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700 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99being traced in Africa, which is widely regarded asthe homeland of the human race. The later devel-opments that brought humans from Africa intoEurasia have been of comparatively lesser interest,although there has been much new enthusiasm forthe subject in recent years. Research on the laterperiods of prehistory has also been directed to areasoutside of Greece. The origins of the Neolithic havebeen sought in southwest Asia since the time ofRaphael Pumpelly and Vavilov, and Greece is usu-ally regarded as on the margins of the region of pri-mary cultural development."

Despite the combined effects of these factors, acomplete reversal of our view of Stone Age Greecehas occurred in the last decade, and Greece hasmoved from its position on the margins of Europeanprehistory to a position near the center. This changeis the result chiefly of the growing theoretical inter-est in the emergence of modern humans between100,000 and 40,000 B.P., and the continuing interestin the origins of agriculture and its spread to Europein the early Holocene. For the former problem, newfossils and dating techniques have shown that thearea encompassing the Balkans, Turkey, and south-west Asia was the center of activity in a key periodof human evolution. The importance is based ongeography, for these lands lay athwart the passagefrom Africa into Europe and Asia that was traversed,perhaps repeatedly, by hominids migrating from theheartland of humanity. The second area of interestis of longer standing, but new evidence, chiefly fromregional surface surveys, indicates that Greece wasthe center of the earliest Neolithic cultures onEuropean soil. The new importance of Palaeolithicarchaeology can perhaps be gauged by the supportfor the first conference on the Palaeolithic of Greeceand adjacent areas that was convened in Epirus inSeptember 1994. This conference brought togetherscientists from many countries who are working inGreece and the Balkans, and the generous supportfor the conference provided by the Greek Ministry

of Culture and the large number of participants areindications of the emergence of a new and vigorousdiscipline.HISTORY OF RESEARCHEarly StudiesThe first indication that a Stone Age sequence ex-isted in Greece comparable with that known fromEurope came with the publication of a short paperby George Finlay in 1869.4 In this little-knownpamphlet Finlay drew attention to the similaritiesbetween artifacts collected in Greece, chiefly stoneaxes and obsidian tools, and those found in the newlyexplored Swiss Neolithic lake villages. He concludedthat early prehistoric remains existed in Greece, butsporadic reports of Stone Age finds in the followingdecades were not followed up with systematic re-search.5 The lack of research is understandablewhen we recall that most of the early finds were madeby travelers and classical scholars who had no inter-est in pursuing the subject once they had made theirreports. It was not until the beginning of this cen-tury that the pioneering excavations of ChristosTsountas demonstrated for the first time that therewas a rich field for prehistoric research in Greece.Tsountas explored the Thessalian plain betweenVolos and Larisa mapping such prehistoric moundsthat could be reached by train. For the purposes ofexcavation, he focused his efforts beginning in 1901on two sites, Sesklo and Dimini, which were easilyreached from the city of Volos.6 These sites wereperhaps not the best choices for establishing a cul-tural sequence as they were disturbed by much post-Neolithic cultural activity, making the stratificationdifficult to decipher. Tsountas was nevertheless ableto separate the materials from his excavations intotwo periods (Neolithic A and B) of considerablelength and antiquity, which he thought were moreor less comparable with the better-known Neolithicsequences of Europe. Although Tsountas did nothave a means of dating his finds, his excavations

There is a large literature on these subjects.For sum-maries of the current views on early human migrations,see PA. Mellars, M.J.Aitken, and C.B. Stringer, "Outliningthe Problem," Philosophical Transactionsof the Royal Societyof London 337 (1992) 127-30; W. Roebroeks and T. vanKolfschoten, "The Earliest Occupation of Europe: A ShortChronology,"Antiquity68 (1994) 489-503; and W Roebroeks,"Updating the Earliest Occupation of Europe," CurrAnthr35 (1994) 301-305. For Neolithic Greece, seeJ.-P. Demouleand C. Perles, "The Greek Neolithic: A New Review,"Jour-nal of WorldPrehistory7 (1993) 355-416; and J.M. Hansen,"Agriculture in the Prehistoric Aegean: Data versus Specu-lation," AJA 92 (1988) 39-52.

4 G. Finlay, Hlapartqpeqsei triij iv ?E;Teria Kal E;tAAtd67poi'oroplKfij dpyaioAoyiag Athens 1869).5An example of what was perhaps a handaxe wasshown to Lenormant by an Argos physician, who claimedit was found associated with extinct animal bones at Mega-lopolis in Arcadia: E Lenormant, "L'fge de la pierre enGrece," RA 1867, 16-19.

6 C. Tsountas, At 7poi'oroplKai a'Kpond~iAEtlprviov Kal)JEUKAov (Athens 1908). For a historical overview of thisperiod of research, see K. Gallis, "A Short Chronicle ofGreek Archaeological Investigations in Thessaly from 1881until the Present Day," in B. Helly ed., La Thessalie:Actesde la table-ronde21-24 juillet 1975 (Lyons 1979) 1-30.


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702 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99year a German team directed by Vladimir Miloji'iddiscovered two flint flakes of characteristic Palaeo-lithic type while excavating a deep well at the Clas-sical and Neolithic site of Argissa on the PeneiosRiver in Thessaly. This accidental discovery was fol-lowed by a campaign of research involving many spe-cialists directed toward the recovery of fossil animalbones and lithic artifacts from the banks of the river.A large number of Palaeolithic artifacts were discov-ered associated with fossil animal bones, and theresults of this research were published in 1965.12 In1960 men from the village of Petralona in the Chal-kidiki discovered a complete fossilized cranium ina deep cavern. Initially identified as a classic Nean-derthal, the fossil created great excitement andproved in a dramatic way the existence of prehistorichumans in Greece. Lastly, Jean Servais discoveredPalaeolithic artifacts in Elis in 1960 and this discov-ery was followed by a systematic campaign of researchand publication supported by the French School.13Chance finds of stone tools, some of which may bePalaeolithic, were made in the Ionian islands andthe Sporades in the years that followed.14This evidence of undoubted Palaeolithic artifactsprovided by these first discoveries attracted the at-tention for the first time of prehistorians who spe-cialized in the study of the Palaeolithic. Two menhave the distinction of being the first Palaeolithicarchaeologists to work in Greece on a significantscale. The better known of these was Eric Higgs ofthe University of Cambridge who undertook an am-bitious survey of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus in1962 with the specific purpose of discovery of Palaeo-

lithic materials. The effects of this project are hardto calculate, but it certainly drew international at-tention for the first time to the Palaeolithic poten-tial of Greece. His discovery of numerous sites inEpirus, some of which were extraordinarily richin Palaeolithic artifacts, encouraged Higgs to concen-trate his efforts there. Between 1963 and 1967 heexcavated one open site at Kokkinopilos and rockshelters at Asprochaliko and Kastritsa, publishingthe results of the survey and excavations in a seriesof detailed and influential papers in the Proceedingsof the PrehistoricSociety.'15 nly shortly after the firstefforts of Higgs, Augustus Sordinas began explora-tion of the Ionian islands for his Harvard disserta-tion. The research was carried out chiefly between1964 and 1968. Although his dissertation workfocused on the evidence for the Neolithic and theBronze Age, he also began an intensive survey ofCorfu for Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites. His sur-vey was followed by trial excavations at two sites, theUpper Palaeolithic rock shelter at Grava in south-western Corfu and the Mesolithic and Neolithic opensite of Sidari on the north coast.'16The projects described above were exploratory,recalling to mind more the efforts of the earlyantiquarian topographers in Greece, pioneers whosketched the broad outlines of the picture, ratherthan the contemporary classical archaeologists whowere conducting research and excavation on a largescale, reflecting the interests of a mature disciplinewith a long history of research. The early projectssucceeded in identifying the most likely areas wheresites of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods were

12V. Miloj'id, J. Boessneck, O. Jung, and H. Schneider,Paldolithikum um Larissa in Thessalien (Bonn 1965).13The Petralona find was first described by P. Kokkorosand A. Kanellis, "Decouverte d'un crine d'homme paleo-lithique dans la peninsule chalcidique,' L'Anthropologie64(1960) 438-46. The French discoveries in Elis were pub-lished in a series of papers:J. Servais, "Outils pal'olithiquesd'Elide,"BCH 85 (1961) 1-9; A. Leroi-Gourhan, "De'couvertespaleolithiques en Elide," BCH 88 (1964) 1-8;J. Chavaillon,N. Chavaillon, and E Hours, "Une industrie paltolithiquedu Ploponnese: Le Mousterien de Vasilaki,"BCH 88 (1964)616-22; Chavaillon et al., "Industries paleolithiques deI'lide I: Region d'Amalias," BCH 91 (1967) 151-201; andChavaillon et al., "Industriespaleolithiques de I'ElideII:Region du Kastron," CH93 (1969)97-151. For summariesof the French work, see C. Perles, Les industrieslithiques ailliesde Franchthi (Argolide,Grece)1:Prisentation gindrale et indus-triespaldolithiques(Franchthi3, Bloomington 1987) 205; andC. Runnels, "APrehistoric Survey of Thessaly: New Lighton the Greek Paleolithic,"JFA 15 (1988) 277-90.14For typical examples: G.A. Cubuk, "Altpaliolithische

