By choice and by nature? Investigating the environment of textile production in Bronze Age Kouris Valley (Cyprus)

Textile manufacture played an important role in the socio-economic dynamics and the development of productive strategies in Bronze Age Kouris valley (Limassol district, Cyprus). This paper aims to define the relationship between textile activities with and within their environment. On the one hand, the focus on textile production will be the fil rouge used to build a long-term narrative of Bronze Age sites in the valley (Sotira Kaminoudhia [EC], Erimi Laonin tou Porakou [MC], Episkopi Phaneromeni [MCIII-LCIA] and Alassa Paliotaverna and Pano Mandilaris [LC]). On the other, the concept of “environment” will be extremely beneficial to investigate not only the relationship between the Kouris valley communities and their landscape and natural resources, but also the complex array of social dynamics between people, nature, and objects. Textile production and the landscape will be read not as two correlated entities but interwoven realities. Textile production is thus best defined when the “textile environment” is investigated, and this is a natural as much as social entity.