Kissonerga-Mylouthkia: wells of the Aceramic Neolithic

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the survey lists

The document page on ancientcyprus.com that summarises Louise Steel's survey "Archaeology in Cyprus 1997-2002" (2003) lists among the excavations "Kissonerga-Mylouthkia: the Edinburgh excavation of the Aceramic Neolithic wells", 1994-1996, and among the places "Kissonerga-Mylouthkia early Neolithic wells and settlement". According to the page's summary, Steel reports that discoveries at Parekklisha-Shillourokambos and Kissonerga-Mylouthkia place Cypriot Neolithic occupation in the mid-to-late ninth millennium BC, contemporary with domestication on the mainland. Source 1.

What the Department of Antiquities says

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus page on the Paphos museum, the wells are dated to the 9th millennium BCE and are considered among the oldest in the world. That is the museum's statement, from a display page rather than an excavation report, and this page attributes it to the museum. Source 2.

Two close dates

The Department of Antiquities dates the wells themselves to the 9th millennium BCE, while the survey dates the Neolithic occupation of the place to the mid-to-late ninth millennium; the survey's date refers to the occupation, not specifically to the wells. Both fall inside the Aceramic Neolithic of the Department's chronological table, the 10th to the 6th millennium BCE, so the article is placed in that period, in its early phase. For comparison, UNESCO places the first human occupation of the island by farmers "around the beginning of 9th millennium". Sources 2, 1, 3, 4.

What cannot be said about water

The question of how the first settlers obtained water gets a partial answer here: wells were excavated at the site, and they are dated to the 9th millennium BCE. The pages read give neither the number of wells, nor their depth, how they were dug or what they contained, and they do not say whether the wells supplied the settlement's daily water. The claim that they are among the oldest in the world cannot be checked here either, since it needs a comparison with dated wells elsewhere, from publications that were not read.

Scope of reading: the ancientcyprus.com document page on Steel's survey and the UNESCO page on Khirokitia were read on 24 October 2026. The Department of Antiquities pages cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from those pages at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. Steel's article itself and the reports of the Edinburgh excavation were not read, so this page gives no plans, depths, finds or radiocarbon dates.