Island Hopping 2024: Cyprus, Archaeological Site of Tenta at Kalavasos

Before the Romans, before the Greeks, before the Phoenicians someone lived on this island. The neolithic first settlers were here.  The Neolithic period, sometimes called the New Stone Age, is the time when mankind transitioned from hunter gatherer to agriculture and permanent settlements.  While this happened at different times in different areas of the world, in the eastern Mediterranean it was began about 12,000 to 10,000 BC.  Today Sandy and I visited a site of such settlers.  On a hill outside of Kalavasos  we strolled through the well-preserved remains of Tenta, an archaeological treasure nestled amidst rolling hills. The afternoon sun illuminated the traces of a once-thriving community, inviting contemplation on the lives of those who inhabited this land seven thousand years ago.  This site, dates back to the Neolithic period, and  unfolds layers of history. I marveled at the remnants of circular structures, evidence of early human settlements that stood witness to the dawn of agriculture and communal living. The Neolithic-era discoveries offered a glimpse into the ingenuity of our ancestors who tamed the land and shaped the foundations of our western civilization.  Sandy and I left this place thinking about the continuum of mankind’s cultural and societal evolution and about how on this one small island we can find that evolution manifested in so many places.

The tent that protects the site

Each circle is the foundation of a residence, atop these foundations two story wooden huts were built

This was the ocher-maker's house

Many of the huts under the protective tent

The view the villagers had across the valley

We finished the day at a taverna next to our apartment.  Sandy had a Margherita pizza. I had fried squid. 

Margherita Pizza, it is Friday after all

Squid