Funde von der Mittelmeerterrassen bei Nea Skala aufKephallinia (Griechenland)," ArchKorrBl 6 (1976) 175-81;A.N. Poulianos, "Petralona: A Middle Pleistocene Cave inGreece," Archaeology24 (1971) 6-11; Theocharis (supra n. 9)gives other examples.15S. Dakaris, E.S. Higgs, and R.W.Hay, "The Climate, En-vironment and Industries of Stone Age Greece: Part I,"' PS30 (1964) 199-244; E.S. Higgs and C. Vita-Finzi, "The Cli-mate, Environment and Industries of Stone Age Greece:Part II,"PPS 32 (1966) 1-29; and E.S. Higgs et al., "The Cli-mate, Environment and Industries of Stone Age Greece:Part III,"PPS 33 (1967) 1-29. See also G.N. Bailey et al.,"Asprochaliko and Kastritsa: Further Investigations ofPalaeolithic Settlement and Economy in Epirus (North-west Greece)," PPS 49 (1983) 15-42.16A. Sordinas, The Prehistory of the Ionian Islands. TheFlints and Pottery Diss. Harvard Univ. 1968); "Investigationsof the Prehistory of Corfu during 1964-1966," BalkSt 10(1969) 393-424; Stone Implements rom Northwestern Corfu,Greece(Memphis 1970).


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 703preserved, and used trial excavations to test the stra-tigraphy and to obtain samples for classification anddating.The next logical step was the careful excavationof key sites other than Kastritsa and Asprochalikoin order to obtain a stratigraphic profile and largesamples of artifacts and biological materials to per-mit typological analyses to place the archaeologicalcultures in established European and Near Easternsequences and to reconstruct the palaeoenviron-ments of the Greek cultures. Unfortunately, few ex-cavations were undertaken, and these were mostlyof an exploratory nature. In Thessaly, new researchwas carried out by Demetrios Theocharis who con-tinued to add to the existing collections, but did notconduct any excavations. Freund and Schmid re-studied the materials from Stampfuss's excavationsat Seidi and the Thessalian finds of Miloj'i&, andSchmid carried out supplementary excavations inSeidi to confirm the stratigraphy of the site."7In thePeloponnese the Kephalari Cave near Argos wasthe object of rescue excavations by the GermanArchaeological Institute in the 1970s.'8 In Elis, theFrench conducted no follow-up excavations. TheGreek Archaeological Service carried out small-scaleexcavations near the town of Nafplion, but the re-sults of these excavations are not published.'9 Theonly sustained and systematic excavation project di-rected toward the study of the Palaeolithic and Meso-lithic periods took place in the southern Argolidat Franchthi Cave. Excavations were begun thereunder the direction of ThomasJacobsen of IndianaUniversity in 1967 and were continued until 1979with the support of the University of Pennsylvania,Indiana University, and the American School of Clas-sical Studies at Athens.211

Despite the spotty record of excavation, the earlyStone Age of Greece moved in the short interval from1958 to 1976 from the status of terra incognita intothe mainstream of European prehistoric archaeol-ogy. Franchthi Cave, for instance, was recognized asone of the key type sites for European prehistorybecause the stratigraphic succession could be traced

from the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic to theend of the Neolithic, a period of as much as 25,000years. The success of the excavations at Franchthialso drew scholarly attention to the strategic loca-tion of Greece athwart the prehistoric land and searoutes from the Near East to Europe. The study ofStone Age Greece was no longer regarded as some-thing of an oddity or a sideshow to the importantresearch taking place in Europe and the Near East,but was seen as well placed for playing an importantpart in the study of European prehistory. The paceof prehistoric research in Greece, however, was notsustained. By the mid-1970s research in the two rich-est areas, Epirus and Thessaly, was at an end, andthe pioneers in the field, namely Higgs, Miloj'ic,and Theocharis, were dead. In the southern Argolid,the excavations at Franchthi were over by 1979, andthe many specialists involved in this large interdisci-plinary project turned to the study of the excavatedmaterials. Thus ends the first phase of modern StoneAge research in Greece.The second phase begins in 1979 with the Stan-ford University Environmental and ArchaeologicalSurvey of the Southern Argolid under the directionof Michael Jameson and Tjeerd van Andel.21 Thisproject had as one of its major goals the continu-ation of the Palaeolithic research begun byJamesonand Jacobsen, and in the first season an archaeolog-ical and geological survey of the region was carriedout around Franchthi Cave that recovered data forthe reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment in thePleistocene and early Holocene. In this same period,a University of Cambridge team returned to Epirusunder the direction of Geoffrey Bailey to pick upthe threads of Higgs'sresearch program and to under-take an entirely new excavation in the small rockshelter of Klithi near the town of Konitsa.22 Forsome years these two projects constituted virtuallythe only Palaeolithic research being conducted inGreece, but the pace has accelerated noticeably sincethe mid-1980s, with surface reconnaissance in Thes-saly, the Argolid, and Epirus directed specificallytoward the identification of Palaeolithic and Meso-

17D. Theocharis, 'H aby7T tl OeaaaaAlKc7rpoi'oropiaq(Volos 1967); Theocharis (supra n. 9); Schmid (supra n. 8);G. Freund, "Zum Paliiolithikum Thessaliens," PZ 46 (1971)181-94.18L. Reisch, Pleistozain und Urgeschichteder Peloponnes(Diss. Friedrich-Alexander Univ. 1980); Reisch, "The Tran-sition to Middle Palaeolithic in Greece and the SouthernBalkan," in A. Ronen ed., TheTransitionfrom LowertoMiddlePalaeolithic and the Origins of Modern Man (Oxford 1982)223-31.

19Perles (supra n. 13) 204; G. Kourtessi-Philippakis, LepaMlolithiquede la Gracecontinentale (Paris 1986) 138-39.20 Since 1987 nine fascicles have been published in theseries Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece(Bloomington)under the general editorship of Thomas W.Jacobsen.21Jameson et al. (supra n. 2) 326-35.22See G. Bailey, "The Palaeolithic of Klithi in Its WiderContext," BSA 87 (1992) 1-28, for a summary of the projectand a list of references to earlier publications.


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704 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99lithic sites, and surveys and excavations in the islandof Kefallinia, in the Boila Cave (Epirus), and Theope-tra Cave (Thessaly) among other places.23At the time of writing there are active Palaeolithicresearch projects being conducted by a large numberof scholars with an international background innearly every part of Greece. The intensity of recentresearch can be gauged by an examination of thecollective results of the first phase of research thatwere summarized in 1970 by Saul Weinberg in theCambridgeAncient History.24 n that landmark publi-cation, Weinberg's section on the Palaeolithic andMesolithic took up a mere seven pages of the printedtext, reporting on the work of half a dozen scholarsand excavations. Some may recall that when Wein-berg wrote his paper the number of archaeologistsdoing Palaeolithic fieldwork in Greece could becounted, literally, on one hand. The improvementcan be measured by the scale and composition ofthe First International Conference on the Palaeolithicof Greece and Adjacent Areas held in loannina, just30 years after Weinberg's article. This conference wasconvened in Epirus in the heart of the region firstexplored by the late Eric Higgs, with the generoussupport of the Greek Ministry of Culture. There werenearly 100 participants at the conference from atleast 10 nations, with reports on most parts of Greece,from Thrace to the southern reaches of the Pelo-ponnese, and from Thessaly to the western Ionianislands.25 The topics of these papers and the discus-sions that followed them revealed not only the newinterest in and enthusiasm for Stone Age researchin Greece, but also a useful convergence of thinkingabout the principal problems to be addressed by fu-ture research in this area. I can confidently predictthat the pace of research will increase exponentiallyin the coming decade.SIGNIFICANT ISSUES IN EARLY PREHISTORY

In the early days of European prehistoric archaeol-ogy, an understandable emphasis was placed on the

study of stone tool typology, stratification, and re-gional chronology. The first step in archaeology isto build reliable regional cultural histories that per-mit the placement of new finds within relativechronological sequences, allowing comparisons offinds within smaller areas and between larger regions.Once cultural histories are available attention canbe turned to questions about human behavior. Howdo humans go about colonizing previously uninhab-ited areas? How have humans adapted to the chang-ing climatic demands of the glacial and interglacialperiods? How can the study of stone tools and bio-logical remains from archaeological sites be usedto understand the dynamics of human evolution?The transition from cultural history to the analysisof problems that are sometimes termed "behavioral"or "social" is the mark of a mature science, and themove to a problem-oriented European prehistorybegan more than 50 years ago.26 It is evident thatGreek prehistory is moving rapidly in this direction,and several key issues have emerged in recent yearsthat are likely to be the primary focus of futureresearch.

