Early Helladic Greece

Recent excavations by the Greek Archaeological Service carried out in the town of Thebes, Boeotia, clarified matters concerning the building features, the chronology and the function of the Early Helladic mudbrick tumuli. Until now, two tumuli have been excavated. The tumulus on “Ampheion” hill, first excavated at the beginnings of the 70’s, is associated with an underlying EH II cemetery. A second one, excavated in the plot adjacent to the Thebes Archaeological Museum covered an apsidal building and a mass burial. The existence of two EH tumuli on the same site and in proximity, offers the possibility of extending our inquiry into the various functions of these constructions and the social structures responsible for the erection of such conspicuous earthworks. In particular, the interment of an EH building under a mound is an additional example of a practice attested at some Peloponnesian sites. In these cases the domestic space was transformed into a community monument.

This paper reviews the mortuary record of the Early
Bronze Age mainland Greece. The survey is based on
the supposition that most of what is found in the graves
and cemeteries of this period had a meaning and a practical
usage within contemporary mortuary rituals. It is
therefore considered how the nature of the items found
within and in relation to the graves may inform us of
the practices at the time of burial. Although heterogeneous
in terms of their geographical and chronological
distribution, the appearance of the graves, their contents
and full context provide a rich diversity of information
on rituals related to factors such as the physical
appearances of the dead as well as that of the living
participants in the mortuary ritual, the consumption
of food and drink, and many regional and geographical
variations on these themes. In this diversity resides a
great potential for social differentiation, for the shaping
and displaying of identities, for exclusion and inclusion
into groups extending over whole cemeteries or limited
to a few graves, for customs shared within communities,
and for the visibility of individual choices.

The E Y-haplogroup has always been associated with Africa, but in Europe there is one ancient branch E-BY3880 (V13), which expanded out of Greece and the Balkans. This note gives a brief overview of the history of the Balkans in the context of BY3880, considers the distribution of the subclades of BY3880 across Europe, and finishes with an examination of E haplotypes in Cornwall. It describes Helladic civilization, the Aegean Bronze Age and the expansion of E during the successful Greek Iron Age. It compares the distribution of major subclade groups of E-V13 in the Isles with all of Europe. It establishes the detailed Y-haplogroups of six surnames of Cornish descent, considering that they comprise five different entries to Britain. The Appendix provides a brief analysis and history of E haplogroup in Europe. There are three major subclades-one associated with the Moorish presence in Iberia, another with the Ashkenazi in in Eastern Europe, and autochthonous E-V13.

Introducing themes from social psychology and complexity science, this paper explores the contribution of localized prosocial networks to cultural change in the Final Neolithic Peloponnese. Although the dearth of well-published, stratified Final Neolithic contexts continues to present considerable difficulties, it suggests that a series of burials on the Argolic Gulf may offer evidence for the construction and maintenance of local networks and the conscious curation of shared identity through repeated episodes of prosocial interaction. This behavior, it is suggested, would have helped to structure other forms of activity and may offer an explanatory model for emergent sociocultural phenomena (including monumental architecture and the foundation of discrete, formalized extramural cemetery space) previously considered typical of the Early Helladic, but now visible during the Final Neolithic.

Teichos Dymaion, the only prehistoric cyclopean fortified citadel of western Greece, occupies astrategic position between two lagoons (Pappas and Prokopos) at the southeastern tip of the so- called Mavra Vouna (black mountains), on a low rocky hill, roughly 60 m above sea level. The earliest documents of human presence are ceramic finds dating to the final Neolithic (late 4th-early 3rd mill. BC). The first permanent settlement was established during the Early Bronze Age (2800-2000 BC). Pottery finds of the Early Helladic III period (ca. 2200-2000 BC) indicate that Teichos Dymaion was part of a wider network of contacts along the central and eastern Mediterranean. The middle Helladic period (2000–1600 BC) is represented by a considerable pottery assemblage and more scanty architectural remains. The acme of the settlement was reached during the Mycenaean period (1600-1000 BC). The site took its current form during the 13th and 12th c. BC, with the expansion of the settlement and the construction of the cyclopean fortification. Teichos Dymaion became the gateway of western Achaea towards the west, a kind of naval base of the Mycenaean rulers of the region. The site remained in use more or less constantly until late antiquity. Modifications in the fortification, were carried out during the middle Byzantine period (11th c. AD). Habitation was sporadic during later periods and by the18th c. the site was practically abandoned. A large scale restoration project was implemented between 1998 and 2008. The site is now open to the public.

