• 1 L. Clare. 2024. “Inspired individuals and charismatic leaders: hunter-gatherer crisis and the rise (...)

2In the first chapter, which provides a useful summary in both French and English, the significance of the site is addressed. The authors pose a series of questions about the importance of Klimonas in the fast-evolving Neolithic of the Levant. On the basis of the architecture, chipped and ground stone, bone tools and other diagnostic cultural elements, the authors associate Klimonas unequivocally with Late‑PPNA populations on the mainland and to some extent with the northern Levant. However, a clear association with the northern Levant is now being questioned as many aspects of Klimonas bear resemblance with the southern Levant (building types for example) and also central Anatolia on the basis of the presence of obsidian. This is hardly surprising given that on the mainland the Late‑PPNA is a time of transition when PPNA cultural traits exist side‑by‑side with new innovations associated with the Early PPNB. The Early PPNB appears to replace the PPNA in the northern Levant over a number of centuries and spreads southwards where it existed for some centuries side‑by‑side with the earlier Late‑PPNA tradition.1 Thus, the questions posed by the authors in the introductory chapter are of particular significance, including 1) the origin of the Klimonas population, given there is, as yet, no evidence of an earlier PPNA horizon on the island which would indicate endogenous development, 2) the extent to which Klimonas resembles – both in physical structure and in cultural behaviour – a mainland Late‑PPNA way of life, and 3) whether Klimonas offers insights into a key feature of this period – the presence of two apparently distinct but contemporaneous, material culture traditions that existed between approximately 8900 and 8200 cal. BC – an indigenous Late PPNA and an Early PPNB.

• 2 J. Clarke, A. Wasse. 2020. “Time out of joint: a re‑assessment of the Cypriot Aceramic Neolithic si (...)

4The one disappointment as a specialist in the Ceramic Neolithic, is the lack of detail regarding the Ceramic Neolithic remains. I recognise this book is about the pre-ceramic settlement but there is no indication that this important period will be revisited in later publications, which given the only very brief discussion in this volu­me, would be a shame. The authors record a large number of Ceramic Neolithic pits and silos at Klimonas, many of which cut through the pre-ceramic stratigraphy and at times badly damage important earlier features, including the communal building St. 10. They also record a possible Ceramic Neolithic wall, presumably the remains of a building (p. 63). The plans of the pre-ceramic remains show pits and silos dotted across the site, yet these have been dealt with in hardly any detail at all. There is a synthesis chapter on the Ceramic Neolithic remains (Ch.4), which totals only seven pages of approximately 600 pages in all, which deals with the Ceramic Neolithic finds, but also with later Hellenistic to Byzantine period remains. There is one plate of Neolithic pottery, showing seven diagnostic examples of typical Neolithic decorated wares (Red‑on‑White Ware and Combed Ware). At the end of this (and every chapter) the authors provide links to the online appendices where this material is dealt with in more detail but I also found these to be hard to access and inadequate in detail. I would have liked to have seen more considered attention paid to the Ceramic Neolithic remains, given that there is continuity of ideology – at least in terms of a tendency to hold onto archaic traditions – that runs through from the Late‑PPNA (as exemplified at Klimonas) until the end of the Khirokitian2 and into the Ceramic Neolithic. The authors mention they recovered over 400 pottery sherds but these are only cursorily described, not illustrated, and not presented in terminology that resembles that of other Ceramic Neolithic pottery analyses. Thus, these sherds – for which there are no pictures – cannot be compared with similar types from other sites. There are also questions that are raised by the Ceramic Neolithic discussion that deserves further consideration. For example, Figure 4‑1 shows that the structure is most likely to be a Ceramic Neolithic building overlying one of the pit features. This suggests the underground elements are earlier than the above ground elements. If this is correct this stratigraphic superposition would resemble Philia Drakos A but not Kalavasos Kokkinogia suggesting different uses for these features. The authors actually suggest that the pits and silos were used to access cob from earlier Late‑PPNA buildings (Ch.33), but this would be entirely out of keeping with other sites where there is no evidence of such behaviour. Another interesting feature is that the pit feature St. 152 contained the remains of eight groupers. This is a fascinating discovery because most Ceramic Neolithic sites have no fish remains.