A central question in Greek Palaeolithic studiesis the timing of the first entry of human beings intothe peninsula. The history of the movement of hu-mans from the African homeland through the NearEast into Europe and Asia is obscure. One long-standing hypothesis attributes the first dispersionto Homo erectus.27According to this hypothesis thedistribution of Acheulean lithic industries rich inhandaxes in Europe marks the settlement of the con-tinent by Homo erectus.It is true that the earliest fos-sils outside of Africa are indeed Homo erectus, butsuch fossils are absent from Europe, and even thedating of the Acheulean in Europe is fraught withcontroversy.28 Interest has shifted in recent years tothe hypothesis that Europe was settled after 500,000B.P. by archaic Homo sapiens, the ancestors of boththe classic Neanderthals and anatomically modernHomo sapiens. The picture is complicated by the ex-

23 A large number of reports on recent Palaeolithic sur-veys and excavations are being published in G. Bailey etal. eds., Proceedingsof the First International Conference n thePalaeolithic of Greeceand AdjacentAreas (British School ofArchaeology at Athens, in press). For a summary accountof this conference, see G. Bailey, "The Balkans in Prehis-tory: The Palaeolithic Archaeology of Greece and Adja-cent Areas," Antiquity 69 (1995) 19-24. For Kefallinia, seeG. Kavvadias,Ila;roAil)1KtKe7pawcovzd Athens 1984). Lithicartifacts that may be Palaeolithic or Mesolithic have beennoted and collected in the course of numerous regionalsurveys directed toward the recovery of information aboutall periods. Particularly worth noting are the patinated stonetools of generally Middle Palaeolithic type discovered inthe Nemea Valley Archaeological Project and the Pylos Re-gional Archaeological Project, but not yet published (J.L.

Davis, personal communication, 1995). These finds are anindication that the discovery of Palaeolithic and Mesolithicsites is likely to become a regular feature of regional surveys.24 Weinberg (supra n. 7).25Bailey et al. (supra n. 23). The summary of the Palaeo-lithic offered in 1986 by Kourtessi-Philippakis (supra n.19), although longer than Weinberg's summary of 1970(supra n. 7), included few sites or publications not knownto Weinberg.26C. Gamble, The Palaeolithic Settlementof Europe (Cam-bridge 1986) is an example of this new direction in Palaeo-lithic studies.27Gamble (supra n. 26) 177-79; Roebroeks and vanKolfschoten (supra n. 3).28 See Roebroeks, and Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten

(supra n. 3).


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 705istence of two early Palaeolithic technocomplexesin Europe, the Acheulean and the chopper/flake toolindustry called Clactonian, which some scholars con-sider to be an indication of the long-term presenceof humans on the continent, or perhaps the existenceof more than one hominid group. It must be ac-knowledged that our understanding of the eventsafter one million years ago, when hominids estab-lished themselves outside of Africa, is very uncertain.It is for this reason that it is a matter of importanceto know when Greece was first inhabited. It is likelythat this peninsula would have been inhabited bythe first hominids to pass from the Near East intoEurope, and some early sites must survive that throwlight on this period.Another problem is connected with the originsof modern humans. Here two hypotheses are com-peting for attention.29 In one view, Eurasia (includ-ing Greece) was initially populated by a migrationof Homo erectus from the African homeland that oc-curred between one and two million years ago. Ac-cording to this hypothesis, often called the "Multi-regional" theory, anatomically modern Homosapiensevolved from this widely spread Homo erectuspopu-lation, perhaps passing through the stage of archaicHomosapiens (represented in Greece by the Petralonacranium). This multiregional theory predicts the evo-lution of local populations into Homosapiens in widelyseparated geographical locations, although allowingfor the possibility of gene flow. In another view, usu-ally called the "Replacement" theory, anatomicallymodern humans evolved from Homo erectus in onlyone restricted geographical area, which is locatedin Africa on the basis of anatomically modern hu-man fossils that date to as much as 120,000 B.P., andmigrated from Africa about 100,000 B.P. to replacearchaic humans throughout their range in Europe,the Near East, and Asia. This theory has gained sup-port in recent years as new dates from Israel showmodern humans there already by 100,000 B.P., andgenetic studies place the emergence of modern Homosapiens in Africa.3"

It is not necessary to go into a detailed discussionof the evidence for and against these different

hypotheses. The important point is that the debateon the origins of modern humans has brought re-newed attention to Greece, which is the logical pointof first entry for human migrants to Europe. Theemergence of modern humans is closely bound upwith the well-documented archaeological transitionfrom the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. This tran-sition is marked by the disappearance of the Mous-terian, a lithic technocomplex rich in side scrapersand points made on short broad flint flakes, and itsreplacement by the Upper Palaeolithic technocom-plexes dominated by tools made on long thin blades,typically points with retouched "backs" nd end scrap-ers. This transition was for a long time dated to ap-proximately 35,000 B.P. and considered to representa clear-cut boundary between the passing of theNeanderthals as the makers of the Mousterian, andthe coming of modern humans with their new blade-tool technology. It is now evident that the transitionoccurred before 40,000 B.P. in the Near East andslightly later as one moves westward into the Balkansand Europe.31 The associations of fossil humangroups with the different industries have also beenchallenged. The discovery of modern humans inIsrael in association with the Mousterian as earlyas 100,000 B.P.,and Neanderthals in France in asso-ciation with an Upper Palaeolithic industry as lateas 32,000 B.P.,is an unexpected reversal of the usualassumptions, and, if sustained by future research,indicates that the picture is very complicated.32 In-dustries in the Balkans and Greece appear to havecharacteristics of both the Mousterian and an UpperPalaeolithic industry (the Aurignacian), and somehave proposed that these industries are evidence of"acculturation" that occurred as the result of contactbetween classic Neanderthalers and the advancingwave of modern humans.33 A detailed study of thetransition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithicin Greece is likely to have useful implications forthe broader study of modern human origins.A full study of the Palaeolithic in Greece requiresmore than stone tools. To add the dimension of hu-man behavior, more attention must be given to thesearch for human fossils. Fossil-bearing deposits of

29Mellars et al. (supra n. 3) offer a summary of theproblem. See also P. Mellars, "Archaeology and thePopulation-dispersal Hypothesis of Modern Human Ori-gins in Europe," Philosophical Transactionsof theRoyalSocietyof London 337 (1992) 225-34.31 N. Mercier and H. Valladas,"ThermoluminescenceDates for the PalaeolithicLevant,"ndH.P.Schwarcz, Chro-nology of Modern Humans in the Levant,"n O.Bar-Yosefand R.S. Kra eds., Late Quaternary Chronologyand Paleocli-matesof the Eastern Mediterranean(Tucson 1994) 13-20 and21-31, respectively.3' For the dating of the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic tran-

sition, see C. Stringer and C. Gamble, In Searchof theNean-derthals London 1993)39-60; and Schwarcz supran. 30).32 Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 123-42; Mercierand Valladas (supra n. 30).33On acculturation, see P.Allsworth-Jones, TheSzeletianand the Transitionfrom Middle to UpperPalaeolithic in CentralEurope(Oxford 1986); EB.Harrold, "Mousterian, Chatelper-ronian and Early Aurignacian in Western Europe: Continu-ity or Discontinuity?" in R.L. Ciochon andJ.G. Fleagle eds.,TheHumanEvolutionSourceBook(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.1993)585-603; Runnels (supra n. 13).


