This volume is the second in the series of final reports on the work of the Kavousi Project and the first volume on the cleaning (1982-1984) and excavations (1987-1992) at the mountain sites located above the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. These sites, Vronda and the Kastro, shed light on the Early Iron Age, the transitional period in Cretan history known popularly as the Dark Ages, thereby elucidating the way of life of the people who lived in the area of Kavousi during that period and how their culture changed over time. Kavousi IIA is devoted to the excavation of material from the Late Minoan IIIC settlement at Vronda, particulary the houses on the summit of the Vronda ridge (Buildings A-B, C-D, J-K, and Q), along with earlier (Building P) and later (Building R) structures around them.

This volume presents the papers from the conference "Crete 2000: A Centennial Celebration of American Archaeological Work on Crete (1900-2000)," held in Athens from July 10-12, 2000. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) Study Center for East Crete organized the conference. Scholars participating in the American and joint Greek-American excavations on Crete or studying material from these excavations were invited to present papers at the conference. The volume is divided into the following sections: Trade, Society and Religion, Chronology and History, Landscape and Survey, and Technology and Production.

The site of Karphi, high above the Lasithi plateau, remains one of the most extensively investigated settlements of Early Iron Age Greece; it was excavated by the British School at Athens under the direction of John Pendlebury in 1937-39. In the report that swiftly followed the pottery was not presented in detail, though much was discussed in a later article by Mercy Seiradaki. Consequently there existed serious problems in dating the remains and understanding their meaning. This volume now presents a thorough study of the Karphi pottery, much hitherto unpublished, accompanied by copious new drawings and photographs. The author's expertise with material from contemporary Cretan sites, especially from the Kavousi excavations, provides major insights. Moreover, thanks to careful recording by the excavators and the survival of the excavation notebooks, the material can be presented here by context, which permits the date of the settlement to be clarified and its history to be re-evaluated. While early pottery appears as small fragments from under floors, streets, and courts, later LM IIIC whole vessels seem to have been abandoned on floors. The tombs continued in use long after the abandonment of the settlement. Ceramic assemblages also help to determine room and building functions, leading to a reconstruction of social practices at this key site. A chapter by Eleni Nodarou and Ioannis Iliopoulos presents the results of petrographic and SEM analyses. Thus, this study serves as a significant contribution to our overall understanding of Early Iron Age Crete.

This book is the third volume in the final report of the cleaning and excavations at the Late Minoan IIIC settlement of Vronda-located near Kavousi in eastern Crete-that were conducted between 1983 and 1992. The reports on the houses of the settlement in their context, with focused analyses of specific buildings, can be found in two previous volumes: Kavousi IIA (Day, Klein, and Turner 2009) and Kavousi IIB (Day and Glowacki 2012). Detailed analyses of the architecture, pottery, other finds (including figurines and stone tools), and botanical and faunal remains are presented in this third volume, along with a complete history of the site and an attempt to reconstruct the social, political, and religious organization of the settlement.

This volume presents the results of the excavation of two cemeteries at the site of Vronda Kavousi in East Crete: the cemetery of tholos tombs belong to the Subminoan to Protogeometric periods (with some use in the eighth century B.C.) and the cemetery of enclosure graves with cremation burials belonging to the Late Geometric to Late Orientalizing periods. A discussion of individual graves (including the stratigraphy, architecture, human remains, faunal and botanical remains, pottery, and other finds) is followed by the analysis of the cremation process and human remains, the faunal and botanical remains, the pottery, the petrographic analysis of the pottery, the metals and other finds, the burial customs, and the history and society of the burying population. A study of the capacities of some of the pottery vessels and a metallurgical analysis of the iron objects appear in appendices.

This is the second of three planned volumes in the final report on the cleaning and excavations at the Late Bronze Age site of Vronda near Kavousi in eastern Crete. It describes the excavation, stratigraphy, and architecture of the buildings on the slopes of the Vronda ridge: Building Complexes E, I-O-N, and L-M, Building F, and the pottery kiln, as well as areas excavated on the periphery that did not belong to any of these buildings. It also presents lists, catalogs, and images of artifacts and ecofacts that were uncovered at the site.