In this article, I am tracing the early history of the use of sealing in the Aegean and Western Anatolia and this is followed by a similar analysis of weights.
The intention of this undertaking is:
1. to demonstrate that we have archaeological evidence of seal use in the first half of the third millennium through a small number of seal impressions on clay lumps which were intended to seal something, probably in a similar way as we know occurred at sites such as Lerna in the second half of the third millennium BC,
2. to use this and the increasing evidence of the later third millennium to argue that seal use became an important part of the economic organisation of the EBA societies in the Aegean,
3. to establish that the first evidence for the use of weights started during this same broad period of time in the earlier third millennium BC,
4. to emphasise the fact that both economic strategies are frequently found together at EBA settlements.

An overview of the excavations up to 2004, including a report of an investigation of the original (pre-Marinatos) stratigraphy.  Sections on chronology and on an interpretation of the necropolis' evolution to formalism in relation to its spatial organisation.  The significance of the Tsepi cemetry in understanding the mid-3rd millenium so-called 'early urbanisation', is assessed.

This thesis examines human-sea interaction based on embodied and embedded action in the littoral and island regions of the Aegean from Late Neolithic (4800 BCE) to the end of Late Bronze Age I (1600 BCE). Fundamental to this approach is the concept of seascapes, defined here as a place or agent created by a human mind set. To facilitate the investigation, analysis focuses on embodied action, divided between spatial analysis, the consumption of seafood, the utilisation of marine faunal remains in material culture and the iconographic rendering of marine and maritime matters. Through GIS analysis it is determined that ‘coastality’ – the spatial relationship between locales and the coast – was temporally variable and related to network interaction. Coastality appears to have been a fundamental prerequisite for the formation of seascapes, though the formation of seascapes was not an inevitable outcome of coastality. Uneven recovery practices in excavations impacted the marine faunal record, though higher marine consumption wasrecognised on Crete from the end of the prepalatial period onwards, due in part to the greater recovery of ecofactual data on the island. Marine shell found a wide utility in the prehistoric Aegean, but cluster in the LN-EB III periods. Exceptions include the production of murex dye in the southern Aegean in MBA-LBA and the use of triton shells in cult places in MBA–LBA Crete. Iconographic representation of the sea was geographically restricted – almost entirely absent from the Greek mainland – and had particular chronological and thematic focuses. These included seafaring in the Cyclades and Saronic Gulf, as well as marine fauna scenes onwards from mid-EBA Cyclades and Crete. Such representations were metarepresentations of the sea, prompted by sustained, long-term interaction with the sea. This is particularly evident in the case of Crete, where marine themes became enmeshed in an archaeologically visible syntax of cult paraphernalia and practices. Seascapes were created under specific conditions according to local circumstances and choices. They were not expressed in a uniform manner through time and space and were not an inevitable outcome of living in an area with relative ease of access to the sea.

This article presents a detailed analysis of a pottery assemblage of the Early Helladic period discovered in the course of the wider archaeological project of the Rhamnous excavations conducted under the direction of Βasileios Ch. Petrakos. The ceramic material comprises potsherds from Early Helladic (EH) I to EH II Late, and also includes a clay hearth rim with a sealed impression (fig. 11, β-ε, no. 35). All the artifacts, including a Melian obsidian blade (fig. 12, no. 41) are unstratified and were collected during a surface recovery in the Pazaraki peninsula in June 1996. Pazaraki (fig. 3), which is located at the entrance of the South Euboean Gulf, only 2 km south of the strategic coastal acropolis of Rhamnous (fig. 2), is situated on an important sea route connecting the Cyclades to the Euboean Gulf. It has a panoramic view to the Euboean sites of Almyropotamos and Nea Styra. The detailed macroscopic analyses and classifications of ceramic wares and vessel shapes from Pazaraki have allowed: (a) the identification of five Ware Groups (A, B, Γ, Δ, Ε) and 12 Ware Types (A1α, Α1β, Α1γ, Α1δ, Α1ε, Α2α, Α2β, Β1, Γ1α, Δ1α, Ε1α, Ε2) (fig. 4), (b) the construction of a local chronological sequence comparable to the developments in central and southern Greece (Chapter III), (c) the possible identification of “Ware Group A”, the most common ware encountered, as a local or at least regional product, (d) the identification of close relations to the EH I and EH II pottery of Central Euboea (especially to the sites Kalogerovrysi, Manika 2-3 and Amarynthos) and finally (e) the tracing of artifacts not available locally, such as the potsherds of the Cycladic “Talc Ware” (fig. 12, no. 36-37), which document interaction with groups of people from the Cyclades (chapter IV). The sealed hearth rim from Pazaraki (no. 35), which is related to communal dining practices as known from Lerna III C-D and period II of Ayia Irini on Kea, indicates that such a feast or a ceremony might have been conducted in Pazaraki during EH II developed and EH II late, too and possibly provided an opportunity for the mentioned interactions (chapter V). Chapter VI provides a summary of the assemblage character and significance and tries to place it in its wider local and regional context. It is suggested that Pazaraki was the
harbour of Early Helladic Rhamnous and played a significant role as a stop-over for the ships on their way towards the South Euboean Gulf and vice versa.

