² For preliminary reports see BSA Annual Report 1998–9, 27–8; 2000–1, 28–9; Mee, C., ‘Nucleation and dispersal in Neolithic and Early Helladic Laconia’, in Branigan, K. (ed.), Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age (Sheffield, 2001), 1–14Google Scholar.

³ Catling, H. W.,. ‘Excavations at the Menelaion, Sparta, 1973–76’, AR 23 (1977), 24–42Google Scholar; id., ‘Lakonia: Menelaion’, AR 24 (1978), 31; id., ‘Lakonia-Arkadia: Sparta, Menelaion’, AR 25 (1979), 19–20; id., ‘Arkadia-Lakonia: Sparta, Menelaion’, AR 27 (1981), 16–19; id., ‘Excavations and study at the Menelaion, Sparta, 1978–81’, Lak. Spoud. 4 (1982), 28–43; id., ‘Study at the Menelaion, 1982–1983’, Lak. Spoud. 7 (1983), 23–31; id., ‘Arkadia-Lakonia: Sparta, Menelaion’, AR 32 (1986), 29–30; id., ‘Arkadia-Lakonia: Sparta, Akropolis and Sparta, Menelaion’, AR 35 (1989). 35–6.

⁴ Waywell, G. B. and Wilkes, J. J., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman Stoa, 1988–91, part 2’, BSA 89 (1994), 377–432Google Scholar; eid., ‘Excavations at the ancient theatre of Sparta 1992–4: preliminary report’, BSA 90 (1995), 435–60Google Scholar; eid., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman Stoa, 1988–91, part 3’, BSA 92 (1997), 401–34Google Scholar; eid., ‘Excavations at the ancient theatre of Sparta 1995–8: preliminary report’, BSA 94 (1999), 437–55Google Scholar; eid., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman Stoa, 1988–91, preliminary report, part 1’, BSA 88 (1993), 219–86Google Scholar; BSA Annual Report 1999–2000, 35–6.

⁵ Mee (n. 2), 3–8.

⁶ Halstead, P., ‘Traditional and ancient rural economy in Mediterranean Europe: plus ça change?’, JHS 107 (1987), 77–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘The economy has a normal surplus: economic stability and social change among early farming communities of Thessaly, Greece’, in P. Halstead and J. O'Shea (eds), Bad Year Economics (Cambridge, 1989). 68–80; id., ‘The north-south divide: regional paths to complexity in prehistoric Greece’, in C. Mathers and S. Stoddart (eds), Development and Decline in the Mediterranean Bronze Age (Sheffield, 1994), 195–219.

⁷ Cherry, J. F., ‘Pattern and process in the earliest colonization of the Mediterranean islands’, PPS 47 (1981), 41–68Google Scholar; id., ‘Islands out of the stream: isolation and interaction in early Mediterranean insular prehistory’, in A. B. Knapp and T. Stech (eds), Prehistoric Production and Exchange: The Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean (Los Angeles, 1985), 12–29; id., ‘The first colonization of the Mediterranean islands: a review of recent research’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 3 (1990), 145–221.

⁸ Perles, C., ‘Systems of exchange and organization of production in Neolithic Greece’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 5 (1992), 115–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Cavanagh, W. G., Mee, C. and James, P. A., The Laconia Rural Sites Project (BSA Supp. 36; London 2005)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Wolters, P., ‘Marmorkopf aus Amorgos’, AM 16 (1891), 52–3Google Scholar.

¹¹ Female figurines: Wolters (n. 10), 52, fig. 2. 1–3; Zervos, C., Naissance de la civilisation en Grèce (Paris, 1962), 577–8 and 170–1Google Scholar, figs. 113–14, 174–5, figs. 119–20, 184, fig. 138, 185, fig. 139, 194, fig. 163; Theocharis, D. R., Neolithic Greece (Athens, 1973), 52Google Scholar, fig. 17, 309, fig. 200, 315, fig. 226; Talalay, L., Deities, Dolls and Devices from Franchthi Cave (Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece 9; Bloomington, 1993), 120Google Scholar; stone vessels: Wolters (n. 10), 52, fig. 2. 4–5; Theocharis (above), 311, figs. 209–10; Papathanassopoulos, G. A., Neolithic Culture in Greece (Athens, 1996), 288Google Scholar, no. 175.

¹² Wolters (n. 10), 52.

¹³ We are most grateful to Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki for this information. The five figurines are NM 3927, NM 3928, NM3930, NM3931, and NM3932, while the two stone vessels are NM3948 and NM3979.

