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Becoming urban: Investigating the anatomy of the Maroni Late Bronze Age Complex, Cyprus

Becoming urban: Investigating the anatomy of the Maroni Late Bronze Age Complex, Cyprus
Becoming urban: Investigating the anatomy of the Maroni Late Bronze Age Complex, Cyprus
The transformations entangled in becoming an urban society are increasingly attracting attention in archaeology, including in the Mediterranean. The place-making entailed in the development of urban settlement represents a fundamental change for a society; it creates over time a new urban mentalité and habitus, such that the urban fabric and place become an active part of social life, and its reproduction. While urbanism does not require the ‘state’, urban settlements form key venues for social, economic and political change leading to the potential development of sedentary early complex polities. For several areas of the world and in multiple periods, there are increasingly sophisticated studies of urbanisation. To date, Cyprus has received relatively little attention—but, as increasingly recognised, urbanisation was central to the island’s rapid change into, and emergence as, a substantial element of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean world. We consider and critique the case of urbanisation on Late Bronze Age Cyprus and highlight its importance to Cypriot and eastern Mediterranean prehistory. We explore in detail one particular case, the Maroni valley area and its Late Bronze Age complex, where relatively detailed information is becoming available from a combination of excavations, pedestrian survey and archaeological geophysics. We argue that only such detailed study allows proper recognition of the nature and anatomy of urban settlements on prehistoric Cyprus; we also argue that the scale (spatial and demographic) of the main Late Bronze Age urban settlements on Cyprus should not be underestimated.
0952-7648
Manning, Sturt
b5b1fc6c-f679-4689-af6d-49f4d9948fa0
Andreou, Georgia
8cdaa5ba-9ed4-42ab-9784-38571d736839
Fisher, Kevin
ad228194-1755-4ba4-9a0e-9c9dbf9d59f0
Gerard-Little, Peregrine
040be6e0-337e-4342-b8e5-2ade34544037
Kearns, Catherine
207a7950-dbb1-4e7a-b746-9f946dd5e16a
Leon, Jeffrey
a7cbfe9f-3dfb-48af-8d6a-eb8605d269fc
Sewell, David
95a873de-431e-4cf8-9bd3-f59aefdaacec
Urban, Thomas
97e32deb-c12c-4403-866c-d4c797e6fc87
Manning, Sturt
b5b1fc6c-f679-4689-af6d-49f4d9948fa0
Andreou, Georgia
8cdaa5ba-9ed4-42ab-9784-38571d736839
Fisher, Kevin
ad228194-1755-4ba4-9a0e-9c9dbf9d59f0
Gerard-Little, Peregrine
040be6e0-337e-4342-b8e5-2ade34544037
Kearns, Catherine
207a7950-dbb1-4e7a-b746-9f946dd5e16a
Leon, Jeffrey
a7cbfe9f-3dfb-48af-8d6a-eb8605d269fc
Sewell, David
95a873de-431e-4cf8-9bd3-f59aefdaacec
Urban, Thomas
97e32deb-c12c-4403-866c-d4c797e6fc87

Manning, Sturt, Andreou, Georgia, Fisher, Kevin, Gerard-Little, Peregrine, Kearns, Catherine, Leon, Jeffrey, Sewell, David and Urban, Thomas (2014) Becoming urban: Investigating the anatomy of the Maroni Late Bronze Age Complex, Cyprus. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 27 (1). (doi:10.1558/jmea.v27i1.3).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The transformations entangled in becoming an urban society are increasingly attracting attention in archaeology, including in the Mediterranean. The place-making entailed in the development of urban settlement represents a fundamental change for a society; it creates over time a new urban mentalité and habitus, such that the urban fabric and place become an active part of social life, and its reproduction. While urbanism does not require the ‘state’, urban settlements form key venues for social, economic and political change leading to the potential development of sedentary early complex polities. For several areas of the world and in multiple periods, there are increasingly sophisticated studies of urbanisation. To date, Cyprus has received relatively little attention—but, as increasingly recognised, urbanisation was central to the island’s rapid change into, and emergence as, a substantial element of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean world. We consider and critique the case of urbanisation on Late Bronze Age Cyprus and highlight its importance to Cypriot and eastern Mediterranean prehistory. We explore in detail one particular case, the Maroni valley area and its Late Bronze Age complex, where relatively detailed information is becoming available from a combination of excavations, pedestrian survey and archaeological geophysics. We argue that only such detailed study allows proper recognition of the nature and anatomy of urban settlements on prehistoric Cyprus; we also argue that the scale (spatial and demographic) of the main Late Bronze Age urban settlements on Cyprus should not be underestimated.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 6 June 2014
Published date: 2014

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 432518
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/432518
ISSN: 0952-7648
PURE UUID: 1b2757f6-0b5d-4d48-9ab4-eea424f64cdd
ORCID for Georgia Andreou: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8557-9554

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Date deposited: 17 Jul 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:40

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Contributors

Author: Sturt Manning
Author: Georgia Andreou ORCID iD
Author: Kevin Fisher
Author: Peregrine Gerard-Little
Author: Catherine Kearns
Author: Jeffrey Leon
Author: David Sewell
Author: Thomas Urban

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