Shillourokambos - Cypriote aceramic site occupied between 9,000-10,500 years ago, page

Shill or Shilly as it was casually known is an important site and was important in the shift away from the 1930 theories of

Aceramic = before use of ceramics/pottery

Map showing location of the site - just east of Limassol

General map and description

Smithsonian site on Shilly



Smithsonian site on Shillourokambos

General overview of the finds at Shillourokambos

PDF of the site see pages 37 and 55

Shillourokambos

The Early Phases A and B (8200–7500 B.C.E.) are characterized by deep wells, large wooden enclosures probably for livestock, the gradual evolution from wattle and daub to the use of stone and mud, the choice of translucent chert for projectile points and elements in sickles, as well as quantities of imported Anatolian obsidian.

The Middle and Late Phases (from 7500 B.C.E.) show considerable evolution and the appearance of typically Cypriot cultural traits, such as the use of local opaque chert, the production of robust blades, the development of harvesting knives that replace the multiple elements for sickles, and a paucity of obsidian. A large depression contained a contracted burial and a range of artifacts, and the building tradition is characterized by massive circular structures of canonical Khirokitia Culture type.

The Preliminary results of archaeozoological analysis of the 9th-8th millennia B.C.E. Aceramic site of Parekklisha Shillourokambos are summarized. They indicate that fox, domestic dog, cat, domestic pig, Mesopotamian fallow deer and “predomestic” sheep, goat and cattle were introduced to the island at that time. These data shed light on both the history of man/animal relationships on Cyprus and on the first steps of animal domestication and its spread in the Near East.

Shillourokambos is also the site of the oldest evidence of human domestication of cats has been found. However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos, Cyprus that contained skeletons, laid close to one another, of both a human and a cat. The grave is estimated to be 9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly

Early 'domestication' of cats







The Shillourokambos wiki

When I did work in Cyprus at Kalavassos and Tenta with Dr Todd our surface surveys ID'd this site as a place where pottery found at our sites also showed on the surface there, a decades or so later another team excavated


Personal note: we found this site while listening over and over to a tape of the following song, I place it here for 'texture and context'. Think 42 c heat in the summer of 82' and walking over the ground east of Limassol.

The shillourokambos song

reply to post by seagull

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That summer I was on leave from another profession and working as a volunteer for Brandeis we were working at the nearby Kalavassos/Tenta project. We had discovered a number of pottery types there and were doing surface surveys of the neighboring areas to find similar sites. We came across the what later would be the Shillourokambos dig during those sweeps. Whether our reports of sherd finds inspired the French expedition I'm not sure of.

reply to post by seagull

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The more we look to pass the more we will see hints and reminders of ourselves but also action we no longer understand and will ponder; we have evolved culturally and scientifically but remain imperfect.

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