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706 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99the Pleistocene are very rare in Greece, and humanfossils are likely to be discovered only after exten-sive searching. The well-preserved Petralona craniumin the Chalkidiki suggests that the search will be suc-cessful in the long run, although the skull remainsan isolated and enigmatic find. It was found ce-mented in a stalagmite unassociated with other fossilsor artifacts. The cranium is no longer considereda classic Neanderthal, as it was called in early pub-lications, but its exact classification and age remaina subject of considerable controversy. Current opin-ion holds that it should be classified as an archaicform of Homo sapiens, perhaps ancestral to classicNeanderthals and anatomically modern humans, andthe designation of Homo heidelbergensis is one sug-gested name for the species.34 The most reliable es-timate of its age is based on the radiometric datingof the stalagmitic stone layer that covered the fossil,which dates to ca. 160-240,000 B.P. The skull mustbe older, and most authorities assign it an age be-tween 200 and 400,000 B.P.35 No Neanderthals havebeen discovered in Greece, and the excavations ofUpper Palaeolithic sites such as Franchthi haveturned up only very fragmentary human remains,mainly teeth and bone fragments. A heavily mineral-ized occipital from a human skull, now in the archae-ological museum of Volos, was found on the banksof the Peneios River in the 1970s. It may date between50 and 30,000 B.P., but it has not been studied andpublished.36 The fact remains that we have very littlefossil evidence for the Palaeolithic period.Other interesting questions are connected withthe Upper Palaeolithic. After 30 years of researchit is clear that some puzzling gaps remain in thearchaeological record, even if we allow for the smallnumber of systematic excavations, and the absenceof early Upper Palaeolithic remains is striking. Thesequences tested in cave excavations are all youngerthan 28,000 B.P., yet the earliest Upper Palaeolithic(Aurignacian) was established in the Balkans by38,000 B.P.37There is evidently a hiatus of as much

as 10,000 years between the beginning of the UpperPalaeolithic in the Balkans and the Upper Palaeo-lithic in some parts of Greece. A related problemis the apparent discontinuity in the distribution ofUpper Palaeolithic sites in Greece during the lastglacial. Cave sites are known in Epirus, Boeotia, andthe Argolid, but are curiously rare in the westernPeloponnese, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace. Thispatchiness of settlement is typical of PalaeolithicEurope as a whole, and is not adequately explained.38The rarity of Upper Palaeolithic open-air sites, asopposed to caves and rock shelters, is puzzling, espe-cially as the number of intensive surface surveys hasincreased in the past decade. We may add to thislist of questions the apparent abandonment of al-most all the known Upper Palaeolithic sites beforethe end of the Pleistocene, producing a significanthiatus in occupation between about 13,000 and 10,000B.P.Yet another major area of research concerns theorigins and significance of the Mesolithic period inGreece. The rarity of Mesolithic sites is remarkable:at present there are 12 sites considered to be Meso-lithic in the entire country. At Franchthi Cave, theonly site where the transition from the Palaeolithicto the Mesolithic has been tested by excavation, itis probable that there was an interruption in the cavesequence between the two periods.39 The signifi-cance of the Mesolithic and its connection, if any,with the Palaeolithic are very difficult to evaluatewhen great tracts in the country appear to have beenuninhabited during this period. The paucity of theMesolithic record has a bearing on another impor-tant problem in early Greek prehistory, namely theorigins of agriculture. The Neolithic emerged firstin the Near East, in its broadest geographical sense,and was established only later in Europe accordingto our present understanding, and the details of thisimportant revolution in economic and social orga-nization are today a focus of debate.40 One hypothe-sis regards the spread of the Neolithic as the result

4C.B. Stringer et al., "The Significance of the FossilHominidSkull romPetralona,Greece,"JAS(1979)295-98;C. Stringer,"TheDating of European Middle PleistoceneHominids and the Existence of Homoerectusn Europe,"Anthropologie19 (1981) 2-14; M.H. Day, Guide toFossil Man,4(Chicago 1986) 91-98; C.B.Stringer, personal communi-cation, 1994.15G. Hennig et al., "ESR-dating f the Fossil HominidCranium from PetralonaCave, Greece,"Nature292 (1981)533-36; A.G.Wintle andJ.A.Jacobs, "ACriticalReviewofthe DatingEvidence for PetralonaCave,"JAS(1982)39-47;A. Poulianos et al., "PetralonaCaveDating Controversy,"Nature299 (1982)280-82; A.G.Lathamand H.P.Schwarcz,"The PetralonaHominid Site:Uranium-seriesRe-analysisof'Layer 10'Calcite and Associated PalaeomagneticAnal-

yses," Archaeometry34 (1992) 135-40.36ForFranchthihumanbone, see T. Cullen,"MesolithicMortuary Ritual at FranchthiCave, Greece,"Antiquity69(1995) 270-89. For the Thessalian skull fragment, seeTheocharis 1967(supran. 17)32-33, pl.V,where the heavi-ly mineralizedcalvaria is pictured:L. Angel is quoted assaying that the fossil "shouldnot be classifiedas Neander-thal in the classic sense of the term."37Mellars (supra n. 29).38Gamble (supra n. 26) 367-78; and Runnels (supran.13).39C.Perles,"Long-TermrendsatFranchthi:A Syntheticand ComparativeApproach," n Baileyet al. (supran. 23).40 See van Andel and Runnels (supra n. 10).


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 707

THA

XX-iti

PetralonCHALKIDIKI

ARodiaOLarisaCOR5QU THESSALY'::::::......::!o a'7:iu01:Etions::00meters

Alonaki sea levelKokkinopilos Preveza

KEFALLINIA

SIOEAKephalari

o 40Mies ARGOLID '0 40Km iZ`

* EarlyPalaeolithicSiteo ModernTown 4

Elevations00 metersabove sea level E.McC.95Fig.1. Map showinglocations of principal EarlyPalaeolithic sites. This map shows sites assigned traditionallyto the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic (300,000-30,000 B.P.).Thessaly, Epirus, and Elis have numerous smallscatters of lithic artifacts, chiefly of Middle Palaeolithic type (100,000-30,000 B.P.),which are not indicatedindividually on this map.

of demic diffusion from the Near East outward toEurope, Central Asia, and North Africa, while an-other holds that the Neolithic emerged as the resultof local processes whereby indigenous Mesolithiccommunities more or less independently changedtheir economies from foraging to farming.41 A grow-ing number of archaeologists see the spread of theNeolithic as a complex process involving in somecases the physical movement of Near Eastern farmersinto new lands, and in other cases a mixed and dy-namic process involving the interaction of migrants

with indigenous populations of Mesolithic forag-ers."2Greece is the portion of Europe that lies clos-est to the Near East and it is logical to assume thatevidence from this first frontier will be of primarysignificance for the understanding of the transitionfrom the Mesolithic to the Neolithic.AN OVERVIEW OF EARLY GREEK PREHISTORYThe Early PalaeolithicThe Palaeolithic in Greece is divided roughly intotwo periods. The division between the two periods

41A.J. Ammerman, "On the Neolithic Transition inEurope:AComment on Zvelebil&Zvelebil 1988),"Antiquity63 (1989) 162-65. R. Dennell, EuropeanEconomicPrehistory(London 1983) 152-68 offers one view of the "indigenist"hypothesis.

42 For a discussion of demic diffusion, see A. Ammer-man and L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, TheNeolithic Transition and theGenetics of Populations in Europe (Princeton 1984); and C.Renfrew, Archaeology nd Language(New York 1987) 145-59.


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708 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99

Fig.2. View of the Thessalian plain. The Peneios River is visible in the plain. EarlyPalaeolithicfindspot 30 (Rodia)is located in the center of the picture, alongthe hor-izontal white line.

is based chiefly on chronology and the dominantstone tool industries. The Early Palaeolithic is a longperiod (300,000-30,000 B.P.) that includes the tradi-tional periods of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic,terms often applied arbitrarily to cultural phenom-ena that may overlap in time and space. The archae-ological cultures of the Early Palaeolithic were onceassociated with fossil human forms, either Homoerectus or archaic Homo sapiens (e.g., Neanderthals).The Upper Palaeolithic (30,000-10,000 B.P.) periodis usually correlated with early forms of anatomicallymodern Homosapiens. Even this two-part division isopen to question, because specific forms of early hu-mans can no longer be identified as the makers ofparticular stone tool industries, and it is used hereonly as a rough indication of chronological positionin the cultural sequence.The earliest Palaeolithic finds are found in north-ern Greece (fig. 1). The Petralona cranium when itwas first discovered was classified as a Neanderthal,and Mousterian artifacts in Thessaly, the Argolid,and Epirus were once thought to provide the archae-ological background for the fossil. After a carefulreexamination of the fossil in the 1970s, its classifica-tion was changed and its date was pushed back to200,000 B.P. or earlier, evidence that an earlierPalaeolithic horizon was to be expected in Greece.43

Until recently, however, the only archaeological findbelonging to the time of the Petralona cranium wasa handaxe found by Eric Higgs near Kozani in 1962and classified as belonging to the Acheulean, a stonetool industry of the Lower Palaeolithic.44 SinceHiggs's time claims have been made for early stonetools in the Petralona cavern, and amateurs have re-ported Early Palaeolithic implements in many partsof Greece. On the basis of the reports, the majorityof these objects are without secure stratigraphic orgeologic contexts and in some cases are not certainlyof human manufacture.45 Until these artifacts havebeen published in the professional literature it isnot possible to evaluate them further. Even the Kozanihandaxe remains an isolated chance find with nocontext or date.

