PREHISTORY OF THE AEGEAN FROM THE MESOLITHIC PERIOD TO END OF THE III MILLENNIUM BC

1) Knowledge and understanding. Provide students with an understanding of the cultural development of the Aegean region from the Mesolithic to the 3rd millennium BC, through the selection of significant case studies for the various periods.

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding. Enable students to confidently undertake research in the field of Aegean prehistory (10th-3rd millennia BC) through the acquisition of appropriate tools and methodologies, including archaeological and bibliographical. This goal will be achieved through in-depth examination of specific aspects using seminar-style methodologies.

3) Independent judgment. Instil in students a critical approach to texts with systematic comparisons between descriptions of monuments and their in situ analysis.

4) Communication skills. Provide students with specialized vocabulary to enable them to communicate effectively with the scientific community.

5) Learning skills. Develop autonomy in the ability to identify the most representative scientific texts and understand them adequately.

The course is structured into three modules, preceded by an introduction.

A: 10^th-6^th millennia: origins and development of the Aegean Neolithic, with particular attention to "Neolithization," socioeconomic development, and connectivity (2 credits)

B: 5^th-4^th millennia: the Aegean Chalcolithic (2 credits)

C: 3^rd millennium: the Early Bronze Age, with particular attention to Crete (2 credits)

Module A:

Demoule, J.-P. & Perlès, C. (1993). ‘The Greek Neolithic: A New Review.’ Journal of World Prehistory 7(4): 355–416.

Perlès, C. (2001). The Early Neolithic in Greece: The First Farming Communities in Europe. Cambridge University Press. pp.9-63,

Tomkins, P. 2004. ‘Filling in the Neolithic Background. Social life and social transformation in the Aegean before the Bronze Age’, J. Barrett and P. Halstead (eds.) The Emergence of Civilisation Revisited, pp. 38-63

Kotsakis, K. 1999. ‘What tells can tell: Social space and settlement in the Greek Neolithic’ in P. Halstead (ed.) Neolithic Society in Greece, pp.66-76.

 

Module B:

Broodbank, C. (2000). An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades. Cambridge University Press, pp. 68-106, 144-74

Papadatos, Y. and Tomkins, P., 2013. Trading, the longboat, and cultural interaction in the Aegean during the late fourth millennium BCE: the view from Kephala Petras, east Crete. American Journal of Archaeology, 117(3), pp. 353-381.

P. Tomkins, “Domesticity by Default. Ritual, Ritualization and Cave-use in the Neolithic Aegean,” OJA 28(2009) 125-153.

 

Module C:

Todaro, S. 2013. The Phaistos hills before the Palace: a contextual reappraisal. Polimetrica, pp. 21-39, 215-97.

Todaro, S. 2020. Residential mobility and ritual stability in the Early Bronze Age Mesara. Rebuilding ‘Houses’ at Phaistos. In M. Relaki and J. Driessen (eds) Oikos. Archaeological Approaches to House Societies in Aegean Prehistory

Tomkins, P. 2012 ‘Behind the horizon. Reassessing the genesis and function of the ‘First Palace’at Knossos (FN IV-MM IB).’ in – I. Schoep et al. (eds) Back to the Beginning. Reassessing Social and Political Complexity in Early and Middle Bronze Age Crete, pp. 32-79

 

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The teachers undertake, within the limits of the financial resources, to ensure as far as possible that a copy of the adopted texts is available in the departmental library or (in the case of hard-to-find texts, articles and essays) to make them available on Studium, in accordance with the applicable copyright laws.