Middle Chalcolitic Period
(circa. 3,500-2,800 B.C.)
With the appearance of conventional settlement and funerary evidence in
the archaeological record, it becomes easier to consider cultural
developments in their societal setting and so move from description to
interpretation. A model commonly deployed by explicitly deductive
archaeologists to interpret their data is that of anthropologically
observed societal types such as tribes or chiefdoms.
Lemba Period I is the earliest Chalcolitic site with wall foundations.
Here, circular structures with central platform hearths reveal what was
to become the architectural pattern for Cyprus until circa. 2,300 B.C.
Houses were small, approximately 3 meters in diameter. Built with pisé,
that is, rammed earth, foundations, they were interspersed with graves
below a terrace that also contained pit burials.
Although there were no
grave-goods or stratigraphy to link the two parts of the site, it is
inherently likely that the two were contemporary and that located on the
upper terrace is the earliest cemetery in Cyprus.
In a number of cases
the buildings were located over roughly circular pits of the same size,
and this congruence, which can be interpreted as a desire to place
structures in the protection of existing hollows, may account for the
distinctive circular building tradition of Chalcolitic Cyprus.
