Shifting societies in Chalcolithic Cyprus

Abstract

How should we understand the emergence of large settlement sites in prehistoric West Asia? Are we to reconstruct very large and socially complex communities of thousands of people as has been postulated by various researchers? Here I will discuss Peter Akkermans' critique of the Neolithic so-called 'mega site' hypothesis, and apply his argument of cumulative site build up by small shifting communities to some very large Chalcolithic sites in Cyprus.