When Neolithic people from West Asia colonized Cyprus, sometime after 7000 BC, they took with them not only crops and domestic animals but also a number of wild species that they found useful, such as fox (for fur) and Persian fallow deer (for meat).
The latter spread rapidly in the island, which at that time had no native mammals except a species of mouse. They provided game which was the main source of meat for thousands of years. Escaped domestic sheep also established a population of game animals, ancestors of the modern moufflon ('wild' sheep).
The colonists built large villages of circular stone and mud houses, sometimes painting their walls. For a while developing its own distinctive independent culture, Cyprus was later drawn deeply into international trade, on account of its excellent and much sought after copper ores.
