The archaeological site of Kalavasos is located in a dominant position West of the valley of the Vasilikos river, about 38 km South-West of Larnaka and 45 km South of Nicosia. It can be seen from the highway. According to local tradition, the name dates back to 327 AD, when Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, stayed in a tent (Cyp: tenta) in this location during her visit to the island after the discovery of the Crucifixion Cross in Jerusalem.

The Kalavasos-Tenta site was initially excavated in 1947. The search was interrupted for many years until 1976, when the Vasilikos Valley project carried out by the American mission of the University of Brandeis began. The goal of the project, which is still ongoing, is to undertake multidisciplinary studies in the valley as a whole, including the area from the Kalavasos copper mines to the coast.

Together with Choirokoitia, Kalavasos-Tenta provides evidence for the initial establishment, at the end of the seventh millennium BC, of ​​the sedentary communities on the island, originating from the neighboring mainland. These communities developed an original civilization: the Cypriot Aceramic Neolithic. The settlement is surrounded by walls and consists of a complex of buildings with simple circular floors or double circular floors built with sun-dried clay bricks or stone or a combination of both. The roof was flat and consisted of a wooden structure consisting of branches, reeds and earth. The roofs were mainly flat but some buildings had domed roofs. The interior of the buildings had double straight pillars, which supported an upper wooden floor, hearths and benches. The plastered surfaces of the walls were occasionally embellished with painted decorations as in the case of a house where the wall painting depicting two human figures with raised hands survived. The dead were buried under the floors of houses or in the open space between domestic buildings.

As in Choirokitia, the inhabitants of Kalavasos-Tenta also used the diabase, a hard stone, for the manufacture of stone vases, which are a particular feature of the Cypriot aceramic Neolithic. Picrolite was a smooth green stone, found in abundance in the Kouris river bed West of Limassol, and was used for the production of jewellery. The Kalavasos-Tenta civilization suddenly vanished at the end of the Aceramic period simultaneously with Choirokoitia, and no adequate explanation has been given regarding its disappearance. Kalavasos-Tenta, like other Aceramic sites on the island, has been abandoned and the island seems to have remained free of human presence for a long time, until the emergence of a new civilization: the ceramic Neolithic.

In 1994-1995 a pyramidal roof was installed on the site for better protection.