Cape Andreas-Kastros: the French Mission

At Cape Andreas-Kastros, on the south flank of the promontory, a French mission of the CNRS found circular stone houses about 4 m across and, in the Neolithic deposit, no pottery at all¹. The first campaign, in June 1970 under J. Perrot with Alain Le Brun in the field, consisted of prospection and soundings. It set out to verify the nature and extent of the known deposit, and the report placed the site on the horizon of the earliest levels at Khirokitia and related sites¹.

Le Brun directed the campaigns of 1971, 1972 and 1973. In September and October 1971 about 100 m² were excavated, and three construction periods were distinguished, the later with circular habitation 517 and hearth 522; the finds included flint sickle blades, polished stone axes, obsidian bladelets and stone vessels². In 1972 the report describes semi-subterranean circular houses and a semicircular mudbrick structure about 50 cm high, whose upper-course bricks have holes suggesting a light roof on a framework. The report notes fish vertebrae and fishing tools alongside hunting and the gathering of grasses³. The 1973 campaign, from 16 July to 31 August, enlarged the excavation in the South and East sectors to establish relative sequences of building phases, and exposed houses 567, 566, 565 and 578⁴. The report suggests that installation 546, a lined, ash-filled basin with holes and notches, supported a rack for grilling or smoking food⁴. Three individual burials were cleared: burial 540, an adult in a pit at the foot of the cliff, had no grave goods apart from small perforated shells, and burials 547 and 548 were disturbed and incomplete⁴.

Karageorghis, reporting Le Brun, presents the site as an aceramic Neolithic settlement with parallels to Khirokitia and a varied bone-tool industry⁴. Legrand's study of the bone industry covers 134 of 163 objects and reports that the complete industry is held at the Museum of Nicosia⁵. Le Brun published the site as Un site néolithique précéramique en Chypre : Cap Andreas-Kastros (1981)⁶.