This volume is based on material from an intensive and systematic field survey of Halasarna (modern Kardamaina), located on a coastal plain in the southern part of the Dodecanesian island of Kos, and a study of settlement patterns across the Aegean. It provides a new corpus of data on the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods, presents a material sequence based on stylistic analysis, and develops a diachronic understanding of settlement dynamics within a wider regional context.

Beneath the Bronze Age 'Palace of Minos', Neolithic Knossos is one of the earliest known farming settlements in Europe and perhaps the longest-lived. For 3000 years, Neolithic Knossos was also perhaps one of very few settlements on Crete and, for much of this time, maintained a distinctive material culture. This volume radically enhances understanding of the important, but hitherto little known, Neolithic settlement and culture of Crete. Thirteen papers, from the tenth Sheffield Aegean Round Table in January 2006, explore two aspects of the Cretan Neolithic: the results of recent re-analysis of a range of bodies of material from J.D. Evans' excavations at EN-FN Knossos; and new insights into the Cretan Late and Final Neolithic and the contentious belated colonisation of the rest of the island, drawing on both new and old fieldwork. Papers in the first group examine the idiosyncratic Knossian ceramic chronology (P. Tomkins), human figurines from a gender perspective (M. Mina), funerary practices (S. Triantaphyllou), chipped stone technology (J. Conolly), land and-use and its social implications (V. Isaakidou). Those in the second group, present a re-evaluation of LN Katsambas (N. Galanidou and K. Mandeli), evidence for later Neolithic exploration of eastern Crete (T. Strasser), Ceremony and consumption at late Final Neolithic Phaistos (S. Todaro and S. Di Tonto), Final Neolithic settlement patterns (K. Nowicki), the transition to the Early Bronze Age at Kephala Petra (Y. Papadatos), and a critical appraisal of Final Neolithic 'marginal colonisation' (P. Halstead). In conclusion, C. Broodbank places the Cretan Neolithic within its wider Mediterranean context and J.D. Evans provides an autobiographical account of a lifetime of insular Neolithic exploration.

First published in 1928, this volume contains six sequential lectures delivered by H.R. Hall in 1923 detailing the archaeological remains of Bronze Age Greece. Hall was keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum and author of ‘The Ancient History of the Near East’. Each of the author’s lectures was strictly chronological, with the main feature of each period being described in order. The profuse illustrations recreated here were fundamental to his view, with each Age defined through its art, pottery and stone carvings. These printed lectures follow their spoken counterparts closely and are brought to life with 320 illustrations inserted in places which reflect the original performances.

A report on the excavation of the site of Tel Te'o in the Hula Valley of Israel which provided important evidence for the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age sequence of the region. The methodology and stratigraphy of the excavation is outlined, the material culture evidence discussed as well as more analytical studies of the environmental data, pottery, human and animal remains. Evidence from Tel Te'o improves our knowledge of the development of the Yarmukian and Golan cultures in the area and the evolution of the environment and human settlement in the Hula Valley.

The site of Knossos on the Kephala hill in central Crete is of great archaeological and historical importance for both Greece and Europe. Dating to 7000 B.C., it is the home of one of the earliest farming societies in southeastern Europe, and, in the later Bronze Age periods, it developed into a remarkable center of economic and social organization within the island, enjoying extensive relations with the Aegean, the Greek mainland, the Near East, and Egypt. After the systematic excavation of the deep Neolithic occupation levels by J.D. Evans in the late 1950s and later and more limited investigations of the Prepalatial deposits undertaken primarily during restoration work, no thorough exploration of the earliest occupation of the mound had been attempted. This monograph fills the gap, detailing the recent studies of the stratigraphy, architecture, ceramics, sedimentology, economy, and ecology that were a result of the opening of a new excavation trench in 1997. Together, these studies by 13 different contributors to the volume re-evaluate the importance of Neolithic Knossos and place it within the wider geographic context of the early island prehistory of the eastern Mediterranean.