¹⁴ Phelps 1975, 115. This is also the basis on which the semiglobular bowl is dated EN in Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 288.

¹⁵ Perlès, C., The Early Neolithic in Greece (Cambridge, 2001), 260CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Theocharis (n. 11), 52, fig. 17, where it is implied that NM3928 is EN, because it is one of the figurines illustrated in the Early Neolithic chapter, though this is not stated explicitly in the caption.

¹⁶ Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 223, no. 30.

¹⁷ Perlès (n. 15), 260; Phelps 1975, 149–50.

¹⁸ Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 155; Talalay (n. 11), 62–3.

¹⁹ Talalay (n. 11), 64–5. For the Aigina figurine, see Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 318, no. 239.

²⁰ Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 224, no. 31.

²¹ Phelps 1975, 150.

²² They were mentioned in AA 1942, 156, and he studied part of the material in his Habilitationsschrift, defended in 1944.

²³ Renard 1989.

²⁴ Piper, D.J. W., Pe-Piper, G., Kontopoulos, N. and Panagos, A. G., ‘Plio-Pleistocene sedimentation in the western Lakonia graben, Greece’, Neues Jahrbuch für Geologic und Paläontologie, II (1982), 679–91Google Scholar.

²⁵ Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration, Geological Map of Greece: Sparti Sheet, I: 50,000 (Athens, 1999).

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Bintliff, J., Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece (BAR S28; Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Ibid., 391.

²⁹ Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (n. 25).

³⁰ Pope, R. J. J., ‘Late Pleistocene to Late Holocene Alluvial Fan Development, the Sparti Basin, Greece’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Reading, 1995)Google Scholar; id. and A. C. Millington, ‘Unravelling the patterns of alluvial fan development using mineral magnetic analysis: examples from the Sparta Basin, Lakonia, southern Greece’, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 25 (2000), 1–15; eid., ‘The role of alluvial fans in mountainous and lowland drainage systems: examples from the Sparta Basin, Lakonia, southern Greece’, Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie, 46 (2002), 109–36Google Scholar.

³¹ Bölte, F., ‘Sparta: geographie’, RE ii. 1265–373Google Scholar; Philippson, A., Die griechischen Landschaften: der Westen und Süden der Halbinsel (Frankfurt, 1959)Google Scholar.

³² Pope and Millington 2002 (n. 30).

³³ Ibid., 132.

³⁴ Stella Raftopolou (pers. comm.).

³⁵ Cavanagh, Mee, and James (n. 9).

³⁶ Dearing, J. A., ‘Magnetic susceptibility’, in Walden, J., Oldfield, F., and Smith, J. (eds), Environmental Magnetism: A Practical Guide (London, 1999), 35–62Google Scholar.

³⁷ Total amounts were determined for P, Pb, Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, Ca, Mg, Na, K (all determined using nitric plus perchloric acid digestion and atomic absorption spectrophotometer or colorimeter) and organic C (using the Walkley-Black potassium dichromate digestion method: Hesse, P. R., A Textbook of Soil Chemical Analysis (London, 1971)Google Scholar). Free carbonate is determined gasometrically and reported as % CaCO. The chemical and mineral magnetic analyses were carried out by Caroline Owen, Sarah Jackson, Anne-Flore Marziou, Maria Kousoulakou, Irene Cooper, Alan Henderson, and Bob Jude, using methods described in J. Walden, ‘Remanence measurements’, in Walden et al. (n. 36), 63–88.

³⁸ Munsell Soil Color Charts (New Windsor, NY, 2000)Google Scholar.

³⁹ Dearing, J. A., Hay, K. L., Baban, S. M. J., Huddleson, A. S., Wellington, E. M. H. and Loveland, P. J., ‘Magnetic susceptibility of soil: an evaluation of conflicting theories using a national data set’, Geophysics of the Earth's Interior, 127 (1996), 728–34Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Magnetically ‘soft’ minerals acquire magnetic remanence easily, Walden (n. 37).

⁴¹ Bintliff, J. L., Davies, B. E., Gaffney, C. F. and Waters, A., ‘Trace metal accumulation in soils on and around ancient settlements in Greece’, in Bottema, S., Entjes-Nieborg, G., and van Zeist, W. (eds), Man's Role in Shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean Landscape (Rotterdam, 1990), 159–72Google Scholar.

⁴² Cavanagh et al. (n. 35).

⁴³ Bullock, P., Fedoroff, N., Jongerius, A., Stoops, G. and Tursina, T., Handbook for Soil Thin Section Description (Wolverhampton, 1985), 79Google Scholar discuss the difficulty of distinguishing between amorphous iron oxides and organic matter in thin section.

