Neolithic

Permanent life on Cyprus begins around nine thousand years BC, when farmers cross from the mainland. They bring everything with them: wheat and barley, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle. None of it existed on the island before — the Cypriot Neolithic arrived by boat, and that is its defining trait.

The cat arrives at the same time. In a grave at Shillourokambos a cat was buried beside a human around 7500 BC, the earliest known evidence of cats living alongside people.

What the villages looked like

Choirokoitia gives the fullest picture. Round stone-and-mud houses stand packed together on a steep slope, the settlement is ringed by a massive wall, and the dead were buried under the floors of the houses. There is no pottery yet — vessels were carved from stone. The village lasted nearly two thousand years, through the 7th and 6th millennia BC, and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1998.

Kalavasos-Tenta is laid out similarly and lies only a few kilometres away. Its excavation is now sheltered by a conical roof visible from the Nicosia–Limassol motorway.

Pottery reaches Cyprus only in the 5th millennium BC, noticeably later than among its neighbours. The Neolithic is followed by the Chalcolithic, when the island begins working copper.