Vretsia-Roudias: the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki project

The terrace of Vretsia-Roudias, near the medieval Roudias bridge in the south Troodos foothills, carries an Epipalaeolithic component and a Late Aceramic Neolithic one called Upper Roudias^1,2. Simmons summarises the early reports as 8,683 chipped stone artifacts retrieved, with a possible Late Epipalaeolithic industry comparable to Aetokremnos and a more ephemeral Early Neolithic one³.

Nikos Efstratiou of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and his team began a survey in 2006 in portions of the Troodos, seeking upland sites; Simmons reports that the design moved from over 1,300 m to about 500 m after high-elevation survey found none³. They located Roudias in 2008, estimated it at c. 5,000 m2 and made a small surface collection that Carole McCartney analysed^1,3. In November 2009, under a licence from the Department of Antiquities and with consent from the Cyprus Forestry Department, the team made a geological assessment of the terrace, a gridded surface collection and small test trenches, and took radiocarbon samples¹. The trenches yielded stratified lithics, tools, flakes, animal bone and organic residue in deposits the geologist, P. Karkanas, judged undisturbed¹. Seasons in 2010 and 2011 followed, reported by Efstratiou, McCartney, Karkanas and Dimitris Kyriakou². Simmons, writing of the 2010 work, says the units reached over 1 m in depth and contained a black-matrix layer with flat stones, a possible pavement and heavily burned material including stone vessels, mortars and beads³.

Simmons reports that bone samples lacked the collagen needed for radiocarbon determinations, and that an OSL analysis gave an 11th to 10th millennium BC date for the basal layer³. Bradshaw et al. give the oldest OSL date as 12.8 ± 1.6 ka⁴. Voskos, Kloukinas and Mantzourani describe habitation changing from seasonal or semi-permanent in the Epipalaeolithic to permanent in the Late Aceramic Neolithic component, and the faunal study from the ongoing excavation indicates a permanent agropastoral settlement². Excavation continued: a circular building at least 5 m across was recorded in 2019, a curvilinear building and a second building in 2021, and a monumental round building in 2023, with M. Ntinou co-director from 2021^5,6,7.