The Early Helladic IIB sealings from Lerna have rarely been considered as functional documents even though they are often called as evidence for EH II economic complexity, for elite control of resources or even for 'central place' redistribution. Close analysis of the sealings, however, casts doubt on whether the documents support these economic or social interpretations, seeming rather to point to the grafting of a foreign system of resource management onto a less developed society. After examining the specific functions of the sealings — 'who did what?' — we consider their implications for social organization. This evidence is then linked to the wider picture: a whole range of new sealing practices as well as the striking innovations in architecture and construction which appear at much the same time. We conclude that these developments are largely due to the arrival of foreign (probably Anatolian) traders at Lerna early in EH IIB.

Excavations carried out by The Helike Project in the Helike plain on the southwestern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, northwest Peloponnese, since 2000, have brought to light the well-preserved remains of a coastal Early Helladic (EH) II–III settlement. The site developed as a densely organised settlement during the EH II period and underwent a major architectural transformation at the beginning of the following EH III. In addition to a reorganisation of the settlement on a rectangular town grid, the outstanding feature among the buildings discovered is that of a monumental Corridor House. The newly organised building plan of the settlement was most probably associated with the rise of a new socioeconomic structure at the time, including advanced technological specialisation, and possibly the establishment of administrative control within the town supporting communal interests, together with a new emphasis on the status of the private individual. Considering EH Helike in its broader geographical context, the site's prosperity marks an exception to the widespread decline attested in the mainland settlements of the time, and links it rather with centres across the Aegean Sea and further east. In addition to similarities at the level of settlement organisation, such overseas links and contacts are conspicuously evidenced at Helike through the presence of an array of exotic, prestigious items and commodities including an outstanding depas cup of Trojan/Anatolian type, ornaments of precious metal from the east or the north and Melian obsidian tools, and by the adoption of 'international' fashions of life such as the 'serve and drink' culture and 'potter's marks'. In this paper, we present the range of material evidence from the EH III town of Helike illustrating its various spheres of foreign contact, and discuss possible insights into the social and economic conditions that generated the town's floruit and cosmopolitanism in EH III.

The edited volume consists of the proceedings of an International Conference entitled ‘Explaining Change in Aegean Prehistory’, which was held in Groningen, the Netherlands on 16-17 October 2013. The aim of the conference was to explain processes of social and economic change from the Early Bronze Age III to the Late Bronze Age I period (ca. 2200 - 1600 BC) in the southern Aegean. The beginning of this period (the end of the EBA) witnesses a severe crisis which is followed by social regression (during the early phases of the MBA) and slow recovery and a precipitation of social change in the transition to the LBA. The focus is on the southern mainland, although we adopt a comparative approach and examine parallel (or divergent) processes in the surrounding islands and Crete.
The volume starts with an introduction by the editors, where we introduce the problem, the explanation of social change in Aegean prehistory, and outline the development of the debate in the last 40 years. We also provide an outline of the book and present the main themes addressed in the various papers. The introduction is followed by 10 papers presented at the conference. The first two (Gauss & Lindblom, Rutter) address the problems of periodization and the correlation of ceramic sequence (on which the traditional chronological sub-divisions are based) with the social developments taking place in this period, i.e. the successive cycles of crisis, recovery and growth. The next paper (Weiberg) offers a new and provocative interpretation of the causes and consequences of the severe crisis at the end of the EBA.  Three papers (Pullen, Wiersma, Voutsaki & Milka) examine different aspects of the evidence (pottery, architecture, funerary data) and different social practices (feasting, organization of space,  mortuary practices) in order to reconstruct and interpret social, economic and cultural changes during the period under discussion. The variety of  factors considered – demographic changes, reciprocal relations and sumptuary behaviour, household organization and kin structure, age and gender divisions, internal tensions, connectivity and mobility – attest to the liveliness of the debate.  The emphasis is not only on the wider processes, but also on the variety of responses by different communities and social groups and even different individuals. One paper (Gorogianni & Fitzsimons) adopt a comparative approach. They examines architectural changes in one highly interconnected harbor town in the Cyclades. The last paper (Bintliff) adopts a broader geographical view and examines changing settlement systems in the Aegean and on the Greek mainland. The volume is concluded by a response by J.F. Cherry

