Publications of Early Bronze Age I (also known as Early Minoan I or EM I) sites on Crete are extremely rare, and the period remains one of the most mysterious in Cretan history. The publication of the excavation of the site of Aphrodite's Kephali (AK) constitutes a significant advance in our understanding of the period, complementing the recent information coming from other sites in east Crete such as Petras Kephala and Chrysokamino.

This volume not only presents the information provided by the excavation of an EM I site but also offers a general overview of the period in the Ierapetra region of east Crete. The publication of the excavation takes up half of the book, while geological studies, settlement pattern overviews, a discussion of defensive architecture on Crete and a lengthy interpretation of the site within the EM I human landscape of the Ierapetra region occupy the other half of the monograph. Two voluminous appendices on petrographic and gas chromatographic analyses complete the publication.

The monograph must be understood within the prolific work of B. in east Crete that continues with the even more recent publication of the excavation of the Hagios Charalambos cave. Many of the ideas included in this volume draw on the extensive experience of B. and his team in the archaeology of the region. It is this extensive first-hand knowledge that allows B. to project the limited information of the excavation of AK into wider interpretative frameworks.

The book is formed of 14 chapters divided into three sections: ‘Introduction’, ‘The Evidence’ and ‘Discussion and Interpretation’. The first chapter introduces the history of research on the site but also B.'s interpretation of the site as a watchtower within the integrated EM I territory of the southern part of the Ierapetra Isthmus. Chapter 2 is a more general introduction to the Isthmus during the Final Neolithic (FN) and EM I periods.

Chapter 3 by F. McCoy is a detailed tectonic and geological analysis of the Ierapetra region and the site. Such detailed geological analyses are rare to find in archaeological publications of the island and the chapter can be used as an approachable introduction to the geological and tectonic history of Crete.

Chapters 4 and 5 revise the FN and EM I settlement patterns on the Isthmus of Ierapetra. The division of the two chapters is based on the different geology of the region, with much poorer soils on the north side. The settlement analysis is mainly a review of sites known by excavation in the case of the north part and by extensive survey in the south part. The data of the recently published surveys at Gournia and Kavousi are acknowledged but not presented, and therefore the overview provided is somewhat limited.

Chapter 6 presents the excavation of the site, dug in two different sessions, 1996 and 2003, followed by conservation work in 2006 and 2007. The rescue excavations were conducted following extensive bulldozing around the site which helps to explain the little archaeological evidence recovered. Chapter 7 describes in detail the architecture of the site with particular interest in the fragmentary remains of a double defensive wall that circles the site. Only one building inside the wall was reasonably preserved.

Chapter 8 presents the 91 fragments of pottery rescued in the excavations, with no complete vessels recovered. The pottery is organised in classes defined by a combination of their fabric and decoration. This classification does not coincide exactly with the petrographic categories presented in Appendix A, although the petrographic sample reference number is provided in the main catalogue, helping to link both categorisations. As one would expect, B.'s pottery analysis is detailed and insightful, and helps to narrow the date of the site to the beginning of the EM I period (or EM IA). His study of the fragments of nine pithoi combined with the results of the petrographic analyses lead to new information about the movement of goods in the period. Strangely, the Gas Chromatography analysis presented in Appendix B is barely mentioned in this chapter.

Three fragments of ground stone and 32 of chipped stone (all Melian obsidian) are analysed in Chapter 9, while Chapters 10 and 11 concern the analysis of the fragmentary faunal and botanical remains. The fact that no remains of domesticated animal species or cereals were found on the site (although it yielded evidence of olives and grapes), despite careful recovery strategies, highlights the particular nature of the site.

The third section comprises a lengthy discussion of the site and its contribution to the understanding of the EM I period. In Chapters 12 and 13 B. discusses the site in relation to the study of defensive architecture on Crete, identifying its double wall as a unique architectural solution in Crete and the Aegean. Final conclusions are laid out in Chapter 14. Here B. presents AK as a specialised type of site in what he describes as a complex settlement pattern in the region; it is interpreted as a watchtower that is part of a territory controlled by the community at the site of Vainia Stavromenos. AK's defensive nature is defined by the encircling wall, large capacity of storage and little evidence for habitation. B. also argues that the evidence of ceramic exchange in AK combined with evidence for specialised metal production at other sites during this period indicates a regionally organised socio-economic system.

The book is well presented with many illustrations complementing the written evidence, although some of the black-and-white photographs, particularly those of landscape views, would have benefited from publication in colour. Petrographic sections are helpfully published in colour.

The wide range of the book is to be commended but it also leads to certain problems in terms of internal structure. Sections on geology and gas chromatography analyses are interesting in their own right but they lack integration with the main body of the book. In many ways parts of the book could be read in isolation, and readers mainly interested in the archaeological data do not need to read Sections 1 and 3. Readers interested in the discussion chapters in Section 3 should be aware that several recent publications referring to the EM I period are not cited, which limits the appeal of this section to academics aware of recent literature.

The book will therefore appeal in different ways to a wide range of audiences, and presents rare information that is crucial for anybody concerned with the EM I period and Prepalatial Crete; although familiarity with the scholarship of Early Bronze Age Crete would enable readers to get the most out of the monograph.