Introduction
Location map of Crete and Gavdos.
Gavdos lies in the Libyan Sea, approximately 21 nautical miles (nm) off the closest south-west Cretan shores (Figure 1a) and is the south-easternmost European territory before Africa - Libya/Tobruk is c. 160nm away. This is an easily targeted landfall of almost 33km², with an irregular terrain, rising up to 368m. The island offers anchorages along the north, east and south coasts. North of Gavdos is a stepping stone, Gavdopoula (Little Gavdos).
Travelling between Crete and Gavdos is crossing through open and unpredictable waters. Using light, mainly oar-propelled vessels, which were still employed locally until the late twentieth century, the trip could take up to 10 hours in bad weather. The journey from Africa was more risky, even in late antiquity. The significant distance, great depths and unfavourable predominant west-to-east currents all contributed to the implicit difficulties of voyaging northwards. Communication with the north or south, however, may have been easier in the past, namely during glacial periods of the Pleistocene, when sea-levels were significantly lower than today, for example during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Location map of Gavdos.
The modest size and isolation of Gavdos suggests that a 'pre-Neolithic' presence would be unlikely. However, findings from an interdisciplinary survey, conducted in the 1990s by the University of Crete and 25th Ephoreia of Antiquities (Kopaka et al. 1994-1996; Reference KopakaKopaka 2000), can now extend its human occupation back to the Pleistocene (Kopaka & Matzanas forthcoming). Indeed, in addition to the abundant Neolithic and Bronze Age chipped stone tools found on the island, almost one fifth of the lithic assemblage seems to date from the Early Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. These artefacts, which have been found at open-air sites across the island (Figure 1b), have been characterised by macroscopic examination (morphology/typology, technology, metrology, raw material, surface weathering), geoarchaeological parameters (e.g. their usual association with zones of red soil/terra rossa, and localised raw material sources), and indirect archaeological evidence (recurring lack of later lithics or pottery in their findspots). This evidence, coupled with the large quantity and extensive spatial distribution of the finds, helps balance the intrinsic weakness of such surface collections. The fact that new survey material from islands and islets has significantly altered the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic map of the Aegean (e.g. Panagopoulou et al. 2001; Reference SampsonSampson 2006) also strengthens the contribution of the Gavdos industries.
Early lithics from Gavdos
Handaxe (Sarakiniko).
Lower Palaeolithic
The Gavdos occupation may even begin in the Lower Palaeolithic, a proposal supported by the presence of handaxes. For example, a sub-cordiform handaxe (Figure 2a), made of a local, light purple coloured limestone, was found on the beach at Sarakiniko (Site 64A). It is a typical tool of advanced Acheulean industries, usually assigned at the latest to the end of the Lower Palaeolithic (c. 200-120 kyr). The shape resembles Greek (Reference MatzanasMatzanas 2004: 127, Figures 3:BO185, 4a-c, 6), European and African handaxes. Its weathered surface condition supports an early dating. Later alterations - side-scraper-like rejuvenation of its cutting side, and use damage - give this tool an interesting 'biography'. Among other diagnostic artefacts, is a limestone core-like chopping-tool, with a similarly weathered surface (Figure 2b), found with other comparable tools of grey chert on the neighbouring hilly promontory of Kavos Tsargoulio (Site 27, henceforth Kavos). Other sites have yielded a large handaxe-cleaver, partially shaped on a ultra-mafic or perhaps granodiorite pebble, and a large sandstone discoid core, with centrifugal flake removals mainly on one side.
Core-like chopping-tool (Kavos).
Sizeable early assemblages come from the coastal site of Ayios Pavlos-Fetifes (Site 26E, henceforth Ayios Pavlos), one of the island's oldest and most important Palaeolithic sites, which may have been in use as a workshop area. The typological features, raw materials, surface condition and, sometimes, even spatial micro-distribution of these artefacts allow them to be tentatively divided into five groups, which we believe provide a preliminary chronological framework for the Gavdos lithics. Group 1, the first and earliest (Figure 3a), consists mostly of flakes and cores, with only a few retouched tools. They are made of grey chert, have a thick white patina and are extremely weathered, suggesting that they were produced prior to the intense geological events of the Last Interglacial and may thus represent an industry of at least Late Lower Palaeolithic date. Artefacts of Ayios Pavlos Group 2 are also found at Kavos and, less often, at Vatsiana-Ellinika (Site 14C, henceforth Vatsiana) and Siopata-Boletes (Site 44B). They again include many flakes and cores, but also comprise retouched tools - choppers and a few denticulates. Some chopping-tools of grey chert are less weathered than those from Group 1 and could fit into Group 2. Representative Mousterian elements are rare here and mainly restricted to side-scrapers. These pieces may belong to a 'pre-Mousterian' industry (cf. Reference DarlasDarlas 1994b: 300). They are typically made from a local black flint of exceptional quality, and only occasionally made from a local brown flint, and usually have a yellow-red patina resulting from their deep desilicification. This evidence may suggest a date within the Lower to Middle Palaeolithic transition (c. 128-118 kyr), approximately during the Last Interglacial.
