Philia-Drakos: the Edinburgh excavations

At Philia-Drakos Site A, the Edinburgh team found a Neolithic settlement with rectangular houses, plaster floors and basins, an early wall and ditch on its western edge, and rock-cut underground structures^1,2. Trevor Watkins directed the work for the Department of Archaeology of the University of Edinburgh¹. The annual report for 1967, the second season, names P. S. Gelling as co-director with Watkins; it records house foundations, two underground structures and work on the perimeter wall. It also records a thin pottery deposit on bedrock, which the report suggests might be the earliest pottery yet found in Cyprus³.

In 1968 a further 250 square metres were excavated, and the report proposed four occupation periods based on pottery development; more than 17,000 sherds were cleaned, recorded and studied¹. Seven plaster basins were known by the end of the season¹. In 1969 about 250 square metres were again explored, more than 15,000 sherds were studied statistically, Houses 5 and 6 were clarified and the stone circle in Sector 8 was fully exposed⁴. A chamber tomb with two inhumations was found near the settlement; Watkins considered a Neolithic date plausible but noted that the dating evidence was limited^2,4.

The 1970 season began with a topographical survey by Malcolm Murray, with Watkins assisting, in the last two weeks of March; excavation ran from 29 June to 7 August, the fifth campaign, with which the report says the excavation of the site ended. Trenches on the western edge traced the early wall and ditch, which Watkins interpreted as defensive, and found two dwellings in stratigraphic sequence and two further underground structures, whose purpose the report says remained unexplained². Clarke reports one radiocarbon date for Philia, phase 3: 3478 ± 100 BC, uncalibrated (BIRM-72)⁵.