Karageorghis (2012). 5 For the argument that it represents the adoption of a Samian scene of ritual for religious purposes, see Raptou (1999b); Fourrier (2009c: 133–135) also connects it to Hathoric nature imagery coming from the east Aegean. 6 For these characteristics of CA art, see also Counts (2008). 7 Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the American diplomat responsible for clandestine excavations in the later nineteenth century across Cyprus, wrote in a letter of 1876 that he had discovered tombs containing vases and other objects of Late Bronze Age style around Amathus; Antoine Hermary (2015: 25) thus posits Cesnola had moved from Amathus to the Kalavasos and Maroni region, but it is possible that he had found local Bronze Age evidence somewhere in the lowland valleys around the acropolis.

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Notes to Pages 165–170 8 Initial ceramic analysis of MVASP findings produced only one CG III sherd, a White Slip II-III bowl fragment, from Maroni Vouni (Swinton 1994: 355). 9 See also Jameson et al. (1994); Watrous et al. (2004: 321). House sites can also be combined with estimates for plot sizes for subsistence: Manning (2019: 107) has for example recently estimated that 1 ha of cereal crops (barley or wheat) would sustain 1-2 people per year in “bad years” or 4-5 in productive years on Cyprus. 10 Data from Census of Population and Agriculture 1946 (Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1949), Census of Housing 1982 (Dept. of Statistics and Research, 1984), and Census of 2011 (Kearns 2015: 181–182). Using historical data comes with problems, chiefly that mortality rates are different for twentieth-century ce populations than for the Iron Age. For the Vasilikos Valley, for example, households with elderly inhabitants would create distortions. Estimating population using twentieth-century population statistics on Cyprus is also exacerbated by the displacement of ethnic groups during the conflicts on the island (1950s–1970s) and would have to take into account village spaces no longer occupied after dislocation and migration. I thank Georgia Andreou for these critiques. 11 I use the calibration model of Andrew Wilson (2008: 236) to project site recovery for the two projects by assessing the percentages of ground covered and approximating the total number of sites in the entire survey universe: Kearns 2015: 179–181. For the VVP and the MVASP, we can presume that both surveys did not fail to find a large town or center of the Iron Age (e.g. 10–25 ha); therefore the category of potentially missed sites is the small nucleated settlement or village (e.g. 0.5–6 ha) or the small rural working site (e.g.