Ayia Anna-Perivolia: the Umea soundings

The soundings at Perivolia, at a bend of the Tremithos river between Ayia Anna and Kalo Chorio, were undertaken in 1981 by Umea University's Department of Archaeology under E. Baudou, as part of the Swedish mission at Hala Sultan Tekké^1,2. The report states that the aim was to study the transition from a hunting economy to an agricultural one in the Stone Age¹. The finds were simple flint tools, comparable to those of Khirokitia phase I, about 6000 BC, but from a geological formation that might be older than the earliest Khirokitia settlement; no huts or dwellings were found, the stratigraphy was difficult to explain, and an absolute date seemed unlikely¹. P. Åström of the University of Göteborg directed a second season in 1982, which confirmed these results². That report reads the flint-working as activity before the Khirokitia culture, with most tools, flakes and debris coming from geological layers that might go back to c. 10,000 BC, and notes later-period flakes and Neolithic flint nearby².