Krzysztof Nowicki – författare

This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author’s own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author’s own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author’s own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

At first sight, the cliffside site of Katalimata looks like an extreme refuge place where one might expect small groups of people hiding for a brief time during the most serious period of threat. Excavation of the largest of the terraces, however, has shown that use of the place was often long-lasting and more complex. The most interesting result of the project was the identification at Katalimata of almost all the same phases known from elsewhere in Crete as periods of disturbances, relocations, and destructions. This monograph provides a detailed discussion of the six occupational phases recorded on the largest of Monastiraki Katalimata's terraces and offers a reconstruction of the site's role in the context of Cretan history.

A regional survey was undertaken in the central part of the Mirabello Bay area: along the northeastern coast of Crete in the Gournia Valley and the northern half of the Isthmus of Ierapetra, ending in the valley of Episkopi, to provide a regional context for the Bronze Age palace and settlement of Gournia. As this survey was the last and geographically most central compared to three other surveys (Vrokastro, Pseira, and Kavousi), conducted in the Mirabello region, it ties together the data from all four surveys regarding the environment, population(s), and social organization of an entire region. Furthermore, this volume goes beyond the survey data to consider, at some length, the evidence from local excavations, so as to provide an in-depth and integrated picture of the regional socio-economic development. It is meant as a regional archaeological study of the Mirabello Bay area.

Controversies regarding the historical background of the crisis in the Aegean and the East Mediterranean c. 1200 BC, as well as the consequences of that crisis, continue in academic debates despite the fact that much new evidence has been discovered and published during the last few decades. Among the most important elements of the evidence are defensive sites in Crete, the location of which helps to indicate the factors behind the collapse of the earlier settlement pattern. This book’s aims, therefore, are to update the basis of evidence and to present an analysis of settlement changes in Crete between c. 1230 and 900 BC. The arguments made are all supported by archaeological evidence identified and studied by the author. Although the 1200 BC collapse itself has been frequently discussed in the past, very little attention was paid to detailed settlement studies and to the complexity of regional changes during the following centuries which followed the collapse. The proposed explanation of the initial relocations of habitation sites to naturally defensible places, c. 1200 BC, and their later evolution, between 1150 and 900 BC should stimulate further field research in other coastal areas of the Aegean and the East Mediterranean.