Importance to Field
This volume is of interest to scholars specializing in the Aegean Bronze Age, as well as scholars researching social and material change.
The Middle Bronze Age (MBA) societies in the Greek mainland have long been considered as simple, static and homogeneous, and it has long been thought that social and economic differences emerge towards the later MBA. However, recent research, presented at the Mesohelladika conference, suggests that the MBA witnesses important changes and divergent developments which are still imperfectly understood. However, our interpretation of these changes is based mostly on mortuary data. Therefore, in this volume, other spheres of life receive a systematic treatment, including houses and settlement organization, changes in material culture and shifting patterns of interaction in correlation with social change.
Any discussion of the MBA has to start with a serious reconsideration of social conditions during the unstable EB III period. This period of crisis, depopulation, material poverty and increased regionalism is usually set against the preceding EBA II period, which was characterized by population growth, differentiation, prosperity and increased interaction. As a result, the EBA III period has received little scholarly attention. In this volume, various papers discuss the EBA III material culture and communities in more detail, and compare these developments to what happens during the MBA.
While research in the last 30 years has rightly criticized monocausal diffusionist interpretations, we have not been able to come up with alternative explanations combining environmental factors, internal developments and shifting networks of mobility and interaction. Considerations of social change raise questions of periodization; indeed, one of the aims of the volume is to discuss whether the traditional chronological sub-divisions based on the ceramic sequence can adequately describe periods of change and increased regionalism.

Dans le cadre du 1st BERNER ALTORIENTALISCHES FORUM, Université de Berne (CH), 24-25 juin 2016 The Bay of Kiladha Project is a joint research program between the University of Geneva, under the aegis of the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, and the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. It aims at finding traces of prehistoric human activity in a small bay of the southern Argolid, Greece. The reason for choosing such a bay is linked to the presence, on its northeastern shore, of Franchthi Cave. This major prehistoric site was used, though not necessarily continuously, from at least 40,000 years ago, in the Upper Palaeolithic, to about 5,000 years ago, at the end of the Neolithic. For most of these 35,000 years, because of global sea-level change in prehistory, the Bay of Kiladha was in fact a small coastal plain. It is there, and on its shores, that the nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods found the resources they brought back to the cave...

Recently I have discussed the question of genesis and spread of the Bell Beaker Phenomenon and its cultural impact on its periphery and neighbourhood (Turek 2011; 2013; 2014). In this paper I would like to look at the Bell Beaker World from the outer side. The social processes that we are able to reconstruct for the 3rd Millennium Europe were, however, not isolated from the civilization development in other parts of the Old World. From the point of view of the first civilization centres the European Continent has to be seen as a periphery. The main purpose of this article is to compare the different civilization aspects within the proto-historical early state formations of Near East and North East Africa and within the Mediterranean and Continental European communities. 1. European spread of cultural uniformity While the Maritime Beakers are clearly southwestern element (Case 2004, 14, with further references), a symbolic system of the burial rites is based on the eastern Corded Ware and even earlier Yamnaya tradition (Harrison and Heyd 2007, 193–9, fig. 45). Maritime Beakers were thus only one investment into the creation of new phenomenon together with a tradition based on an already existing symbolic system of individual burials under round barrows, emphasizing gender and social position of individuals and sometimes their craftsmanship, solar cult and drinking Beakers. For the casting of such new phenomenon perhaps the Lower Rhine area was important, as it was the westernmost region with occurrence of Corded Ware (SGC). There it was the AOC and AOO Beakers that, together with the Maritime variety, created a new Bell Beaker style. This establishing process was a result of cultural interaction between the Iberian Peninsula and lower Rhine region. Thus if the question is: from where and when did the Bell Beaker (Maritime) style originate, than we have to state that it was in first half of the third millennium BC between Estramadura and Morocco, but if the question is: where was the Bell Beaker Phenomenon created?, it needs to be said that it was before the mid-third millennium as a result of communication between the Maritime style in Portugal and the western late Corded Ware groups. The Western Mediterranean, as well as, North Western Europe in the mid-third millennium joined the Beaker World that had previously been represented by the Corded Ware Cultures of the Central and North Eastern Europe. This process can be described as spreading of spontaneously accepted cultural uniformity. But we still have not mentioned what was the main driving force behind such spread of material culture and social values. It was apparently the new ideology spreading along with the prestigious significant technology of copper metalurgy. In quest for the motivation that led the local populations to leave or partially shift away from the local cultural traditions and to adopt the new cultural elements we can consider more different interpretations. Personally, I believe that the spread of new style in material culture does not necessarily needs to be related to population shifts. Communication between regions and communities was possibly organized in the form of marriages or migration of individuals, as it is described, for example by Neil Brodie (1997) in his model of contacts across the " Chalcolithic frontier ". Brodie combines the desire of the population from the non-chalco-lithic area of North Western Europe, creating economic and social ties with the communities of the regions possessing knowledge of copper production technology. But this is probably only part of the problem. An important accelerator of this cultural exchange was apparently a new ideology, or more precisely, the new cult.

