On Monday 12th November, 26 members and friends of Lanark and District Archaeological Society meet in Lanark Library for the third in this sessions lecture series. We were very fortunate to have as our speaker Professor Eddie Peltenburg, who detailed his excavations in Cyprus. This work is still in progress and Eddie explained that much of what he was presenting was "hot of the press" and was yet to be published.
The story starts in Mylouthkia in Western Cyprus where Eddie was working on excavations of a ~3000B.C. villages. During quarrying nearby a deep cylindrical shaft was discovered that was obviously man made. This shaft went 7-8m below the ground level and had a number of evenly spaced niches set against its walls. As work began to excavate the structure it was soon apparent that these niches were ideally placed hand and foot holes for an individual around 5' high. Investigation shown that the shaft was perfectly cylindrical, except at the bottom where it joined with a natural underground stream and belled out slightly. This presents a yet unanswered question; how did prehistoric people know that there was water some 10metres under ground? Eddie explained that the well had been aligned exactly on the stream, there was no evidence of any test bores.
However, of even more archaeological significance was the material which had been used to in-fill the well, presumably when it had run dry, There were a number of fragments of stone bowls, small stones used for hammering and larger ones used as anvils. This was in area that was naturally devoid of any stones in the soil. Investigation showed that none of the bowl fragments came from the same vessels and so it is probable that rather than being from whole bowls place in the well, the fragments were the off-casts of the manufacturing process. It is likely that the craftsmen would be working at the well as it would provide water for their work, The articles found in the well had probably been a midden at the top of the well and been the ideal material for in-fill when the well run dry.
Other finds in the well suggested though there was some ritual significance in the filling of the well. A number of human skulls were found, apparently carefully positioned with respect to large amounts of animal bones. It was also significant that no pottery was found in the well as this suggested an early date. Exact dating was possible by applying the accelerator mass spectrometry technique to carbonised barley found in the in-fill. This revealed a very interesting story for the inhabitation of the island of Cyprus.
The oldest site of human presence in the island of Cyprus is a collection of pigmy hippopotamus bones that dates to ~9700 B.C. This would had been a hunting party who may not have been permanent residents on the island. Settlement on the island had been established at Khirokitian at ~7000 B.C. The carbon dates from the well shows that an agricultural society was present on the island prior to 8000 B.C. This would be contemporary with some of the earliest know dates for the beginnings of agriculture and raises many interesting questions. The first question was where did this people come from? Eddie presented evidence based on the similarity of the artefacts found with those found in Syria that made a convincing case for an Asian origin. The impetuous for the migration was probably from the rise in sea level caused by polar melts at this time. Eddie went on to explain that a highly organised approach would have been needed by this people to colonise the island and introduce the large number of non-native species of plants and animals to the island.
It was apparent to the audience that several significant insights into the
origins of civilisation had been gained through the investigation of a
number of hole in the ground.