The first published Early Palaeolithic materialsfrom a datable context were found in the southernPeloponnese, where Ludwig Reisch found a non-Mousterian flake assemblage in Laconia associatedwith a raised beach level that may belong to the lastinterglacial (ca. 125,000 B.P.) or earlier, and in east-ern Thessaly, where my colleagues and I identifiedsix sites with a chopper/flake tool industry near Larisaand the village of Megalo Monastiri.46 The Thes-salian site near the village of Rodia (fig. 2), north ofLarisa, can be dated by its geologic context to approxi-

43Stringer et al. (supra n. 34).44E.S. Higgs, "AHand Axe from Greece,"Antiquity38(1964) 54-55.45E.g., E. Sarantea, Hpoi'orop2cd Evp4para a aq;Aprdrlq EvBoiaq (Athens 1986);A. Andreikos, OQKartOrepeq

,arazoudauKdStAdorexvieSu~AVrwiKqweipovwaIroyvoviov(Athens 1993);Poulianos (supra n. 14).46Reisch 1980 and 1982 (supra n. 18);C. Runnels andT.H.vanAndel,"TheLowerand MiddlePaleolithicof Thes-saly,Greece,"JFA 0 (1993) 299-317.


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INCcM:

................~ ~ ~ : :! ii'i !: :; _iiiiiii~iiiii'i~iiiii i

Fig.3. EarlyPalaeolithic artifacts from findspot 30 (Rodia) in Thessaly.Typicalnotched pieces are visible onthe left and right. The raw material is massive quartz or fine-grained quartzite.mately 300-400,000 B.P.The distinctive chopper/flaketools belong to a pebble tool tradition where quartzpebbles were flaked to produce large, simple bifacialcores (classified as choppers or chopping tools) andflakes. The cores are flaked along one side to forma long cutting edge. The technique of prepared flakeremovals from flat cores, which is called the Leval-lois technique, is absent. This technique, commonin Middle Palaeolithic industries, is rare in chopper/flake tool traditions. The Thessalian cores wereworked instead by direct hard hammer percussion.The resulting flakes were typically retouched on theedges, and often more than one edge has been modi-fied to create scrapers, piercing tools, and knives(fig. 3). The characteristic feature of the industry isthe frequent occurrence of large notches manufac-tured by the removal of a single flake by direct per-cussion (the so-called Clactonian technique). Thesenotches may occur singly or be grouped on a flaketo create a denticulate. No complete handaxes haveyet been found with this industry, but some frag-mentary bifacial pieces could be from handaxes. TheThessalian pebble tool complex has similarities with

the Clactonian industry, which belongs, like theAcheulean, to the Lower Palaeolithic in Europe.In Epirus a number of Lower Palaeolithic siteshave been identified in the course of a jointAmerican-Greek survey of the Nome of Preveza. Ahandaxe and other artifacts were discovered in a se-cure geologic context at the site of Kokkinopilos nearPreveza.47The handaxe is a pointed type occurringthroughout Europe in the late Acheulean and notunknown in the early Middle Palaeolithic (fig. 4).It, and associated artifacts, are made from flintcobbles rather than quartz pebbles. Other sites inthe Preveza survey produced chopper/flake toolsusing techniques similar to the Clactonian, and itis probable that both Acheulean and chopper/flakeindustries are present in western Greece.Many reports of possible Lower Palaeolithic arti-facts from other parts of Greece were made at theFirst Palaeolithic Conference in Ioannina, and it iscertain that new finds will follow.48 The increasedrate of discovery of Lower Palaeolithic sites has beenmade possible by our growing understanding of Pleis-tocene deposits and their associated geologic fea-

47Runnels et al.,"HumanSettlement and Landscape inthe PrevezaRegion, Epirus, in the Pleistocene and EarlyHolocene,"in Bailey et al. (supra n. 23); C. Runnels andTH. van Andel, "AHandaxe from Kokkinopilos, Epirus,and Its Implications for the Paleolithic of Greece,"JFA0(1993) 191-203.48 There are manyreportsof poorly dated chance findsin Bailey et al. (supra n. 23), but they are an indicationthat the rate of discovery and reporting is increasing.Kourtessi-Philippakisreports a possible stone tool froma geologic context n Corfuthatcould be asmuchas750,000

B.P. n age. The implement is an isolated find, and evenif it is not intrusive,or a naturallyfracturedstone, the dat-ing of the context, which is based on palaeomagnetism,remainsopen to question. In lightof theEarlyPalaeolithicartifactsdiscoveredon the mainlandopposite Corfu,how-ever, urther research on Corfushould be encouraged:seeG.Kourtessi-Philippakis, Lesplus anciennes occupationshumainesdansle territoire piroteet aux confinsde l'Illyriemeridionale,' in P.Cabanes ed., L'fllyriemeridionaleet l'Epiredans 1'antiquiteII (Paris 1993) 11-16.


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--?:-: : -- ..: _~i::::i:i::-: ::::iiii::i,::::._:-:::~::;.: :--~;_:s--~:_-_I---i--i-i-I

'ai~_4_~--__--_l:--i-_I-~~____~~~s: -- :~i-_-:ii_---i -:i~LI,~~?t.B ,-:i??ii:.:'::::ilii---i-i?:_--_:-_- I

: ~:~:~~~_~~_~~-:;-:--:i-:?-:::_-eFi:;:---~iiiii-i-ii-:i~: ;i?zi;izi?i-ii-iiii:iai:-:iii~~iiiiii-:i?:iiiii;:i;iiili:ii:iiiiiii-i:iiiiiiii~i-ii:i-i_:-si:iiii:i:.i:i:ii-ii-iiiii:-i_:i:ii-i-:-: -: :: i: : ?i--i?-i-iisii~iii:iii~-i::i-:-_:iD--ii:i_-_-~:___-~-~~--I-i:::I~:`'I------_:-_:-__-B::::::::-:::::----- :,:::::: ~----__~~--:i-a:-I?s----_:-~~~:~_l~i~ii--~---;

j -.. ........:: *: -_ii.---:~.:: --I. ::--i_-I-i-I: .;..:i-i:i;iiii..- iiiii. i.::_-.. : ::-: -! .:~-~:. ;. i: : :::- ~-i~ii ~ :. ': :-?_~::~:,;,~jl? ~i-~~s;:~,-~r:~::----j---l~~l--~----_~,:_'::::-::::: --i-::-:-:i::;::_-:_,::--:i-:iii,_i;----i:-:

:: ::: -~-_~B~---i?-:IIJI:I jlii-iiiii--~-i~-~i~~j~iij-ii?ii;iii-- -Ix-iiiii:ii-i::ii- . -,:::::-::::. : -: -:-:-:ii~i-i.---ii-i.-i:i?iiiiii?:::--:_::i-ii-iiii~iii:iiiiii:i:i::i.:i:

C:.-::::::::::::::::-::-r::;iii_-i:-:?:-~-:-ii-;i~;-ii-ii::::~;~i~~~~i:~;2:~ri:i~P--:-;s~~i~i~~_Fig.4. EarlyPalaeolithic handaxe (biface) from Kokkinopilos, Epirus. (PhotoJ.R.Wiseman)

tures, permitting us to pinpoint the places wherearchaeological materials of a particular age are likelyto be best preserved, and by the growing numberof regional surveys that include specialists trainedin the recognition of Palaeolithic artifacts.The limited array of Early Palaeolithic finds canonly be interpreted with caution because they arewidely scattered in space and time and any conclu-sions are certain to require major modifications asnew finds appear. Nevertheless it is possible to drawa few simple inferences. There is as yet no evidencefor humans in Greece before 400,000 B.P., and thisfact supports those who postulate a late entry of hu-mans into Europe. It is always difficult to base anargument on negative evidence, and we cannot ruleout an earlier human presence that may have beensmall, tentative, and short-lived, leaving few traces.If humans entered Greece and the rest of Europerelatively late in the Pleistocene, it is likely that theseearly humans were not Homo erectus but were anarchaic form of Homosapiens. Once humans were es-tablished in Greece, they appear to have left morethan one lithic industry. In Thessaly we see achopperlflake tool industry, made chiefly from quartzpebbles, and evidently without handaxes. In Epirusthere are materials belonging to a chopper/flake tooltradition, but there are also handaxes and other arti-

facts that may belong to the Acheulean. There is noth-ing unusual about finding chopper and handaxe in-dustries in close proximity, and both traditions arewidely attested throughout Europe. A recent sum-mary has evaluated the different hypotheses that ac-count for these two traditions and found that therecan be no definite conclusion made at this time,but some evidence suggests that two industries,the Acheulean and Clactonian, are at least partlycontemporary.49

Early human sites show a marked preference forthe availability of water. In Epirus, sites are closelyconnected with karstic features such as poljes, whichare depressions created by tectonic faulting that be-come plugged with erosional sediments and fill withwater on a seasonal basis to form swamps or shallowlakes.50 The Thessalian landscape is not karstic, andsites are situated instead on the interfluves betweenthe channels of a braided river system.5' This distri-bution of sites suggests a pattern of foraging thathad a seasonal basis. Larger base camps or aggre-gation sites may exist on the now submerged coastalplains, and early humans probably moved to theinterior only in the spring and summer when melt-ing snow filled the lakes and rivers with water. Thepresence of water and new vegetation attracted ani-mals to the lakes and rivers, providing the hunters

49N. Ashton et al.,"Contemporaneity f Clactonian andAcheulian Flint Industries at Barnham, Suffolk,"Antiquity68 (1994) 585-89.50Runnels and van Andel (supra n. 47).51 Runnels and van Andel (supra n. 46).


