CHAPTER1

INTRODUCTION

When during the early years of this century Chr. Weinberg (1942. p. 121; 1947, pp. 165-182), Tsountas excavated the first Neolithic settlements in discussing the subject with the ceramic material Thessaly and in Greece, he reached the conclusion from Corinth as his main evidence, drew a parallel that three periods could be discerned in this area: A, between Thessaly II and the Late Neolithic, between B and C, respectively Early and Late Neolithic and Thessaly I and the Middle Neolithic and between the (Early) Bronze Age. He noted many arguments in beginning of Thessaly I (and an earlier phase) and favour of a subdivision of period A into two sec- Early Neolithic. Milojcic on the other hand, mainly tions. but he also observed some factors which in the using the Thessalian material, proposed a division end prevented him from making the division and he intofive periods (1950/51, pp. 1-90). The first was a left the problem to future investigators. socalled "Vor-Sesklo" (not to be confused with the The research was continued by two English present Vor-Sesklo) or Early Neolithic, the follo- scholars, A.J.B. Wace and M.S. Thompson during wing two belonged to the Middle Neolithic, the the 1910's. They did not restrict their activities fourth to the Late Neolithic and the fifth - Rachmani merely to excavating settlements, but made a more - belonged to the Chalcolithic. Schachermeyr invaluable contribution to our knowledge with an (1955) agreed with Weinberg's crude division into exhaustive typology of the ceramic material. They Early, Middle and Late. In all these ceramo-typolo- did not, however, change Tsountas' division and as gical discussions, absolute dating was also dealt a result they separated the pottery types into an A with. On this point opinions were divergent. group, characteristic of the "Early" Neolithic, a B It became clear that all these sequences had to be group from the Late Neolithic and a C group from tested by new excavations. In Thessaly they have the Early Bronze Age. Until the end of World War II been carried out mainly by V. Milojcic and D.R. this model of the Greek Neolithic remained virtually Theocharis from 1956 onwards - starting respecti­ unaltered. The ceramic material of the earlier Neo­ vely at Argissa and Sesklo. The stratigraphy of the lithic period became known as Sesklo ware and that newly excavated sites proved the main division into of the later period as Dimini ware. Early, Middle and Late Neolithic preceding the At the end of the 1940's the chronology of Ae- Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age to be correct, gean prehistory and more especially of the Neolithic although it became evident that there existed many and Early Bronze Age was subjected to reconside- regional variants, especially where the Late Neoli­ ration, partly under the influence of recent dis- thic is concerned. As a result quite a number of coveries in the Near East. Por practical reasons this sub-phases have been created. reinvestigation had to be based on already excavated The ceramic material known as Sesklo ware pro­ material and stratigraphical drawings and not on ved to be characteristic of the Middle Neolithic, but new excavations, which made the subject a proble- a distinct period, characterised largely by mono­ matical one. The different investigators failed to chrome ware and some simple patterned painted reach a concensus of opinion on all but one point; ware, preceded it. At some sites an even older pha­ they agreed that the Neolithic period should be divi- se, apparently not yielding any pottery at all, was ded into three major phases - Early, Middle and discovered. This was called the Pre-Pottery Neoli­ Late. thic, analogous to that of the Near East. The subse- INTRODUCTION quent Early Neolithic could be divided into four of catalogue-especially since the typology and tech- sub-phases, the first of them being called Frühkera- nology of the other material will be treated more mikum or Early Ceramic. profoundly in a series of monographs, dealing with In 1972 the then director of the Sesklo excava- groups of artefacts and tracing their development tions, Dr. D.R. Theocharis, proposed the prepara- over the entire time span of the prehistorie occupa- tion of a PhD thesis on the material from the Early tion at the site of Sesklo. The abundance of the Neolithic I period recently discovered at Sesklo. ceramic material was such that both technology and This seemed an interesting venture, especially if the typology could be studied and they will be treated at study would include all data available from this at some length. period at Sesklo. In that way it might be a useful Detailed studies of the Sesklo material