This volume presents the papers of an international colloquium on the archaeology of houses and households in ancient Crete held in Ierapetra in May 2005. The 38 papers presented here range from a discussion of household activities at Final Neolithic Phaistos to the domestic correlates of "globalization" during the early Roman Empire. These studies demonstrate a variety of methodological approaches currently employed for understanding houses and household activities. Key themes include understanding the built environment in all of its manifestations, the variability of domestic organization, the role of houses and households in mediating social (and perhaps even ethnic) identity within a community or region, household composition, and of course, household activities of all types, ranging from basic subsistence needs to production and consumption at a supra-household level.

A regional survey was undertaken in the central part of the Mirabello Bay area: along the northeastern coast of Crete in the Gournia Valley and the northern half of the Isthmus of Ierapetra, ending in the valley of Episkopi, to provide a regional context for the Bronze Age palace and settlement of Gournia. As this survey was the last and geographically most central compared to three other surveys (Vrokastro [Hayden 2004a], Pseira [Betancourt, Davaras, and Hope Simpson 2005], and Kavousi [Haggis 2005]) conducted in the Mirabello region, it ties together the data from all four surveys regarding the environment, population(s), and social organization of an entire region. Furthermore, this volume goes beyond the survey data to consider, at some length, the evidence from local excavations, so as to provide an in-depth and integrated picture of the regional socio-economic development. It is meant as a regional archaeological study of the Mirabello Bay area.