The Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been separated from the European mainland since the Miocene Period. Man has left traces here that indicate the early development of this region. Between the tenth and eight centuries B.C., hunters and gatherers became farmers and herdsmen and settled within a fixed location, they bred domestic animals and plants and began to develop basic skills. It was a time of constant learning.

On the island of Cyprus it has been impossible to show a constant line of habitation. However, it is known that the island was inhabited between 10,000 and 8,000 B.C. Then followed around a thousand years of which nothing is known. However, suddenly village communities came into existence with agriculture and the breeding of livestock.

The village of Emba is one of the island’s fifty excavation sites and since 1976, archaeologists from Edinburgh University in the UK have been excavating a small village in this location. Here, circular huts of a Bronze Age settlement have been built based upon the original foundations and this has also served to test the durability of the building materials of that time.

The Stone Age settlements of Cyprus will most likely always remain a mystery because they contain no traces of human enhancement. But what is here is well worth all the years of archaeology that have gone into revealing some of its ancient past.