On the northwestern coast of Kea, at Cape Kefala, an outdoor settlement of the Late Neolithic or Chalcolithic period (end of the 4th millennium, around 3300 BC) has been identified. The small community (estimated at 45-80 people) lived in rectangular, stone-built houses and engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, basket weaving, fishing and maritime trade (as attested by obsidian fragments from Milos), as well as metalworking , as shown by traces of copper foundries.
The cemetery of the settlement consists of brick, rectangular or circular, individual or group graves and is considered the first organized cemetery outside the settlement in the Aegean area.
The findings and the gifts of Kefala include it in the Attica-Aegina cultural phase of the Final Neolithic, which has not yet been identified in any other place in the Cyclades area. This element makes the position of Kea pivotal in the prehistoric Aegean, since together with the Cave of Za in Naxos (Later and Final Neolithic) and the Late Neolithic phase from Saliago of Antiparos they provide us with valuable information about the appearance and development in the Aegean of the transitional period between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age.
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou