 outcrop from the river terraces; a rich deposit with limnic/hydroquartzite-calcedony-opal of various colours outcrops from the volcanic formations along the south-eastern slope of Kalogiros, in the upper part of the same valley (Figure 7).
A sample of some 8000 chipped stone artefacts has been analysed in two study seasons. Although both raw materials were utilised, it was observed that jasper artefacts are better preserved, whilst those manufactured from hydrothermal rocks are strongly weathered and patinated due to post-depositional processes in a salty environment that affects silica preservation (Sheppard & Pavlish 1992). Many lithic artefacts and bone fragments show contact with fire, despite the fact that no in situ fireplace has yet been found.
The large numbers of cores, debitage and waste flakes, crested blades, and by-products derived from core preparation and successive production stages suggest that the tools were produced on site. Apart from cores (Figure 8, nos. 20–26), the most characteristic implements are microlithic lunates (Figure 8, nos. 12–18) and end-scrapers (Figure 8, nos. 2–9). Other tools consist of a few oblique truncations, backed bladelets (Figure 8, nos. 10–11), burins (Figure 8, no. 1) and notched bladelets (Figure 8, no. 19). The Ouriakos lunates are distinctive tools of standardised dimensions. They are obtained using abrupt, bipolar retouch (Figure 9 top) without microburin technology, from microbladelets of scalene triangular cross-section detached by indirect percussion from small cores with one or more prepared platforms. The end-scrapers are represented by atypical long and short specimens of different size and thickness (Figure 9 bottom), obtained from varying types of blanks. The Ouriakos industry can be compared with material from layers Ia1–Ia2 of Öküzini Cave, north of Antalya (south-west Anatolia). These layers yielded lithic assemblages with bipolar lunates, and a great variety of end-scrapers (Kartal 2002), radiocarbon-dated using charcoal to the Younger Dryas (OxA-5213: 10 150±90 and RT-1441: 10 440±115 uncal BP) (López Bayón et al. 2002: tab. 1). The lithic complex from Ouriakos suggests that hunting was the main activity practised at the site, as inferred from the presence of many microlithic lunates, most probably hafted as spearpoints, as well as end-scrapers for hide processing.
The absence of other sites of Late Palaeolithic, Younger Dryas date in the north-eastern Aegean (Kozlowski 2005, 2007; Sampson et al. 2005, 2009, 2010) makes the discovery of the Ouriakos site on the south-eastern coast of Limnos important for understanding the events that took place in this region at the end of the Pleistocene.
At Ouriakos the abundance of lithic artefacts, including cores and debitage flakes indicates the specialised production of specific types of microlithic lunates for the tipping of hunting weapons. Given that excavations have been conducted mainly in that part of the site affected by erosion, the absence of fireplaces or activity areas is unsurprising. The test trench opened below the sand dune on the other side of the stream, however, shows that this protected part of the site is most probably still intact.
According to the typological characteristics of the chipped stone assemblage, it is possible to attribute Ouriakos to the north-westernmost part of a Levantine Final Pleistocene cultural complex, whose spread and distribution along the southern and western coasts of Anatolia can now be traced potentially from Direkli Cave near Kahramanmaras (Erek 2010), and other caves in the surroundings of Batman (Kartal pers. comm. 2010), through to Öküzini and other caves in the Gulf of Antalya (Harmankaya & Tanindi 1996).
The discovery of the site of Ouriakos and the fieldwork that followed in 2008–2012 have established beyond doubt its importance in the wider Aegean context at the end of Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene. This is a period for which very little is known either from the Aegean islands or the adjacent regions of north-west Anatolia, the Black Sea and t