The Early Helladic period on the Greek mainland is a time of complexity and innovation, characterized by a marked regionalism in settlement patterns and material culture, and the presence of myriad crossscale networks within which objects, technologies, ideas and individuals circulated. Nevertheless, much about the period remains unclear beyond the relative comfort of its long ‘middle’ phase, Early Helladic II (ca. 2950–2250 BC). Its emergence from the socio-cultural processes of the Final Neolithic, particularly, continues to be obscured by a ‘fourth-millennium gap’ which has proved frustratingly intransigent. Of those few Peloponnesian sites yielding radiocarbon dates which potentially fall within the fourth millennium, those of Franchthi (FCP 5.2, P-1659, ca. 4,230–3,790 cal. BC; see Vitelli 1999: table 9), Kouveleiki Caves A and B (ID1492; Kontaxi 2006) and Alepotrypa (Bronk-Ramsey et al. 2015: 200) fall well short of its mid-point. Halieis alone potentially bucks the trend (ca. 3,909–3,367 cal. BC; Pullen 2000: 184–86; see also Alram-Stern 2007), although the range on this sample is so great as to be problematic.

SUMMARY: Lecture 9 summarizes the Early Bronze Age in mainland Greece (Early Helladic), and the Cyclades (Early Cycladic). This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED: New text, images, slides, many more sources, links, etc. (Feb., 2024).

This paper utilises the fragmentary child mortuary record of the Early Helladic
Peloponnese to approach the social identity of children during this period. Where
possible, attempts are made to accurately date these burials, while analysis of both
their bioarchaeological and archaeological characteristics allows us to recognise the
existence of regional and inter-regional burial ideologies and depositional practices
specifically relating to the very young, which may permit the identification of infant
burials even in the absence of skeletal remains.

The paper presents new data on the Early Helladic occupation at the prehistoric citadel of Teichos Dymaion, Achaea, based on the excavations during the period 1999-2008.
Architectural remains of a substantial EH settlement have been brought to light, both within and outside the citadel, dating to the EH II and EH III periods.
An interesting assemblage of pottery with incised and impressed decoration was also found that relates to the Cetina type pottery of the late 3rd millennium BC.
The new evidence promotes our knowledge concerning the Early Helladic occupation at Teichos Dymaion, putting it within the wider context of central-eastern Mediterrannean network of contacts.

The very positive reception granted to last year’s inaugural
‘Newsround’, and the clear demand for an authoritative annual
brief of current work in Greece, has ensured its return as a
regular feature. As last year, this section is not intended to be
exhaustive, but is designed to draw attention to those
discoveries which do not appear elsewhere within
Archaeological Reports but which nevertheless deserve to be
highlighted in a manner which complements those more
specialized contributions within the current volume and that
content available digitally through AGOnline/Chronique des
fouilles en ligne (www.chronique.efa.gr). Again, the very varied
nature of this material has meant that, for the most part, it has
proved preferable to organize this section chronologically
(Palaeolithic through to Early Modern), rather than
thematically

