 Knossos has a thick Neolithic layer indicating the site was a sequence of settlements before the Palace Period.The earliest was placed on bedrock.Arthur Evans, who unearthed the palace of Knossos in modern times, estimated that c. 8,000 BC a Neolithic people arrived at the hill, probably from overseas by boat, and placed the first of a succession of wattle and daub villages (modern radiocarbon dates have raised the estimate to c. 7,000–6,500 BC).