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 711with concentrated and predictable resources. Campson the banks of the river channels or the marginsof lakes were ephemeral working sites where raw ma-terials were worked to produce weapons and toolsfor processing animal and plant food. This is thereason for the many cores and retouched tools stillto be found in these places. The small number ofsites makes further interpretation very risky. Thedestruction of sites and the dispersal of artifacts havecertainly removed large portions of the record. Onelast observation is possible. Even if we allow for post-depositional disturbance and destruction of sites,the quantity of artifacts found on the surviving sitesis very small when compared with the concentrationsof thousands of handaxes and other artifacts on sitesin Africa or the Near East. The poverty of the Greeksites may be in part a function of the relative brevityof the Greek Palaeolithic, a period of 0.3 millionyears versus 1.6 million years in Africa, and the pos-sibility that we have mainly the seasonal huntingstands of highly mobile foragers.The later Early Palaeolithic (100,000-30,000 B.P.),also known as the Middle Palaeolithic in traditionalterms, produced much evidence of human activity.The Middle Palaeolithic is marked by the flake toolindustry called the Mousterian (after a French typesite), and the Mousterian is found from westernEurope in a continuous band through the Balkansto the Near East and beyond.52 The Greek Mouste-rian is sometimes found with a few small handaxes,and usually contains large numbers of scrapers,points, and other tools. The use of cores preparedin the Levallois fashion in order to remove large flatflakes for blanks that will be retouched to createdifferent tool types is the most conspicuous fea-ture of the industry. Another feature of the GreekMousterian is the presence of distinctive bifaciallyflaked foliates ("leafpoints") made by direct percus-sion on large flakes (fig. 5).53The chronology of theMiddle Palaeolithic in Greece is uncertain. The be-ginning of the period is marked by the transitionfrom the Acheulean to the Mousterian, which ispoorly understood and nowhere well dated. Someauthorities believe that the "transition" is more a

Fig.5. EarlyPalaeolithicbifacial foliate ("leafpoint")romGalatas,Epirus. (Photo M. Hamilton)product of archaeological classification than a realboundary. It is clear in any case that flake tool in-dustries of broadly Mousterian character are alreadypresent in the Near East as early as 200,000 B.P.,andsomewhat later in some parts of western Europe.54The earliest Mousterian in Greece is considerablylater than that from neighboring regions. A thermo-luminescence determination of ca. 100,000 B.P. forthe Mousterian industry in the lowest levels of thestratified sequence from the Asprochaliko Cave inEpirus suggests that the Mousterian was establishedin Greece only after the last interglacial.55 Otherdates for the Greek Mousterian are younger. An insitu Mousterian site in the southern Argolid was

52Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 143-77."5See Runnels (supra n. 13) for a listing of bifacial foli-ates in Greece.54See Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 143-77; R.Grin, P. Mellars, and H. Laville, "ESR Chronology of a100,000-YearArchaeological Sequence at Pech de l'Aze II,France,"Antiquity65 (1991) 544-51, have the late Acheuleanat ca. 190,000 B.P.;J.L. Bischoff et al., "Uranium-seriesIsochron Datingof ElCastilloCave Cantabria,Spain):The'Acheulean'I'Mousterian' Question," JAS 19 (1992) 49-62

place the boundary between 100,000and 200,000B.P.Seealso Mercier and Valladas (supra n. 30) and Schwarcz (supran. 30).55J.Huxtable et al., "ThermoluminescenceDates andNew Analysis of the Early Mousterian from Asprochaliko,"CurrAnthr33 (1992) 109-14; G. Bailey, V. Papaconstanti-nou, and D. Sturdy,"Asprochalikoand Kokkinopilos:TLDating and Reinterpretationof Middle Palaeolithic Sitesin Epirus, North-west Greece,"CambridgeArchaeologicalJour-nal 2 (1992) 136-44.


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712 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99dated to ca. 52,000 B.P.by a uranium/thorium (U/Th)assay of pedogenic calcium carbonate crusts thatcovered the artifacts.56 Mousterian sites in Thessalyare stratified in deposits being exposed by the down-cutting of the Peneios river and are bracketed byradiocarbon and U/Th dates that range from ca.45,000 to 30,000 B.P.57The Mousterian vanishes fromthe Greek record before 30,000 B.P., as it doesthroughout Europe.Who was responsible for the Mousterian in Europeand Greece? For decades it was thought that theMousterian people were Neanderthals, but this com-fortable assumption has been destroyed by recentevidence from Israel and France showing that re-mains of modern Homosapiens are found with Mous-terian tools and Neanderthals with tools of UpperPalaeolithic type.58 It is difficult to determine theidentity of the stone tool makers as few fossil hom-inids have been found in direct association with tools.In the absence of such associations in Greece, theidentity of the Mousterian people must be a matterof speculation. There are sufficient finds, however,of Neanderthals with Mousterian sites in Europe andIsrael to make the association between the two themost probable hypothesis, and in this paper I willassume that the Greek Mousterian was produced byNeanderthals.5"' The location and dating of the ori-gins of the Neanderthals is also a mystery, but thepresent consensus is that Neanderthals are derivedfrom European populations of archaic Homosapiens(or perhaps Homoheidelbergensis)epresented by fossilssuch as Petralona, Steinheim, Swanscombe, andArago."o Some authorities accept a controversialdate for a Neanderthal in Israel of 220,000 B.P.,butothers place the first appearance of Neanderthalsmuch later, between 160,000 and 125,000 B.P.61When did Neanderthals enter Greece? The evidencefrom Asprochaliko shows that the Mousterian wasalready present early in the last glacial, and thecoincidence of the appearance of the Mousterianin Greece and the Near East has suggested to somescholars that Neanderthals may have taken refugein the Mediterranean region to escape severe gla-cial conditions in Europe.62If this hypothesis is cor-

rect, parts of central and northern Europe were inter-mittently abandoned by Neanderthals who movedsouth after ca. 60,000 B.P.,pushing into Spain, Italy,Greece, Turkey, and perhaps to the Near East.63An early glacial migration of Neanderthals intoGreece explains the otherwise puzzling abundanceof Middle Palaeolithic sites in Greece, which marka horizon of intense activity between 100,000 and30,000 B.P. European Neanderthals were attractedno doubt by the vast coastal plains on the continentalshelf exposed by lower sea levels. The broad plainsavailable around Greece were not simple extensionsof existing environments, but were habitats that haveentirely vanished from the present-day Mediter-ranean. They were areas of low-lying land with a rela-tively mild climate during glacial winters. Free fromsnow, and with abundant water, they provided refugesfor trees and other plants and supported herds ofgrazing animals.64 The Neanderthals would have fre-quented these plains in glacial winters and wouldpenetrate the interior during the spring and sum-mer when melting snow supplied lakes and riverswith water and the new vegetation attracted largeherbivores. The rivers and lakes would have beenespecially attractive in the high summer and earlyfall as surface water dwindled, and remaining watersources served to concentrate plant and animal re-sources, which the Neanderthals no doubt found tobe predictable and dependable as they made theirway down to winter encampments on the coastalplain.The distribution of Mousterian sites in Greece re-veals the importance of water to the Neanderthals.The greatest concentrations of sites are located alongthe Peneios River in Thessaly, the rivers and numer-ous lakes of southern Epirus, and the Alpheios andPeneios rivers in Elis. Sites are rare in the arid landsof central Greece and the eastern Peloponnese, atleast in those areas that have been searched in areasonably systematic manner. In the dry interiorvalley of Berbati, a Swedish-American survey iden-tified only one certain Middle Palaeolithic site andno more than a dozen stone tools in an area of60 km2.65 In the arid southern Argolid an intensive

56Jamesonet al. (supra n. 2) 326-35.7 Runnels (supra n. 13);Runnelsand vanAndel (supran. 46).- Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 195-217.5.,For a summaryof evidence for Neanderthal associa-tions with the Mousterian, see Harrold (supra n. 33).6oStringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 64-69.(31 ee Mercier and Valladas(supra n. 30) for an earlydating of Neanderthals.

