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INTRODUCTION
A major problem in the archaeology of the Bronze Age Cycladic islands (Fig. 1) is the issue of Minoanisation, a phenomenon in which Cycladic communities adopted and adapted many aspects of Cretan material culture and practice during the later Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and earlier Late Bronze Age (LBA).1Debate over the primary causes underlying the changes in material culture associated with the Minoanisation phenomenon has been ongoing for over 30 years, since the publication of Hägg and Marinatos's edited volume, The Minoan Thalassocracy, in 1984 (recently, see Broodbank 2004; Davis and Gorogianni 2008; Macdonald, Hallager and Niemeier 2009; Wiener 2013). Yet few studies focus specifically on the later MBA phase of the phenomenon, with some notable exceptions (Papagiannopoulou 1991; Davis 1984; 1986; Whitelaw 2005; Knappett and Nikolakopoulou 2005; 2008; Hilditch 2008; Gorogianni 2008; Abell and Hilditch 2016; Gorogianni, Abell and Hilditch 2016). The later MBA is, nevertheless, a crucial period for evaluating the degree to which different Cycladic communities participated in the earliest stages of the phenomenon, as well as for elucidating the initial processes that spurred the massive changes evident in LBA Cycladic material culture and society.
Fig. 1.
Map of the Aegean showing sites referenced in the text.
[Figure Omitted; See PDF]
This paper considers the earliest phase of Minoanisation at the settlement of Ayia Irini on Kea (Fig. 2), one of the three major Cycladic sites of the MBA-LBA, which include also Akrotiri on Thera and Phylakopi on Melos. The full publication of archaeological remains of Period V (Table 1) by Davis (1986) provides an opportunity to examine patterns of ceramic importation and local production and to consider the relationships between Minoan (i.e. Cretan), Minoanising (i.e. Cretan-style) and non-Minoanising ceramics in the Keian assemblage. Detailed assessment of both Minoanising and non-Minoanising features of the Period V ceramic assemblage demonstrates that a substantial proportion of pottery was imported not from Crete, but from other Cycladic islands, especially Melos and/or Thera.2Although some of these Cycladic imports were Minoanising, many of the most common imported eating and drinking shapes were non-Minoanising shapes. The quantity of Cycladic imports and increased popularity of both imported and locally produced...