The first inhabitants of Cyprus were Neolithic tribes who came from Anatolia and Syria about 7000 BC. They used stone vessels, did not know the art of making pottery, but were well-established agriculturists, growing wheat and barley and domesticating animals: sheep, oxen and dogs. New waves of settlers arrived in about 6000 BC. and they brought with them skills in making pottery, and gradually the stone vessels used by the first settlers were replaced by earthenware pots as cooking utensils. The first inhabitants are classified by archaeologists as Neolithic tribes in the pre-pottery or a ceramic stage, Neolithic A, and the folk who came later, Neolithic B.

The first settlers established small villages along the coast and some times they dwelt in riverside settlements of circular huts. The objects found reveal a peaceful life of farming, fishing, looking after animals and weaving cloth from wool. It must have been a peaceful life because very few weapons were found during the excavations.

The adoption of bronze for implements and weapons, about 2500 BC, coincided with the appearance of the ox, the plough, and a plain red pottery, suggestive of Anatolian origin, of which large quantities have been found in rock-cut tombs of the period . It may well be that immigrants from Anatolia first exploited the island's copper resources. By the Late Bronze Age (1600-1050 BC) these had focussed neighbouring attention on the island, which prospered as a commercial and culture link between East and West. Under the name Alasia, Cyprus is recorded among the tributaries of Egypt, from the time of Thotmes III, but it remained open to traders and settlers from the Mycenaean Empire. On the disruption of that Empire, Achaean colonies established themselves in settlements founded, according to legend, by heroes returning from the Trojan war who brought with them their language and religion, perhaps by way of the coast of Asia Minor.

In the late eighth century BC. by which time Phoenician enterprise had renewed early ties with the Syria coast, the island was divided into a series of independent kingdoms, tributaries of the Assyrian Empire. It was conquered by the Egyptians in the sixth century BC and held until 525 BC, when, retaining its petty kingdoms, it became absorbed into the Persian Empire. In 499/8 BC a revolt to assist the Greeks of Ionia in their struggle against Persia was suppressed. Later, Evagoras of Salamis, having made himself master of almost the whole of Cyprus (391 BC), raised the island to a position of virtual independence. Honoured and intermittently aided by Athens Evagoras even seized cities on the Syria coast. But a punitive expedition forced him to give up all the cities of Cyprus and he remained King of Salamis alone and a tributary of Persia.

It remained for Alexander the Great to liberate the island in 333 BC. At the division of his Empire, Cyprus passed to the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt; it became a Roman Province in 58 BC, was early converted to Christianity and on the partition of the Roman Empire fell under the rule of the Byzantine Emperor. For 300 years from the middle of the seventh century Cyprus lay, in the words of a contemporary English visitor, "betwixt Greek and Saracens", ravaged by one Arab raid after another.

In 1185 Isaac Comnenos, a relative of the reigning Emperor of Byzantium usurped the governorship of Cyprus and maintained his independence until 1191, when his rule was brought to an end by Richard Coeur-de-lion, who was on his way eastwards to take part in the Third Crusade. Richard occupied the island to avenge wrongs done to the members of his following by Isaac, but after a few months sold it to the Knights Templar. They in turn finding its occupation burdensome, transferred it, at Richard's wish, to Guy de Lusignan ruled the island until 1489, although from 1373 to 1464 the Genoese republic held Famagusta and exercised suzerainty over a part of the country.

The 300 years of Frankish rule is a great epoch in the history of Cyprus. The little kingdom played a distinguished part in several aspects of medieval civilisation. Its constitution, inherited from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was the model of that of the medieval feudal state; but, with that conservatism which characterized the island throughout its history, it retained the Assizes of Jerusalem long after they had been outmoded.

In 1489 Cyprus fell to the republic of Venice, which held it until it was conquered by the Turks in 1571, during the Sultanate Selim II era. The Venetian administration, elaborate but often inefficient and corrupt, laboured under the excessive control exercised by the Signory, which spent on it little more than one-third of the revenue it drew from the island. The population increased to some 200000 but the former prosperity did not return.