F ROM STONE TO HISTORICAL AGE

N EOLITHIC A GE (6.800 – BC) People started making clay and metal pottery to store grain, food, etc. They started leading a community life, living in larger groups. They domesticated goats, sheep, donkeys, and similar animals for their benefit. They invented the wheel and they used it to fetch water from wells, to make pottery, etc. They created some family tombs. They started making earrings, necklaces, ring idol figurine - pendants of silver and gold.

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE : the first archaeological investigations of the Neolithic Period in Greece, by Chr. Tsountas in Thessaly Most important archaeological points: o Sesklo & Dimini (Thessaly) o Paradimi (Thrace) o Sitagroi & Dispilio (Macedonia) o Knosos (Crete)

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Stabilization of climatic conditions Permanent group settlements Economy based on systematic farming, stock-rearing, exchange of raw materials and products and pottery production Transition from the hunting, food-gathering and fishing stage to the productive stage

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Usually open settlements in coastal or inland areas, lowlands or hills, close to water sources (lakes, rivers, etc.) o "magoula“ or "toumba“ (< "tymvos”): a form of artificial low hill (2-4 m. high, with a diameter of m.), created by successive habitation layers on the same spot

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Pile-dwellings (Dispilio) or huts with walls made of posts and later houses with stone foundations and walls of mud-bricks o One-room houses or with an additional open or closed porch ("megaron- type"). o Settlements often surrounded by ditches or stone enclosures, for defense or to mark the limits of the settlement

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Communities of individuals at the beginning, which later increased to , organized on the basic unit of clan or extended family o No economic differentiation among the members of the community or social stratification (at least until the very late Neolithic Age) o Signs of community and equality: ditches & stone enclosures – shared production - hearths and ovens in open spaces for common use – no private property

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Primitive form of authority, exercised by the oldest or ablest members (needed) o Exchange networks of products with many communities-partners o Some kind of social prestige in the late Neolithic Age, based on finds of distinctive objects, owned only by a few members of the community (leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, jewels of gold, silver or even sea-shell and copper tools) o Defined roles of both sexes, ALTHOUGH the role of the woman in Neolithic society seems to have been stressed, at least at a symbolical level (numerous female figurines)

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Hunting and fishing in a secondary role o Domestication of specific plants - Cultivation of cereals, pulses and flax ( + wool = the basic raw materials for weaving) o Domestication and rearing of animals (sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and dogs) o Leather working, weaving, basketry and pottery (as a part of the household)

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Tools of stone and bone o Figurines of stone or marble (forerunners of the Cycladic figurines) with a wide ideological content, expressing different aspects of life, or used in symbolic acts (e.g. as offerings for a house- foundation).

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Pottery for the preparation, consumption and storage of food, also produced by its users (at first) in a surprising variety of colors and decorative styles and themes Seals, probably used for the adornment of the body (tattoo)

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Characteristics: o Import of obsidian from Melos, used in making sharp tools & arrows o Practice of metallurgy in the Aegean, to manufacture gold and silver jewels o Development of exchange networks in the Aegean & the Balkans o Specialization of production  Workshops specialized on pottery & jewels of metal or sea-shell

G REECE IN THE N EOLITHIC AGE Jewels & seals  Human need for decoration & social promotion Belief in life after death (burial gifts) An early form of written speech (probably)  Wooden tablet with engraved linear symbols, from the lakeside settlement of Dispilio (5260 BC)