Selected early lithics from Gavdos: a) Group 1 from Ayios Pavlos; b) Levallois flake (Kavos); c) double-backed point (Kavos); d) crescent microlith (Siopata); e) transversal arrowhead (Kavos).
Middle Palaeolithic
This period has the most abundant sites and stone tools on Gavdos.
Early Middle Palaeolithic Material from Ayios Pavlos Group 3 is also found at Vatsiana and Kavos, and includes scrapers, denticulates, Levallois flakes (Figure 3b) and blades or blade-like débitage (cf. Reference DarlasDarlas 1994a: 312, 314) of an Early Mousterian (proto-Mousterian) industry compared to the typical Greek Mousterian. These artefacts have a yellowish-white patina. They can be dated to c. 120-75 kyr, i.e. Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5a-d, usually attributed to Würm I (Reference GambleGamble 1986: 76, 86). Although the preferred raw material is (and was to remain) the local black flint, some pieces are made of flints from as yet unidentified sources - possibly from Crete, obtained during cold phases of the Würm when communication with neighbouring coasts would have been less treacherous.
Late Middle Palaeolithic Artefacts from Ayios Pavlos Groups 3 and 4 are found in their greatest numbers at Vatsiana but also occur at Kavos. They are made primarily of black flint and seem to relate to an early stage of this period: they have some technological features - blade-like débitage and Levallois flakes - typical of Mousterian industry (c. 75-50 kyr).
Most of the tools and flakes of this period belong to Group 4. They are made of black flint and have a thin, usually partial, white patina. Characteristic pieces come mainly from Vatsiana and Kavos and include Quina scrapers with semi-abrupt, stepped retouch, and convergent scrapers and points, micro-cores and Levallois flakes. According to our initial estimates, these range broadly from at least an advanced Late Middle up to the Early Upper Palaeolithic stage (Group 4a) - about 50-20 kyr. Some may belong to 'micro-Mousterian' industries (for Greece, cf. e.g. Higgs & Vita Finzi 1966: 20, Figures 12-13; Reference PapagianniPapagianni 2000: 24-25 [Asprochaliko, Epirus]; for Western Europe, cf. Dibble & McPherron 2006: 777, 784).
Ayios Pavlos has also yielded many flaked artefacts in quartz (34 out of 57 quartz items or 60% of the assemblage) - a raw material usually preferred by Lower Palaeolithic groups (Reference MatzanasMatzanas 1995: 109), but also observed at much later stages. Diagnostic here are a micro-chopper, a denticulate and part of a small triangular Faustelkeil: this type of handaxe is modestly represented in the earliest Middle Palaeolithic complex of Germany (Micoquian, Reference GambleGamble 1986: 126, Figures 4.6, 5) but, in Greece, it can be more securely ascribed to a Mousterian industry of advanced Acheulean tradition, dated to the MIS 4 and 3, i.e. mainly to Würm II (c. 75-35 kyr; cf. Reference MatzanasMatzanas 2004: 127, Figures 3, 7). Also characteristic is a quartz chopper from Vatsiana, another important Palaeolithic site (a base camp?). Set on an alluvial Pleistocene terrace with intense red soil, this site yielded exclusively Palaeolithic material of a wide chronological range.
Upper Palaeolithic-Mesolithic
Quantitative data for this period are more restricted, although further examples may be found inside caves, rockshelters and submerged sites. The known tools are well distributed across the island, and show clear features of Upper Palaeolithic hunting equipment.
Early Upper Palaeolithic Artefacts of black flint from different sites can be typologically ascribed to this period (Group 4a), c. 40/35-20 kyr. For example, from Ayios Pavlos comes a carinated scraper made on a flake, which belongs to the Aurignacian industries of the Early Upper Palaeolithic.
Late Upper Palaeolithic Backed points, these most characteristic blade tools shaped with abrupt and continuous retouch, belong to the end of the previous phase (Group 4a) and in particular to the beginning of the Late Upper Palaeolithic (Groups 4b and 5), c. 20-14 kyr. On Gavdos, two Gravettian double-backed points, made of plain black flint blades with abrupt retouch were found at Kavos (Figure 3c) and Kefala (Site 58); and a shouldered point of Epigravettian tradition was found at Vatsiana (cf. Higgs et al. 1967: 21, Figure 12: 18-32). More unusual is a convex double-backed point, probably dating to the end of this phase, with a single end and clear signs of secondary use as perforator/piercer.
Final Palaeolithic/Epipalaeolithic - Mesolithic Some artefacts from Ayios Pavlos Groups 4 and 5, which are mainly made of black flint and have minimal and very partial (Group 4b) or no patina (Group 5), are attributed to the Final Palaeolithic or Epipalaeolithic (c. 14-10 kyr). Among them are a few, now shorter and thinner, points with a slightly angular backed side and one pointed tip, on thin blades shaped with abrupt retouch. Backed crescent microliths on thin black flint flakes, from Siopata-Metochi (Site 100D; Figure 3d) and Ayios Pavlos, suggest a date in the eleventh millennium (cf. Reference PerlèsPerlès 1987: 159; for comparable microliths from the Jebel Gharbi region [Libya], see Barich et al. 2006: 577, Figure 5).