will enable contribution to what had been published so far on us to explore some problems concerning the Early Early Neolithic Greece. Most literature provided Neolithic period in Greece. It will be useful to in- only limited Information. Moreover, there was no vestigate whether the typological sequence we have concensus of opinion between the various authors; established for the pottery from Sesklo is recogni- some seemingly even contradicted each other. The sable in other areas of Greece too. Conversely, if a most extensive Information on the subject had been degree of regionalism is recognised, it will be pos- given by Theocharis (1967), buteven heredata were sible to relate its first appearance to our chronologi- largely concerncd with pottery shapes, their pos- cal framework. sible ancestors and their development. Technical Attention had to be focussed also on the economy aspects were discussed only superficiaily and arte- of Early Neolithic Greece. It was quite obvious that factual remains other than vessels were mentioned the origin of the change from a Mesolithic to a only briefly. He concluded that at the beginning of Neolithic way of life - the change in subsistence the Neolithic a virtually contemporaneous mo­ pattern - was, and still is, the greatest problem to nochrome phase existed throughout Greece, from anyone dealing with the period. There are no indi- Macedonia to the Peloponnese. Discussing its ori- cations that the wild ancestors of emmer, sheep and gin, Theocharis rejected the until then widely held goat had existed in Greece in the period preceding opinion that pottery had been introduced together the Neolithic, yet the subsistence pattern of the with the domesticates from the Near East in favour Neolithic is largely characterised by the presence of of the idea that it was a local development rooted in emmer and sheep/goat. These species were almost the Preceramic phase. His view clashes with that of certainly introduced in some way from the Near East Weinberg in the Cambridge Ancient History. The - but whether this was by migrants or through other latter recognises the existence of a Preceramic pha­ contacts is a problem which remains to be solved. se, but refuses to accept the theory that the ceramic Neolithic is rooted in this period. He thinks it was An interesting problem was the relation between imported by a group of migrants from Palestine - the early Neolithic inhabitants of Greece and their basing this on a certain similarity in pottery ware and environment. Would we be able to get some idea of shapes. the distribution of sites in relation to the landscape? We realised that this would not be a very easy The descriptions of the ceramic material provided question to answer, since little is known of the by Theocharis, Weinberg and Milojcic show some palaeoenvironment of Greece. Ecological studies differences. which is partly due to the fact that they have only recently been introduced in the field of considered the material from their "personal" ex- Greek Prehistory. cavations - i.e. Sesklo, Corinth and Argissa - as In the course of our study we have attempted to most characteristic of the period in the whole of find some answer to these questions. We knew in Greece. Other arlefactual remains are often mentio­ advance that we could do this only to a very limited ned only superficiaily. extent, the data both from Sesklo and from the rest At Sesklo the rarety of remains other than pottery of Greece being far too restricted to allow certain- has forced us almost to confine our research to a kind ties. INTRODUCTION

Despite these restrictions which would make it and the artefactual material from Sesklo and then to difficult to reach any sensible conclusions, we deci- place the settlement in its wider context, after which ded to give this account of our present knowledge of we will gradually extend our discussion to the rest of the Eariy Neoiithic in Greece, fortoo often mistakes Thessaly and Greece. Lastly we will investigate are made when material from this period is being whether we can say anything on relations with the uscd in discussion. We rcalise. and indeed we hope, Near East. On the whole most attention will be that several of the blanks in this account may be focussed on pottery, since that is by far the most filled by future research - and that as a result we may reiiable material, but other artefacts are mentioned have to change some of our views. for all the sites. Some attention will be paid to We propose to discuss first the history of research ecological aspects too. AEGEAN

\^ ^

Fig. 2 Map of Thessaly with surrounding mountain ranges and reconstruction of Laiie Viviis to its Neolithic dimension (tree after Philippson).