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20,000 BCE to 3,000 BCE
no evidence for inhabitation of the cave during winter in the Paleolithic
Paleolithic obsidian from Melos
Holocene begins 10,000 BCE
pottery shows up in the Neolithic,
also walls
The function of these vessels, to judge from their shape, size, decoration, and signs of wear and repair was neither storage nor cooking (which one might perhaps have expected from human groups in the initial stages of a sedentary existence) but rather display; that is, the initial function of pottery may have been as some sort of prestige artifact.
A few odd bits of Bronze Age material suggest that the cave was visited sporadically over the ensuing two millennia, and finds of specialized votive material at the back of the cave show that it served some sort of cult purpose in Classical times, but it never served again as a principal residence for any significant number of people. The reason for its abandonment ca. 3000 b.c. was the steady rise in sea level
no evidence for inhabitation of the cave during winter in the Paleolithic
Paleolithic obsidian from Melos
Holocene begins 10,000 BCE
pottery shows up in the Neolithic,
also walls
The function of these vessels, to judge from their shape, size, decoration, and signs of wear and repair was neither storage nor cooking (which one might perhaps have expected from human groups in the initial stages of a sedentary existence) but rather display; that is, the initial function of pottery may have been as some sort of prestige artifact.
A few odd bits of Bronze Age material suggest that the cave was visited sporadically over the ensuing two millennia, and finds of specialized votive material at the back of the cave show that it served some sort of cult purpose in Classical times, but it never served again as a principal residence for any significant number of people. The reason for its abandonment ca. 3000 b.c. was the steady rise in sea level
