Already some 10,000 years BC Cyprus was visited by people, which among other things hunted and exterminated dwarf hippos, which then existed on the island. Approximately 2,000 years later, during the Neolithic period, people from the Near East settled in Cyprus. One of the oldest settlements then took place on the small rocky island of Petra tou Limniti on Cyprus’s north-west coast.
There the Swedish Cyprus Expedition excavated the remains of simple stone age huts in 1929, which had been inhabited during four different periods between 7000 and 5500 BC. The finds consisted of objects of flint, stone and bone, predominantly tools, bowls and figurines.