ABSTRACT
THE earliest dwellings in which men have sheltered themselves are caves. In the mountainous regions which border the Mediterranean, nature everywhere offered these refuges to the peoples of the Neolithic Age. The Greeks did not lose the memory of these forefathers who “dwelt, like frail ants, under the ground, in the depths of caves where the sun did not reach “. 2 They knew that Polyphemos, living on the mountain in company with his sheep and goats, in a cave which he closed every night with a huge rock, was the type of the men—Kyklopes or Troglodytes—who knew no laws and did not till the fields. 3 Many of these rock dwellings are known—the cave of Choirospilia in Leukas, and the rock shelters of Miamou, Skalaes, and Magasa in Crete.
