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

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

What is your connection with this dig?

It would be fascinating to get your personal views on the significance of the site.

Got lots of reading to do.

reply to post by seagull


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.

That would be a fairly cool way to spend a vacation.

Just more confirmation that Cyprus, and Crete were indeed very important in the development of civilization in the Mediterranean Sea.

How, if it even does, do you think this relates to the later arrival of the "sea peoples"? I can't pretend to anything even resembling expertise in this area...more's the pity.



...and with no recourse to aliens required. shocking, no?

Originally posted by seagull
That would be a fairly cool way to spend a vacation.

Just more confirmation that Cyprus, and Crete were indeed very important in the development of civilization in the Mediterranean Sea.

How, if it even does, do you think this relates to the later arrival of the "sea peoples"? I can't pretend to anything even resembling expertise in this area...more's the pity.


...and with no recourse to aliens required. shocking, no?

It was a good summer - if way to hot and complicated with trying to figure out how to drive on the wrong side of the road.....

Well the sea people were about 8,000 years later so it is possible that some of the descendents were part of that movement but the link is to far. AFAIK no DNA testing was done of the skeletal material recovered there or at the neighboring sites of Ayios Tykhonos, Mari Mesorouri, Tenta or Kalavassos

Well there COULD have been aliens, ya no galaxian drops outs going native with the locals.....

8000 years...

I figured it was a while, but that's really a looong while.

I'm going to have to do a bit more reading on this topic, obviously...

I'm hoping this thread will catch on. How can we know where we're going, if we don't know where we've been? Or something like that.

reply to post by seagull


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.

Did a little bit of reading last night... Nothing better to do, dammit...

So this site, among others on Cyprus, are at the very least equal in age of habitation to Jericho, possibly even older...if my reading comprehension is correct.

That would seem to imply that neolithic civilization was much more widespread, and perhaps older, then has been hypothesized.

Does this, perhaps, indicate the possibility of common source from which these spread? Diffusion-ism, I think is the term used.

I look forward to reading more from you.

Originally posted by seagull
Did a little bit of reading last night... Nothing better to do, dammit...

So this site, among others on Cyprus, are at the very least equal in age of habitation to Jericho, possibly even older...if my reading comprehension is correct.

Yes but less 'advanced', the people there were trading for obsidian that came from Anatolia so rudimentary trade did seem to exist

That would seem to imply that neolithic civilization was much more widespread, and perhaps older, then has been hypothesized.

I used the term, 'neolithic cultures' probably unrelated to one another but perhaps influenced by trade. I suspect that village life of this type existed before, going back to the arrival of HSS in Europe and perhaps even earlier.

Does this, perhaps, indicate the possibility of common source from which these spread? Diffusion-ism, I think is the term used.

Hard to say as independent invention seems to have occurred on a number of occassion.