62Huxtable et al. (supra n. 55).63Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 143-77.64J.C.Shackleton et al.,"CoastalPaleogeographyof theCentralandWesternMediterraneanduringtheLast125,000Yearsand Its Archaeological Implications,"JFA11 (1984)307-14;T.H.vanAndel,"LateQuaternarySea-levelChangesand Archaeology,"Antiquity63 (1989) 733-45.65B. Wells et al., "The Berbati-LimnesArchaeologicalSurvey:The 1988 Season,"OpAth18 (1990) 207-38.


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 713American survey produced no more than five sitesand a few dozen artifacts in an area of 250 km2.66By way of contrast, more than 30 sites with hundredsof stone tools were discovered along one small seg-ment (8 km) of the Peneios River in Thessaly.67Epirus offers a very clear illustration of the connec-tion between Middle Palaeolithic sites and water.Sitesare very numerous in the region west of a line fromIoannina to Preveza down to the Ionian Sea. Thisarea has perennial streams and rivers and is dottedwith lakes, many of which are filled karstic poljes.Mousterian sites are found here in abundance. Thesite of Kokkinopilos alone yielded 5,000 artifacts toHiggs's collecting teams, and thousands more haveeroded from the site in the intervening years. Mysurvey of the district of Preveza added as many as20 findspots to those discovered by Higgs and hiscolleagues farther north. Some of these findspotsare as rich as Kokkinopilos. Alonaki, near the mouthof the Acheron River, is littered with artifacts overan area of more than a square kilometer. More than150,000 stone tools were counted on the surface atAlonaki, chiefly belonging to the Early Palaeolithicor the early Upper Palaeolithic. This figure servesas a useful contrast with the paucity of lithics fromthe Argolid.6"The association of Mousterian sites with water sug-gests that the Neanderthals used more planning andscheduling than is sometimes thought. Stringerand Gamble have assembled the evidence for theunplanned and unstructured foraging activities ofNeanderthals, butJameson and his colleagues con-tend that late Mousterian sites in the southernArgolid show some evidence of logistical or strate-gic planning.6' They point to the pattern of smallsites distributed around Franchthi Cave, which theypostulate was a base camp, or at least a home basethat supported the smaller satellite foraging and sup-ply sites discovered by their survey, some of whichwere located near supplies of flint and water, whileothers were located at strategic points in the land-scape suitable for hunting stands. The excavationsin Franchthi did not penetrate below the UpperPalaeolithic layers, and the evidence for the Mous-terian consists of a dozen artifacts that appear to

have been "kicked-up" from lower levels, and as aconsequence the hypothesis that this was a basecamp remains unconfirmed.70 The still unpublishedKephalari Cave near Argos has a long sequence oflayers rich in Mousterian and is a better candidatefor a home base, perhaps serving the entire Argo-lid.71 A distinct pattern in the distribution of Palaeo-lithic finds was identified in the Argolid and Berbatisurveys. Assuming that Franchthi and Kephalariserved as base camps, specialized flintworking campsand hunting stands are located at less than a day'swalk from each cave. Isolated finds of spearpointsand similar artifacts that probably represent hunt-ing losses are found at distances requiring more thana day's walk from the base camp, often at elevationsof 700 or 1,000 m.72 This three-level distribution pat-tern is suggestive of logistical foraging activitycentered upon a base camp.The concentration of Mousterian artifacts nearseasonal lakes in southern Epirus also offers evidenceof logistical planning in the Middle Palaeolithic. Thelarge numbers of artifacts at sites where water, flint,and other resources were concentrated suggest re-peated visits by small numbers of Neanderthals overlarge periods of time. The repetitive seasonal useof the same sites along the line of movement fromthe interior hills to the coastal plains is a form oflogistical foraging normally thought to have beenintroduced in the Upper Palaeolithic by modernHomosapiens.Here too, however, the hypothetical basecamps are missing. The excavations by Higgs inAsprochaliko demonstrated that this shelter was toosmall, and the deposits too shallow, to qualify as abase camp, and we must look again to the vanishedcoastal plains as the most likely place to find thehome bases.73

If the timing of the Neanderthal origins and theirentry into Greece is open to question, the ultimatefate of the Neanderthals is even more puzzling. Theonly excavated sites where the transition from theMiddle to the Upper Palaeolithic can be traced re-main unpublished, but the preliminary reports sug-gest that there is an apparent hiatus between thelatest Middle Palaeolithic and the earliest UpperPalaeolithic. Kephalari Cave may preserve evidence

?66Jamesonet al. (supra n. 2) 326-35.67Runnels and van Andel (supra n. 46).68Runnels et al. (supra n. 47). See also Higgs and Vita-Finzi (supra n. 15) to gain an idea of the richness of theEpirote sites.6'Stringer and Gamble (supra n. 31) 143-77; Jamesonet al. (supra n. 2) 326-35.

70 Perlbs (supra n. 13) 49-51.71Reisch 1980 (supra n. 18).72Isolated finds of Mousterian tools at high interior ele-vations are documented in Wells et al. (supra n. 65) andJameson et al. (supra n. 2) 329.73See discussion in Bailey (supra n. 22).


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714 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99of the transition, but the layers in question are thinand have very few artifacts, a difficulty complicatedby a lack of dates for the sequence and full publi-cation. In Thessaly the latest Middle Palaeolithic sitesare associated with a dated stratigraphic sequence.The recent investigations of these sites demonstratethat they overlap in time the earliest Upper Palaeo-lithic Aurignacian industry in the Balkans, and showevidence of what is called acculturation.74 Thespecific Aurignacian elements are blades, often re-touched along one edge, burins, and a variety of endscrapers made on small flakes. These tool types arefound with Mousterian sidescrapers and Levalloisflakes on the same site, and are made of the sameraw materials. The presence of typical Mousterianartifacts and tool types usually associated with theAurignacian on the same sites in Thessaly is inter-preted as evidence for cultural borrowings by lateNeanderthals who had some kind of contact withmodern humans. The most significant feature of theThessalian sites is that they disappear from the recordbefore 30,000 B.P., and after this time there are nomore Mousterian sites anywhere in Greece or therest of Europe.75 In Greece the Mousterian is notimmediately replaced by Upper Palaeolithic, andlarge areas of Thessaly, the Peloponnese, and Epirusappear to have been uninhabited or infrequentlyvisited for several millennia. I believe that this is evi-dence for the disappearance of the Neanderthals,whose home ranges were not immediately taken overby modern humans. There is at present no consensuson the fate of the Neanderthals, but it is widely ac-cepted that they were replaced by modern humanswho migrated from the Near East through theBalkans into western Europe between 40,000 and30,000 B.P.One curious and unexplained phenomenon is whyMiddle Palaeolithic sites appear to be concentratedin the west, chiefly in Epirus, while Thessaly and thePeloponnese were only occupied by Mousterianpeople for a short interval at the end of the period(ca. 45,000-30,000 B.P.).One explanation may be thatNeanderthals were displaced from Epirus as Aurig-nacian peoples spread down from the central Balkans

into northwestern Greece. Another, perhaps related,possibility is that the movement of Mousterianpeople south into the interior was encouraged bythe reduction in size of the northwestern coastalplains in the period 45,000-30,000 B.P. when the cli-mate was often warmer.76The Upper PalaeolithicGreece was sparsely occupied in the millennia fol-lowing the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Theearliest Upper Palaeolithic culture in Europe, theAurignacian (ca. 40,000-25,000 B.P.), s extremely rarein Greece. The Aurignacian industry is based onblades (sensustricto)with many carinated end scrapersand burins, and, where preservation is good, distinc-tive bone points with split bases. It is an industrythat can be distinguished from the Mousterian, al-though in Greece it appears to be everywhere mixedwith Mousterian elements, such as sidescrapers andLevallois flakes.77The Aurignacian may be presentin the lowest Upper Palaeolithic layers at FranchthiCave and Kephalari Cave, but it is in such small quan-tities that its very identification is open to question.There are two surface sites in Achaia that may beAurignacian, as is the recently discovered open-airsite of Spilaion in Epirus (fig. 6).T8The scarcity of stratified and dated sites requiresan explanation. It is possible that the expansion ofthe Aurignacian coincided with a relatively warminterstadial phase when Greece's coastal plains con-tracted, or the Aurignacian people were few innumber and could concentrate on areas with richand dependable resources with no pressure to oc-cupy districts of marginal productivity.Evidence of wider occupation in Greece comesonly after the Aurignacian, sometime after 25,000B.P. The coincidence of the expansion of UpperPalaeolithic occupation with the beginning of thelast major cold phase of the glacial period draws at-tention once more to the coastal plains, whichreached their greatest extent ca. 20,000 to 18,000 B.P.The new archaeological cultures are known asGravettian or Epigravettian and are characterizedby an abundance of small blades, many of which are

74See discussion in Runnels (supra n. 13).75Forthe end of the Middle Palaeolithic in Greece,seeRunnels (supra n. 13).76PriscillaMurray s credited with the suggestion thatthe late dispersal of Middle Palaeolithic sites in Greececould be the result of the displacement of Neanderthalsby the makers of the Aurignacian. See Mellars(supra n.29) for possible movements of Aurignacianpeoples in theBalkans.