Στα κιvητά ευρήματα του Πρωτοκυκλαδικού οικισμού του Σκάρκου της Ίου συμπεριλαμβάvεται εvας τύπoς oρθoγώvιoυ παραλληλεπίπεδoυ αvτικειμέvoυ πoυ παρoυσιάζει ιδιαίτερo εvδιαφέρov, κυρίως επειδή ορισμένα δείγματά τoυ φέρoυv απoτυπώματα σφραγίδωv.
Πρόκειται για παραλληλεπίπεδα αvτικείμεvα με δύo διαμπερείς oπές κατά μήκoς δύo παραλλήλωv ακμώv της μιας πλατυμέτωπης πλευράς τoυς. Οι γωνίες και οι ακμές ορισμένων είναι στρογγυλεμένες. Ορισμέvα φέρoυv κάπoιo εγχάρακτo σύμβολο, όπως είvαι τo Χ ή oι λoξές παράλληλες γραμμές, σε μία πλατυμέτωπη ή σε μία στενομέτωπη πλευρά. Τέλος έξι μεγάλου μεγέθους έχoυv έvα κυκλικό ή ελαφρά ελλειψοειδές σφράγισμα στo κέvτρo της μιας πλατυμέτωπης πλευράς.
Τα έξι σφραγίσματα είvαι διαφoρετικά τo έvα από τo άλλo και υπoδεικvύoυv αvτίστoιχo αριθμό σφραγίδωv. Τα θέματά τoυς είναι σταυρoειδή, σπειρoειδή, στροβιλορόδακες και συνθέσεις με κυκλικά δισκία. Παρατηρείται ποικιλία ως προς τις συνθέσεις. Αλλες χαρακτηρίζονται από στατικότητα και άλλες από κινητικότητα, άλλες από συμμετρία, περισσότερο ή λιγότερο αυστηρή και άλλες από ασυμμετρία και εντελώς διαφορετικά κοσμήματα και οργάνωση των δύο ημίσεων της κυκλικής επιφάνειας. Ορισμένα από τα σφραγίσματα του Σκάρκου βρίσκουν παράλληλα ως προς τα θέματα ή τη σύνθεση στα σφραγίσματα του σπηλαίου του Ζα στη γειτονική Νάξο, στα ενσφράγιστα αγγεία και εστίες της Αγίας Ειρήνης στην Κέα αλλά και στα σφραγίσματα της Λέρvας και θέσεων της Μ. Ασίας.
Η χρήση των υπό συζήτηση παραλληλεπίπεδων πήλινων αντικειμένων δεν έχει αποσαφηνιστεί ακόμη. Συνήθως χαρακτηρίζονται υφαντικά βάρη αν και η σπανιότητά τους έχει κάνει ορισμένους ερευνητές να υποθέσουν ότι δεν μπορεί να είχαν τη χρήση αυτή. Η διατυπωθείσα άποψη από την Weingarten ότι ήταν κλείθρα σάκων κινείται κατά τη γνώμη μας προς την ορθή κατεύθυνση. Η πρoς τα κάτω κλίση πoυ παρoυσιάζoυv oι διαμπερείς oπές ορισμένων παραληλλεπίπεδων αvτικειμέvωv του Σκάρκου στα άκρα τoυς θα μπoρoύσαv vα σημαίvoυv ότι αυτά ήταv πρoσδεδεμέvα επάvω σε κάπoιo άλλo αvτικείμεvo με έναν ιδιαίτερο τρόπο με vήματα πoυ περvoύσαv από τις oπές.
Τα ενσφράγιστα παραλληλεπίπεδα αντικείμενα από τον οικισμό του Σκάρκου της Ιου, αν συνυπολογιστούν με τα ενσφραγιστα πήλινα αγγεία και εστίες από την Αγία Ειρήνη της Κέας, τη Χαλανδριανή και το Καστρί της Σύρου, και τη Μύκονο, αλλά κυρίως με τα σφραγίσματα του Σπηλαίου του Ζα στη Νάξο, οδηγούν στο συμπέρασμα ότι οι σφραγίδες χρησιμοποιούνταν στις Κυκλάδες της Πρώιμης Εποχής του Χαλκού μέσα στα πλαίσια ενός συστήματος σήμανσης, το οποίο δεv μπoρεί παρά vα απηχεί κάπoια μoρφή σύvθετης κoιvωvικής και oικovoμικής oργάvωσης.