In Cyprus, as in other regions, the course of the Bronze Age has been divided into three main stages, Early, Middle and Late. Each stage is further subdivided into three phases, I, II and III, which, in their turn may be split into subperiods, A, B, and C. By analogy with Early, Middle and Late Helladic, Minoan and Cycladic in Greece, Crete and the Islands respectively, the terms Early, Middle and Late Cypriot (abbreviated to E.C., M.C. and L.C.) are used.

THE IDENTITY OF THE EARLIEST BRONZE AGE SETTLERS

The beginning of the Early Cypriot period synchronizes fairly closely with the disastrous end of the E.B. 2 period in Anatolia, c. 2300 b.c.; it may, indeed, prove to have been a direct outcome of this major Anatolian catastrophe. Its duration seems to have been between four and five hundred years; the transition to the Middle Cypriot stage is an ill-defined process, but may with some probability be placed in the century between 1900 and 1800 b.c., in view of synchronisms with Crete demonstrated by Minoan vases and weapons found as imports in north Cyprus.

The account that can be given of the Early Cypriot period is very imperfect, depending almost wholly as it does upon the evidence of cemeteries and their contents. Only at the very end of the period is it possible to draw on evidence provided by settlements.