⁴⁴ The redness of the matrix, the nature of iron oxide transformations and the illuviation of clay and iron (including haematite) in this sediment are very similar to features observed by the writer in Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene river deposits elsewhere in southern Europe.

⁴⁵ Rackham, O., ‘Observations on the historical ecology of Laconia’, in Cavanagh, W., Crouwel, J., Catling, R. W. V., and Shipley, G. (eds), Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey i (BSA Supp. 26; London, 2002)Google Scholar describes the rainfall in the western half of Laconia as ‘violent and changeable’.

⁴⁶ F. di Castri, ‘Soil animals in latitudinal and topographical gradients of Mediterranean ecosystems’, in id. and H. A. Mooney (eds), Mediterranean Type Ecosystems: Origin and Structure (London, 1973), 171–90.

⁴⁷ Grove, A. T. and Rackham, O., The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven, 2001), 288–311Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ A local base level for river erosion has also been significant: the mountains have risen and the basin sunk during the Neogene and Quaternary (Schröder, B. and Kelletat, D., ‘Geodynamical conclusions from vertical displacement of Quaternary shorelines in the Peloponnesus, Greece’, Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, 3 (1976), 174–86)Google Scholar. Furthermore, the present outlet of the River Eurotas at the southern end of the Sparta Basin is a narrow limestone gorge. This may be of no great age, and could be blocked by river sediments resulting in the flooding of the basin. When the gorge was cut, base level of erosion by the Eurotas river system was lowered.

⁴⁹ In the southern Argolid it was noted that alluvial deposits vary almost as much within a single unit as between units of different ages; Jameson, M. H., Runnels, C. N. and van Andel, T. H., A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day (Stanford, 1994), 174Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Pope and Millington 2002 (n. 30).

⁵¹ Willis, K., ‘The vegetational history of the Balkans’, Quaternary Science Reviews, 13 (1994), 769–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵² van Zeist, W. and Bottema, S., ‘Vegetational history of the Mediterranean during the last 20,000 years’, in Bintliff, J. L. and van Zeist, W. (eds), Palaeoclimates, Palaeoenvironments and Human Communities in the Eastern Mediterranean in Later Prehistory (BAR S133; Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, fig 14. 11.

⁵³ According to legend, King Eurotas drained the Sparta plain (Pausanias iii. 1. 1), though it is not clear when this impressive feat is supposed to have been undertaken. No early Holocene lake sediments, however, have been reported from the basin, nor did we encounter any in our reconnaissance survey.

⁵⁴ I should like to thank Michael Boyd for help with the final plots. Resistivity survey was also carried out but the results were not informative and are not published here.

⁵⁵ Shell, C. A., ‘The magnetometric survey at Çatalhöyük east’, in Hodder, I. (ed.), On The Surface: Çatalhöyük 1993–95 (Cambridge, 1996), 108–10Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Perlès, C. and Vitelli, K. D., ‘Craft specialization in the Neolithic of Greece’, in Halstead, P., (ed.), Neolithic Society in Greece (Sheffield, 1999), 98Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Renard 1989, 97.

⁵⁸ Phelps 1975, 65.

⁵⁹ Vitelli 1993, 99.

⁶⁰ Phelps 1975, 144–6.

⁶¹ Note that Phelps 1975, 141 uses the term flaring for rims that we describe as everted.

⁶² Phelps 1975, 157.

⁶³ Renard 1989, 114.

⁶⁴ Vitelli 1993, 139.

⁶⁵ Phelps 1975, 48; Renard 1989, 98.

⁶⁶ Vitelli 1999, 35.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 1999, 61.

⁶⁸ Lavezzi, J. C., ‘Prehistoric investigations at Corinth’, Hesp. 47 (1978), 423CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ Koumouzeli, M., “”, AAA 22 (1989), 143Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Renard 1989, 98.

⁷¹ Vitelli 1993, 160–1.

⁷² Ead., 1999, 67.

⁷³ Zachos, C., ‘Ayios Dhimitrios: A Prehistoric Settlement in the Southwestern Peloponnesos. The Neolithic and Early Helladic Periods’ (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1987), 51Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Phelps 1975, 199–200.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 220.

⁷⁶ Koumouzeli (n. 69), 150–5.

⁷⁷ Phelps 1975, 252.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 184.

⁷⁹ Perlès and Vitelli (n. 56), 99 also point out that the manganese oxide used for the matt paint may not have been readily available. Matt-Painted and Polychrome pottery has now been found at Kouphovouno in excavated LN contexts.

