Revisiting the technological revolution at the beginning of the Bronze Age: Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age ceramic manufacture at Phaistos, South-Central Crete.

The site of Phaistos in South-Central Crete offers great potential for examining the Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition in Crete and assessing the degree of continuity and change, on account of the completeness of its stratigraphy as well as the abundance and the sheer quality of material. This period has been considered in Crete as ‘transitional’ due to emergence of new settlement patterns and related material culture, which presage the social changes of later phase. This paper critically examines the production technology of ceramics during the Final Neolithic and Early Minoan I at Phaistos, addressing issues of technological change in this period of transition and discussing how the reconstruction of ceramic manufacture can be related to the changes occurring over time at the site. The investigation of technological variation within the ceramic assemblages is performed by integrating macroscopic observation and an analytical programme involving thin section petrography, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry, in order to reconstruct technological choices on raw material choice and manipulation, surface treatment and firing practice. This is combined with the information available on forming techniques and shape. By examining the significance of technological choices in pottery making within the context of Phaistos, the study demonstrates a complex picture of continuity and change over the period of study, which belies recent conjecture of a single-phase transformation at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. Furthermore, it suggests that in some of the phases, considered changes in the organisation and practice of pottery production can be related to changes in consumption at this special site, which saw an array of activities before the construction of the later court-centred building.