ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the evidence from the earliest agropastoralist, settlement, of Cyprus and Crete suggests that some prior knowledge of the target landscape and its suitability for settlement was held by the colonists. Archaeobotanical investigations at the Cypriot aceramic Neolithic sites began in the 1970s. The chapter discusses the environmental and artefactual evidence and indicates that there was an associated settlement, the permanency of which is suggested by the presence of the remains of house mice, commensal species and whose inhabitants were engaged in a suite of varied economic activities. It presents a comparison of the numbers of domestic crops and wild taxa represented at the acefamic Neolithic sites. The chapter provides a model which is in concordance with the conclusions drawn from more detailed quantitative analyses that were designed to explore the development, of Neolithic farming systems in Central Europe.
