At a time when a shortage of paper is likely to hinder scholarship, the last thing I should wish to do would be to waste space indulging in controversy with Prof. Gjerstad. Nor, owing to more pressing duties, have I much time to spend on his evasions and inaccuracies. But some comments seem desirable on his review of my book Ancient Cyprus in JHS vol. LIX p. 142.

He charges me with ignorance in failing to detect the fact that the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, under his leadership, identified fully the Neolithic Period of Cypriot archaeology. I regret that I must adhere to my original view that the Expedition made no such discovery. They hinted at the existence of such a period and found certain potsherds of a new type, but the discovery was made by M. Dikaios of the Cyprus Museum, and not by the Swedish Expedition. The sites of Erimi and Khirokhitia were found and excavated by M. Dikaios, and not by Prof. Gjerstad—or I have been seriously misinformed. The former site showed the more developed Neolithic and the Chalkolithic material, the latter the earlier stages when pottery was unknown. In all, some thirty sites of the Chalkolithic and Neolithic periods are now known in Cyprus. But Prof. Gjerstad, despite his exhaustive researches, found only three. Of these one, Petra tou Limniti, he labels as ‘ Pre-Neolithic ’ (as I pointed out in my book, p. 21). And yet he attempts to claim the discovery of Neolithic Cyprus as his own. I regret that this claim cannot be agreed to by any student. Prof. Gjerstad should resign himself to realities.