This chapter continues our formal assessment of the long-term history of the island. The previous chapter considered the latest phase of human occupation on Antikythera, beginning in the late eighteenth century AD, and developed some analytical and interpretative methods that could be applied fairly consistently across other periods as well. In this chapter, we therefore jump backwards to the very earliest signs of human exploitation in the later Neolithic and proceed chronologically from then on, using the better-documented, most recent period of settlement as a clear point of comparison and contrast.

EARLIER PREHISTORY

The earliest confirmed evidence of human activity on the island dates to the later Neolithic, probably some 7,000 years ago. While it is possible that the island was visited even earlier (e.g., given recent work on Crete suggesting Lower Palaeolithic activity, Strasser et al. 2011), we were not able to identify confidently any components of the assemblage that are unambiguously pre-Neolithic, and until there are published radiometric dates corroborating the proposed Mesolithic industries on Crete (Strasser et al. 2011, p. 171) prefer a more parsimonious, and later-dated, explanation at this stage. In contrast, and as we discussed in Chapter 4, there is good circumstantial evidence for some kind of exploitation of the island from perhaps the fifth millennium BC, based on a limited number of technological indicators amongst the knapped stone assemblage, particularly the presence of certain obsidian projectile points.