Catalogued Pottery (Keros Project, Volume 4. The Pottery from Dhaskalio)

Abstract

This volume treats in detail the pottery from the settlement on the islet of Dhaskalio, whose excavation is described in Volume I of the series. Much of the importance of this material lies in the undisturbed stratigraphy of the settlement, a fact that allowed for the recognition of three successive phases of occupation of the site with considerable ceramic continuity between them, as well as for safe inferences about its chronology, with wider implications for the later early bronze age of the Cyclades. Other important aspects of this pottery are its considerable regionalism and the fact that it is almost in its entirety imported. The study of the pottery and other finds from the site suggest that the settlement at Dhaskalio may have operated primarily as a place for periodic rather than permanent habitation and that its function was most probably connected with the rituals practised at the opposite Special Deposits at Kavos. The character of the settlement may have undergone a gradual change during Phases B and C, when the Special Deposits at Kavos seem to have declined, and the site may increasingly have grown to be a centre of commercial exchange with other islands and areas. In the original printed volume, the very large Table 4.10 was presented separately as a pull-out sheet inside the back cover. Here it is provided as a standalone pdf. The Supplementary Material, made available on a DVD affixed within the printed volume, consists of 1,202 images and 62 tables. The visual material is organized in zipped folders named for the chapter in the book to which the images contained therein relate; a separate zipped folder contains the tables.