Risorse marittime e contatti interregionali in Preistoria: caso studio sulle comunità costiere cipriote

The archaeology of islands and coastal societies has become increasingly relevant to a variety of anthropological as well as historical topics. This work will discuss some current issues relevant to the relationship between the island communities and the maritime environment focusing on the case study of prehistoric Cyprus. This indissoluble link is not an absolute paradigm but changes and evolves in the long durée, with close contact phases of high exploitation of marine resources and seagoing, alternating with periods of closure and inward development. The processes and mechanisms of how the exploitation of the available resources integrate in subsistence economies, and the amount of exchange ¿ in material culture and ideas ¿ with the neighbouring regions are always matters of the utmost importance to understand ancient societies. This is even truer when it comes to insular contexts. In particular, special attention will be devoted to the exploitation, or lack thereof, of marine resources and its significance in understanding the changing role of the sea for ancient Cypriots. Therefore, the trends relevant to the evidence of interregional contacts will be taken into account and will be compared to those regarding the exploitation of marine and coastal resources related to prehistoric subsistence economies. Seeing how both these economic phenomena rely on seafaring technologies, this study focuses on establishing whether the rise and fall in transmarine contacts mirrors that of the higher or lower incidence of locally procured sea-related goods in the archaeological record of coastal settlements.