While the processes of settlement abandonment have been a topic of long-standing interest to anthropologists and archaeologists working in the American Southwest, their implications are seldom acknowledged by Aegeanists. On the Kastro in East Crete, a settlement inhabited from Late Minoan IIIC into the Archaic period, variations in artifact type, size, and distribution across the site have not been adequately explained, but may now be reassessed with respect to abandonment processes. Recognition of these processes affects the interpretation of remains associated with both abandonment and deposition resulting from nonabandonment behavior, and also provides criteria for phasing.