Khirokitia

Khirokitia, or Choirokoitia, is an aceramic Neolithic settlement on a slope above the Maroni River in Cyprus. Radiocarbon dates place its foundation around 7000 BCE, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998. The village consists of circular stone houses with flat roofs, some of them two-storey, packed tightly together and surrounded by a massive wall with several entrances. Burials were placed beneath the floors of houses, and the dead were accompanied by stone vessels, beads and figurines. The inhabitants herded sheep, goats and pigs, grew cereals and hunted deer; obsidian from Anatolia shows long-distance contacts. Khirokitia is one of the best-preserved early villages in the eastern Mediterranean and a key site for understanding the spread of farming to Cyprus. It was abandoned around 4000 BCE. The settlement was abandoned around 4000 BCE and was not reoccupied; its round architecture contrasts with the rectangular houses of mainland Neolithic cultures.