A flaked - stone industry from Mytilene: a preliminary report

Lesbos is the third biggest island in Greece. It is on the road, which leads from South to Hellespontos and Thrace and dominates the entrance of Adrammytion gulf. In the valley of Thermi there is the only systematically excavated and published settlememt of the Early Bronze Age on the island.

In 1996 in Mytilene, in trial pits in Hatzakis plot there was the first discovery of structures of the Early Bronze Age. The site is close to Anatolia and is typical of this age, in a natural harbor with promontory in the southeastern, which is today under water due to the higher level of the sea.

The excavation has already been completed in a small part of plot , so we know little about the distribution of activities and the structures. It is obvious though there is no variety in typology, technology and on the raw materials. Also there aren't any changes on pottery and on the buildings. The architectural remains are dated back in the Early Bronze Age, an age already known from the setlement on Thermi I-III in Lesbos.

In the filling and on the floors of the biuldings were found many flint debitage products. It is about specimens of raw material, cores, cortex removal products of the nodule of raw material, debris, and tools.

The presence of numeral cortical flakes, along with finished items, implies the full spectrum of flaking activity and characterises the site as industry in a sense that in that site one or more skilled workmem worked on raw material. The general impression from the data , up to the present time, is that the finds from Hatzakis plot are by-products from the early stages of flint knapping without small by-products of the final knapping.

The poor in typology and quantity pottery is explained by the fact there was special use of the site since no food preparing was taking place nor were they staying there.

The small at length buildings and the filling only 20 metres from the seashore combined with the bad quality of structures, (mainly when they are compared with the settlement in Thermi) defend the hypothesis that we are outside a settlement or at least i n the limits of a settlement, which has not been revealed yet. We consider the purpose of this knapping activity was the production of flakes for exchange , a procedure which relates with the study of raw materials and links with availability of flint in the permanent settlements in and outside the island. The abs ence of obsidian within Thermi's settlement and in Hatzaki's site, although obsidian is the basic raw material in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age period, is due to the maximum possible use of the local raw material as a means of making the useful im plements of every day life as well as for exchange.