⁸⁰ Vitelli 1999, 28.

⁸¹ See Phelps 1975, 478, fig. 32 for Grey Ware parallels.

⁸² Vitelli 1999, 50–1, also Phelps 1975, 245–8.

⁸³ Perlès and Vitelli (n. 56), 99.

⁸⁴ Vitelli 1999, 64.

⁸⁵ W. G. Cavanagh, ‘The Neolithic pottery’, in Cavanagh and Crouwel 1996, 1–3.

⁸⁶ See Zachos (n. 73), 51–3 for the distribution of Attic-Kephala style pattern burnish in the southern Peloponnese. There is some crusted ware at Alepochori, Koumouzeli (n. 69), 157.

⁸⁷ Vitelli 1999, 102–3.

⁸⁸ Cavanagh and Crouwel 1996, 14–15.

⁸⁹ Red-slipped pottery is sometimes found in EH II contexts, for example at Askitario (D. R. Theocharis, “᾿Ασϰηταριό, “πρωτοελλαδιϰή ἀρόπολις παρὰ τὴν Ραφήναν”, Arch. Eph. 1953–4, 67), Ayios Kosmas (Mylonas, G. E., Aghios Kosmas: An Early Bronze Age Settlement and Cemetery in Attica (Princeton, 1959), 23Google Scholar) and Eutresis (Caskey, J. L. and Caskey, E. G., ‘The earliest settlements at Eutresis: supplementary excavations 1958’, Hesp. 29 (1960), 139–50)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁰ Weisshaar, H.-J., ‘Die Keramik von Talioti’, Tiryns, xi (Mainz, 1990), 5–7Google Scholar and pls. 2–4.

⁹¹ Ibid., 2–4 and pls. 11, 15 and 19–21.

⁹² Renard 1989, 128–9 and pl. 52.

⁹³ Ibid., 127.

⁹⁴ Cavanagh and Crouwel 1996, 16.

⁹⁵ Banou, E., ‘New evidence on Early Helladic Laconia’, BSA 94 (1999), 71–5Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Cavanagh and Crouwel 1996, 17, 25–6.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 18.

⁹⁸ Rutter, J. B. and Rutter, S., The Transition to Mycenaean: A Stratified Middle Helladic II to Late Helladic II A Pottery Sequence from Ayios Stephanos in Laconia (Monumenta Archaeologica 4; Los Angeles, 1976), 10, 61Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ R. W. V. Catling, ‘The survey area from the Early Iron Age to the Classical period’, in Cavanagh et al. (n. 45). 153–5.

¹⁰⁰ Institute for Geological and Mineral Exploration, Geological Map of Greece: Sparti Sheet, I:50,000 (Athens, 1999)Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ Institute for Geological and Mineral Exploration, Geological Map of Greece: Xerokambi Sheet, I:50,000 (Athens, 1999)Google Scholar.

¹⁰² Renard, J., Le Péloponnèse au Bronze Ancien (Aegaeum 13; Liège, 1995), 272Google Scholar; Marangou, C., ΕΙΔΩΛΙΑ: figurines et miniatures du Néolithique Récent et du Bronze Ancien en Grèce (BAR S576; Oxford, 1992), 107–17Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 81, pi. 23. a 2.

¹⁰⁴ Phelps, W. W., ‘Prehistoric figurines from Corinth’, Hesp. 56 (1987), 233–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁵ Toufexis, G., ‘Animals in the Neolithic art of Thessaly’, in Gamble, C., Halstead, P., Hamilakis, Y., and Kotjambopoulou, E. (eds), Zooarchaeology in Greece (BSA Studies 9; London, 2002), 268Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁶ Phelps (n. 104), 250, no. 38, pl. 40. 38.

¹⁰⁷ Talalay (n. 11), 26–7, 46–8.

¹⁰⁸ Petrakis, S. L., Ayioryitika: The 1928 Excavations of Carl Blegen at a Neolithic to Early Helladic Settlement in Arcadia (INSTAP Prehistory Monographs 3; Philadelphia, 2002), 67–70Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., cat. nos. 431–6, 445–52, 459–60.

¹¹⁰ Cf. Renard 1989, 158.

¹¹¹ Perlès (n. 15), 113 and 118 for ‘paradox’.

