Akamas: the PLEICY survey and the Drouseia-Skloinikia excavation (University of Cyprus)

At Drouseia-Skloinikia on the Akamas peninsula, excavation in 2025 uncovered an in situ knapping floor with raw material blocks, cores, hammerstones and flakes, together with beads, bead preforms, groundstone and a shell assemblage described as extremely rich¹. The work is a University of Cyprus project led by T. Moutsiou, with C. Reepmeyer as co-director of the 2020 surveys and later a collaborator from the German Archaeological Institute; A. Sarris carried out the geophysical survey in 2024 and 2025^1,2,3. It began as PLEICY, "Water Routes in Human Island Dispersals", which sought Pleistocene deposits with a predictive model built from the topography of known Palaeolithic sites in the eastern Mediterranean; the notice states that unequivocal Palaeolithic material culture is absent from Cyprus². From 2022 the work belonged to the MIGRATE programme, and the A.G. Leventis Foundation is among the funders^1,3.

The 2020 survey, in September and October, covered coast and interior with georeferenced probing and augering of sediments and recorded chert flakes and blades in scatters, preliminarily pre-Neolithic to Neolithic². In April 2022 a pedestrian survey of the coastal zone and a 1 x 1 m test trench showed the area to be of high interest for pre-Neolithic remains³. In September and October 2024 a geophysical survey of 1,720 sq m guided five trenches, dug to a maximum of 60 cm; they produced hundreds of stone artefacts, stone containers, beads, shells and bone artefacts, and an arrowhead found in situ that the notice says likely evinces hunting^1,3. The Department of Antiquities notice argues that these results call into question the prevailing perception of the Akamas as culturally marginal in early Cypriot prehistory³.

In October 2025 nine trenches were opened, one to bedrock and eight to about 20 cm over a magnetic anomaly, and a brief underwater survey assessed the nearby seabed¹. The notice gives sea level at the time of occupation as about 15 m lower than today¹. The finds are provisionally placed in the Terminal Pleistocene to Early Holocene (12–8 ka)^1,3. Initial AMS dates give a terminus ante quem around 8000 cal BP¹. A third excavation mission is announced for September 2026¹.