Several conical-prismatic cores show evidence of removals of very small bladelets using the percussion technique and may also belong to the Final Palaeolithic. They come from Kopanelos [Site 62]; cf. Dakaris et al. 1964: 217-9, Figure 13s [Kokkinopilos]; Higgs & Vita Finzi 1966: 12, Figure 9: 28 [upper layer at Asprochaliko] and Chamourio [Site 78]). Very small discoid cores (Group 5), found in the same sites, had probably been used to extract minute flakes, suitable for making crescent and other microliths. These cores are often of 'polyhedral' or even 'globular' form, resulting from exhaustive multi-directional, non-blade- or blade-like flaking. The earliest imports of Melian obsidian may appear on Gavdos in this period, as suggested by a crescent point with angular back, made from a large obsidian blade, a tool-type characteristic of the eleventh millennium (cf. Demars-Laurent 1992: 114, Figure 43).
Backed bladelets and geometric microliths, mainly trapezoids and lunates, like those occasionally present in the Greek Mesolithic industries (c. 10-8800 BP; Sampson et al. 2003: 123, 127; Runnels et al. 2005: 275) have so far not been traced in our material, in which we have only rarely encountered other Greek Mesolithic tool types. The only artefact that can be fairly safely ascribed to a late Mesolithic stage (Final Mesolithic, eighth/seventh millennium BC) is an arrowhead made from a black flint blade (Figure 3e) - a point with transverse distal end and concave edges (cf. Reference PerlèsPerlès 1973: 77, Figures 9.4, 6, 1999: 317).
Cultural implications for Crete: a brief note
Apart from their intrinsic historical significance, the Gavdos chipped stone industries bring to the fore the issue of the 'pre-Neolithic' cultural void on the adjacent island of Crete and emphasise the need for properly oriented field research and diagnostic specialists' readings, which are now finally beginning to happen (see below). This sounds reasonable today with archaeological documentation for very ancient, and sometimes very long, crossings to Oceanic and Mediterranean islands, including more and more islands in the Aegean (relevant Aegean evidence is summarised in Reference SampsonSampson 2006).
Recent material from southern Greece and Crete also reflects, though with differing degrees of certainty, 'pre-Neolithic' maritime travel. Palaeolithic coastal sea-routes between Gavdos, Crete and the Peloponnese seem increasingly tenable, especially in the light of related discoveries in these areas. For example, in the Peloponnese, and particularly its south peninsulas, Lower/Middle Palaeolithic tools have been revealed in Lakonia (reference in Reference RunnelsRunnels 1995: 708, notes 18, 46) and Middle/Upper Palaeolithic excavation assemblages and palaeo-anthropological remains were found in Mani (e.g. Reference PitsiosPitsios 1985; Panagopoulou et al. 2002-2004; Reference DarlasDarlas 2004). Similarly, on the south-west Cretan coasts, opposite Gavdos (Figure 1a), Lower/Middle Palaeolithic surface tools were reported in 2003-2004 from Loutro in Sfakia (Reference MortensenMortensen 2008; cf. further reports on early material from Sfakia in Nixon et al. 1988, and see also Andreïkos 1998), and Lower Palaeolithic-Mesolithic surface assemblages were found only last summer (2008) in different sites of the Plakias-Preveli region (Strasser et al. forthcoming: earliest proposed dating 1.6 myr-250 kyr).
Within this framework, it would be intrinsically sensible to re-examine evidence previously claimed to be 'pre-Neolithic' on Crete and subsequently dismissed (e.g. Reference ZoisZois 1973: 57-66; Reference CherryCherry 1990). This would include lithics and other finds from surface collections, rock engravings and palaeo-anthropological material - in particular V. Simonelli's fossilised assemblage from Chania, assigned by him to a Homo sapiens sapiens type (see Facchini & Giusberti 1992 for a persuasive recent analysis and dating).
The study of the Gavdos lithics is far enough advanced to support an early - perhaps even a very early - and rather consistent human presence on the island, and become, we believe, the terminus a quo for many rewarding scientific voyages, especially towards the remote prehistory of its larger mother-island, Crete.
Acknowledgements
For their invaluable assistance respectively in the documentation and presentation of this paper, warm thanks are due to A. Alexopoulos, A. Andreïkos, A. Bartsiokas, N. Galanidou, A. Krachtopoulou, J. Moody, P. Mortensen, G. Papamarinopoulos, and to G. Cadogan, T. Moutsiou and A. Sarpaki. The drawings are by C. Matzanas (digital processing by P. Stefanaki), the photographs by Y. Papadakis-Ploumidis, and the GIS map of Gavdos by M. Maniadakis.