¹¹² To judge from Hope Simpson's recognition of Variegated Ware (also known as Rainbow Ware) in a number of surface assemblages. The difficulty is that it was recognized at Kouphovouno itself, where no other report of EN pottery has been confirmed. Monochrome Neolithic pottery from surface assemblages is not highly diagnostic, and is probably best ascribed to the Neolithic without differentiation: Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 74 (Kouphovouno), 89 and n. 107 (Ayios Stratigos), 91 and n. 116 (Asteri Karaousi); Waterhouse, H. E. and Simpson, R. Hope, ‘Prehistoric Laconia: part 2’, BSA 56 (1961), 140Google Scholar and n. 175 (Goulas, Plitra).

¹¹³ Perlès (n. 15), 118. Given the depth of stratigraphy at Kouphovouno, confirmed by the cores, it may still hold surprises.

¹¹⁴ cf. Johnson, M., ‘Water, animals and agricultural technology: a study of settlement patterns and economic change in Neolithic southern Greece’, OJA 15 (1996), 267–95Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ At Nea Nikomedeia roughly 25% of the total exposed area was occupied by buildings in phases 1 and 2. In phase 3 this falls to 16%, but there are greater uncertainties for this phase. Calculations based on information in Wardle, K. A. (ed.), Nea Nikomedeia i (BSA Supp. 25; London, 1996).Google ScholarKotsakis, K., ‘What tells can tell: social space and settlement in the Greek Neolithic’, in Halstead, P. (ed.), Neolithic Society in Greece (Sheffield, 1999), 66–76Google Scholar, notes the marked differences between MN settlement types at Sesklo A, where buildings were set in space but the whole area of the acropolis was continuously occupied, and Sesklo B, where buildings formed tight clusters, but with spatial and chronological gaps.

¹¹⁶ Perlès (n. 15), 297.

¹¹⁷ In addition to the cluster of LN/FN sites found in the Laconia Survey (W. Cavanagh andj. Crouwel, ‘The survey area in the prehistoric periods’, in Cavanagh et al. (n. 99), 121–8), note the Papayannakos Caves at Goritsa (Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 83–4); Geraki, AR 47 (2000–2001), 33Google Scholar; Alepochori, (Kontaxi, Kh., “Β´ Κουβελέιϰι σπηλιά”, A. Delt. 49 (1994)Google Scholar, Chr. 837–9; Kontaxi, Kh., Kotzampoulou, E. and Stravopodi, E., ““Προϰαταραϰτιϰή έϰθεση ανασαφών στην Α Κουβελέιヰη σπηλιά Αλεποχωρίου Λαヰωνίας”, AAA 22 (1989), 21–30Google Scholar; Koumouzeli (n. 69); Stravopodi, E., “Α′ Κουβελέιϰη σπηλιά Αλεποχωρίου”, A. Delt. 49 (1994)Google Scholar, Chr. 835–7; Asteri (Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 89–90); Ayios Stratigos (Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 88–9); Diros (Papathanassopoulos (n. 11), 80–4, with further references); Plitra (Waterhouse and Hope Simpson (n. 112), 139–40).

¹¹⁸ Cavanagh, W. G., ‘Revenons à nos moutons: surface survey and the Peloponnese in the Late and Final Neolithic’, in Renard, J. (ed.), Le Péloponnèse: archéologie et histoire (Rennes, 1999), 31–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Mee (n. 2), 8–10.

¹²⁰ A list of sites is given in Renard (n. 102), 5–94. For Laconia continuity has been claimed for Ayia Kyriaki, Amyklai (Hope Simpson and Waterhouse 1960, 75) but before the clear distinctions now perceived in the pottery typology were fully recognized. Voïdokoilia is said to have a destruction level dated to EH II/possibly early EH III, G. Korres, “Ανασϰïδοϰοιλίας Πυλίας”, PAE 1982, 230. Nichoria and Deriziotis Aloni in Messenia are occupied at the end of EH III (Rutter, J. B., ‘Review of Aegean prehistory II: the prepalatial Bronze Age of the southern and central Greek mainland’, in Cullen, T. (ed.), Aegean Prehistory: A Review (Boston, 2001), 123Google Scholar and n. 116, 150 and n. 228). Asea in Arcadia has EH III (Forsén, J., ‘Prehistoric Asea revisited’, Op. Ath. 21 (1996), 47Google Scholar). For possible EM III from Kythera see Broodbank, C., ‘Kythera Survey: preliminary report on the 1998 season’, BSA 94 (1999), 211–12Google Scholar, AR 46 (1999–2000), 23Google Scholar, AR 48 (2001–2002), 16Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Waterhouse and Hope Simpson 1960, 70. The recently discovered MH cemetery some 3 km to the SE cannot have served the acropolis but lies very close to the Menelaion.