This research draws upon the approaches outlined above to conduct a comparative study of pottery technology, aiming at investigating interactions between the different communities across Cyprus in the Late Chalcolithic, and tackling the issue of extra-insular contacts at the time. Although regionalism was a prominent characteristic of Late Chalcolithic Cyprus, the degree and intensity of interactions between the several communities of the island remain to be investigated. As Frankel has pointed out, the different relationships and patterns of different areas can be traced through the understanding of the developments in technology, and the rate in which innovations or adaptations are adopted (Frankel 2009, 23).
Building upon the concept of technological mobility explained above, this research aims at shedding light upon those interactions by examining similarities and differences between red and/or black burnished pottery across the island. The emergence of these various red and/or black burnished wares and their characteristics are examined in the next chapter, through a comparative analysis of pottery assemblages from five sites within the island. The aim of this analysis is to establish whether these
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wares belong to the same red and/or black monochrome tradition, and what can that tell us about the interactions between the different regions within Cyprus.
Additionally, as mentioned already, the idea that Cyprus has been isolated before the Philia phase has been challenged by recent evidence. In this framework, scholars like Bolger and Peltenburg have argued in favour of extra-insular contacts with Anatolia and the Levant, already during the Late Chalcolithic. Pottery plays a central role in this hypothesis. Although the earliest known imported vessel is the so-called Vounous jar, found in Early Bronze Age contexts in Bellapais-Vounous, Bolger and Peltenburg have proposed that red and/or black burnished wares of the Late Chalcolithic might relate to the Red Black Burnished Ware of Anatolia and its Levantine variant, the Khirbet Kerak Ware (Bolger 2013, 5; Bolger and Peltenburg 2014, 188-189). An assemblage of Red Black Burnished Ware (RBBW) from the site of Tepecik in Anatolia is added to the dataset, in order to investigate whether the hypothesis of possible relations between the Cypriot and the Anatolian pottery traditions is plausible.
Due to the nature of the dataset, which consists mostly of small sherds, a complete reconstruction of the chaȋne opératoire of each assemblage is not possible. Nevertheless, all macroscopically visible traces of technological behaviours are recorded and combined with information from existing publications. The dataset is comprised of pottery assemblages from five sites in Cyprus and one in Anatolia.
o Red and Black Stroke Burnished Wares (RB/B) from Lemba-Lakkous, Kissonerga- Mosphilia, and Chlorakas-Palloures along the west coast
o Red Lustrous and Red and Black Lustrous Wares (RL and RBL) from Ambelikou- Agios Georghios in the northern part of the island
o Fabric A and Fabric E from Politiko-Kokkinorotsos in the central lowlands o Red Black Burnished Ware (RBBW) from Tepecik, Anatolia.
The analysis focuses on three main aspects of the pottery assemblages in question: the materials used, the technologies implied, and the vessel shapes present in each site. Hence, it consists of a comparison of pottery materials, technology (vessel forming and firing, surface treatment and decoration) and vessel shapes. Specifically, three types of interactions (casual, mediated and long-term) will be investigated by examining five aspects of pottery production:
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I. Clay procurement and processing, as well as the firing of the vessels. These are practices conducted on a communal basis and can indicate casual interactions among potters.
II. Surface treatment and decoration are pottery aspects that can be mimicked after just mediated interactions. In other words, a potter might have travelled to another site, seen a pot and mimicked its decoration.
III. Finally, vessel forming, and shapes require expertise and shared knowledge. Therefore, they indicate long term face-to-face interactions during which potters learn from each other.
Therefore, pottery technology is used here as a proxy to trace interactions between communities.
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Chapter 5
Red and/or Black Burnished Pottery Wares in Late Chalcolithic Cyprus
It has been argued that the Late Chalcolithic was a period of great technological, economic and social developments, which is reflected especially in the pottery assemblages of the time. New clay fabrics, surface treatments, and vessel shapes, as well as changes in vessel formation, firing and scales of production are among the evidence pointing towards social changes right before the emergence of the Bronze Age (Bolger 2007, 181-82). Nevertheless, there are regional differences among pottery of the different sites and regions across the island, and the Middle Chalcolithic koine seems to have given its place to a Late Chalcolithic regionalism. Up until the Middle Chalcolithic, Red-on-White Ware is the prominent pottery tradition throughout the island, but this uniformity breaks down in the Late Chalcolithic, when as mentioned in Chapter 3, pottery wares of red and/or black burnished surfaces emerge across the island. Although they are not identical from site to site, these wares might be related and belong to the same red and/or black monochrome tradition. This chapter investigates the relation between these wares through a comparative study of relevant pottery assemblages. These red and/or black burnished pottery assemblages were selected based primarily on site’s location, to maintain the regional aspect of the project. Therefore, wares from five sites were chosen:
1. the Red and Black Stroke-Burnished Ware (RB/B) from Lemba-Lakkous along the western coast of the island, in the Ktima Lowlands.
2. the Red and Black Stroke-Burnished (RB/B) from Kissonerga-Mosphilia in the Ktima Lowlands
3. the Fabric EE RB/B Chlorakas-Palloures in the Ktima Lowlands.
4. the Red Lustrous and Red and Black Lustrous Wares Ambelikou-Agios Georghios in the northern part of the island.
5. Fabric A and Fabric E from Politiko-Kokkinorotsos in the central lowlands.