The archeological record indicates that groups of Neolithic settlers made their way to the Aegean island and Crete from the southern coast of Asia minor around 5,000 BC (71). Little is known about these people, who used stone implements and fashioned crude terracotta vessels and figurine, except that they seem to have worshipped female deities, which were presumably associated with a cult of fertility.

Their presence on Nisyros is confirmed from a few findings on the island, and significant buildings remains on the nisyrian islet of yiali(72). Obsidian from Yiali is known to have been exported in neolithic times to the settlement of Saliagos near the cycladic island of Antiparos.

Sometimes around 4,000 BC, a fresh wave of immigrants appeared from the same region in Asia minor, developing what has to come to be known as “Cycladic civilization”(74). These second colonist knew how to mine and smelt bronze and copper, brought with them domesticated animals, and evolved sophisticated methods of agricultural production. They crafted fine stylized female figurines of marble, which they buried with their deads, and represented their ships in meticulous bronze and clay etchings.

Evidence for the settlement of Nisyros in this period(75) is provided by a cycladic figurine in the Berlin glypsothek that is saidnit come from the island(76). Some pottery fragments and clay objects appearing to date from the same period have been reported on the island, including a few surface finds from the nisyros valley Nyfios and Palaiokastro.
In the middle of the third millennium BC “cycladic civilization” came into conflict with new settlers from the east. These people are likely to have been the “Carians” mentioned by the historiographer Diodoros Siculus, who tell us that they were among the first inhabitants of Nisyros(77).
They also established themselves on the island Cos, which according to Diodoros was originally known as “Caris”( isle of carians) (78). The carians spoke a language with no connection to greek; rather, they seem to have shared a common ethnic root with the Lycians, Lydians, pre-hellenic Cretans and possibly their cycladic precursors.

The non-hellenic origins of the Carians is discussed by Herodotus, who was intrigued by the different language and customs that survived in Caria as late as the 5th century BC (79).
Around 1950 BC the Cretans, who according to the ancient accounts were predominantly of Carian descent, came to rule over the southern Aegean(80). They founded numerous island colonies, probably mingling peacefully with the inhabitants on account of their related languages and religions.

The Cretan presence in the area of Nisyros has been confirmed by the discovery, at palace of Zakros in Crete, of a beautiful chalice made of a a single piece of white-speckled obsidian from the islet of Yiali.(81)
The connection with Crete is further substantiated by ancient obsidian quarries on Yiali and Cretan settlement on nearby Cos.

If its dating proves to be correct, the most remarkable evidence for a Cretan presence on Nisyros(82) consists of a pair of “horns of consecration” that have been carved out of the solid rock at the northern entrance of the little Nyfios valley at the heart of the island.(83)
In bronze-age Crete and her island colonies, “horns” like these ones served as religious symbols that were placed around sacred places and shrines.
At Nyfios they are oriented due east-west, and it is therefore likely that they were associated with the rising sun(84).

A short distance away at the center of the valley the remains of an ancient building rock-out beam-ends seems deliberately to have faced the entrance to a cave with a carved pillar and votive niches(85); curios stone-carved, stepped the construction adjacent to a cistern overlooks the north-eastern end of the valley.

The monumental rock-hewn qualities of these structures, their proximity and alignments, and the secluded nature of their mountain setting make it likely that they once formed a liturgical complex.

Though archaeological research has never been undertaken here and reliable dating is a yet impossible, the symbology of the “horns” is unmistakably Cretan, and can be taken as evidence that Nisyros was setting of a singular sacred enclave of the first half of the second millennium BC, perhaps Cretan peak sanctuary(86) of the sort found almost exclusively, until now, on the island of Crete.

The survival of pre-hellenic religious customs in classical times of Nisyros is apparent from the existence on the island of the cult of Apollo Smyhtheus, who is known to have been a pre-hellenic deity(87).
The cults of Poseidon, Hera, Apollo Nisyreites and few other deities that are mentioned in the epigraphical record may also carried over religious practices from before the arrival of the Greeks (88).

It might even be possible to trace some unusual modern Nisyrian traditions and beliefs to pre-hellenic times. For instance, it is held that a butterfly passing by a candle kept alight at the spot where a person has died, as is the custom, is in fact the passing soul of the deceased (89).In Cretan art the butterfly appears commonly in connection with death and it is thought that it represented the soul(90).

Pre-hellenic matriarchal social traditions might account for the fact that, to this day, nisyrian are habit of tracing their lineage by wat of the mother than the father. This custom is known to have survived until late classical times in nearby Caria(91). Echoes of pre-hellenic religious practices are also evident in the prominence today in Nisyros worship of the highest divine female Christian personage, Panagia or Theotokos, mother of Christ.