This article explores the role of social complexity as both an agent and a marker in the development of early societies, and considers how this complexity may be manifested in archaeological data obtained through regional surface survey. The study focuses primarily on the Bronze Age data of the Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project (CPSP), carried out between 1979 and 1991 in a broad area of 636 sq km of southwestern Cyprus. The approach adopted in this study is a ‘second-generation’ interpretation of the survey data collected by the CPSP in an attempt to evaluate some of the current theoretical models pertaining to Bronze Age settlement patterns and social complexity in Cyprus.