77Runnels (supra n. 13).78See Mellars(supra n. 29) for the Aurignacian.Aurig-nacian sites in Achaia are described by A. Darlas, "HO~ptv1lcKa tIOortXviaouEatoopiou AXataq,"ArchEph 128(1989) 137-59; see Runnels (supra n. 13) for a summaryof the GreekAurignacian.A newAurignaciansite wasdis-covered in 1992 at Spilaion, near Preveza,Epirus,as partof the Nikopolis Survey(Runnelset al. [supran. 47]), butit has not yet been studied in detail.


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 715. . . . . i i i i i i . i . i . i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i i i i i i i i . i .i TH AC.....Viii i ,,,:,,

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no more than 1 or 2 cm in length. These "bladelets"have been steeply retouched along one or both edgesto form small points, and these "backed" bladeletswere mounted in the grooves of wooden, bone, orantler points to create spears and arrows.7' Theother tool types in these industries reflect the em-phasis on small-scale hunting implements, and in-clude geometric microliths (also used to arm projec-tiles) and a wide variety of steep end scrapers onblades and flakes used to work wood and hides. TheEpigravettian is known almost entirely from cavesites, and appears to be very rarely found on open-air sites.8s Several caves have been excavated, provid-

ing us for the first time with more than one well-stratified and well-dated sample.The most important site is Franchthi Cave, wherethere is a sequence of Palaeolithic deposits rangingfrom 25,000 to 11,000 B.P. The Palaeolithic occupa-tion of the cave was not continuous. Several distinctgaps, or hiatuses, have been detected in the stratifica-tion of the cave representing periods when therewas no deposition of sediments or when sedimentswere eroded away.A large hiatus in the occupationof the cave occurred at the end of the last glacialmaximum between 18,000 and 13,000 B.P.The cave de-posits are nevertheless rich in artifacts. The lithic in-

79G.Baileyreportsthat the microscopic studyof backedbladelets from Klithi showsthat they were used as projec-tile points and hide workingawls: G. Bailey et al., "ActiveTectonicsandLand-useStrategies:APalaeolithicExamplefrom Northwest Greece,"Antiquity67 (1993) 292-312.

80 Bailey et al. (supra n. 15).


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716 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99dustries have been published by Catherine Perles andshe recognizes six distinct lithic phases at Franchthi,which are characterized by fluctuations over timein the frequency of certain common tool types andby changes in the knapping techniques employedto manufacture them."' The chief tool types arebacked bladelets and microliths, the latter typicallysmall geometric tools in the form of triangles andtrapezes that served as inserts in wooden or bonehafts to make knives and points. They were madeby snapping blades into small segments, usually re-touching the margins to give them their final forms.The thick stratification at Franchthi is not the re-sult of continuous habitation, but represents epi-sodes of use by small bands that visited the site ona periodic, seasonal basis. Because the rate of sedi-mentation was very slow in the cold, dry conditionsof the last glacial, the length of these intervals orof the interruptions between them is difficult to com-pute. Nevertheless, the Palaeolithic occupation ofFranchthi is remarkable because of the few signsof change from top to bottom in the sequence. Aftera short phase at the base of the sequence with somepossible Aurignacian, the successive lithic phases rec-ognized by Perles are all dominated by the sametypes, e.g., backed bladelets, end scrapers, and mi-croliths, which vary in percentage and type from onephase to another.8HThe cave is at present directly on the coastline,but it was up to 7 km inland during the last glacialmaximum."8 The rich grazing provided by the vastcoastal plain attracted a diverse fauna, both ungulatesand the predators that preyed upon them. Faunalremains from the excavations include a number oflarge herd ungulates such as bison and ass that arecharacteristic species of the plains, and the excellent,hunting was presumably the chief attraction of thecave. Very few plant remains have survived from

the Palaeolithic levels, but these suggest that plantcollecting playeda relativelysmall role in the econ-omy of the site. Fish and shellfish remains are con-spicuous bytheirrarity,and the sea wasundoubtedlytoo distant to be of much use.84The picture we have is one of a veryconservative,even simple, pattern of exploitation. The picture ofa simple hunting camp is reinforced by the lackof art,ornament,orpermanentburial.A recentstudyof the human remains from the cavereported sevenhuman bones and teeth from Palaeolithic levels atthe site. These were found scattered in the deposits,probably dispersed bycarnivores,rodents, and laterhuman activities at the site. It is interesting to notethe presence of two shed milk teeth in this smallsam-ple, a clear indication that children accompaniedadults at the Franchthi encampment.85A completegroup, including adults and children, is evidencethat the cave served as a base camp at times. Con-sidering that this way of life endured for as muchas 25,000years,we can also saythat it was a success-ful adaptation.We havemore excavated sites for this period thanfor any other. Other sites, both published and un-published, includeTheopetraCave n Thessaly,SeidiCave nBoeotia,KephalariCave n theArgolid,GravaCave in Corfu, and Asprochaliko,Kastritsa, Klithi,and Boila in Epirus.86 With the possible exceptionof the largecavernatKephalari, hese sites aresmall,perhapsbetter classifiedas rocksheltersor overhangsthan caves(fig.7).The majorityof these sites do notshowanyevidence of Upper Palaeolithicoccupationuntil after20,000B.P.Only KephalariandAsprocha-liko haveMiddlePalaeolithiccomponents.Both sitesare unpublished, but preliminary reports suggestthat there is a hiatus at each between the Middleand Upper Palaeolithic.Bailey has recently noted that it is clear from the

"IThe FranchthiCavestratigraphic equence is markedbyanumber of gaps,orunconformities, hatrange n lengthfrom 200 to more than 8,500years.These gapsoccur whendeposits are not being laid down or later erosion has re-moved them. For the Franchthi discontinuities, see W.R.Farrand,"Discontinuity n the StratigraphicRecord:Snap-shots from FranchthiCave,"n P.Goldberg,D.T.Nash, andM.D.Petragliaeds.,FormationrocessesnArchaeologicalon-text Madison 1993)85-96. The lithic phases are discussedin Perles (supra n. 13).82Perl&s supra n. 13).8`T.H.van Andel and S.B.Sutton, LandscapendPeopleoftheFranchthi egionFranchthi,Bloomington1987);Jame-son et al. (supra n. 2) 195-210.84For Franchthi plant remains, see J.M. Hansen, ThePalaeoethnobotanyf FranchthiCave(Franchthi , Blooming-ton 1991).Forshellfish,seeJ.C.Shackleton,MarineMolluscanRemainsfromranchthi ave Franchthi,Bloomington1988).

Forfauna,see S.Payne,"Faunal vidence orEnvironmental/Climatic Change at Franchthi Cave (Southern Argolid,Greece) 25,000 B.P.-5000 B.P.:Preliminary Results," in J.L.Bintliff and W. van Zeist eds., Palaeoclimates,Palaeoenviron-ments,and Human Communitiesin the Eastern MediterraneanRegion in LaterPrehistory(BAR-IS133, Oxford 1982) 133-37.85Cullen (supra n. 36) 274.86The results of these excavations are summarized inKourtessi-Philappakis (supra n. 19); Bailey (supra n. 22);Reisch 1980 (supra n. 18); and Bailey et al. (supra n. 23).Many small test excavations have taken place in caves androck shelters that have been reported in the popular press,but havenotbeen published(e.g.,T Spyropoulos,"Eioaaywyi!61 cilyvC4XnlyVoi KonaitSKoG (cbpou,"AA 6 [1973] 201-14).The descriptions suggest that backed bladelet industriesare the usual finds, and that some late Palaeolithic sitesare yet to be intensively investigated in regions such asBoeotia.


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Fig.7. GravaCave(Corfu),an example of a typical small rock shelter utilized in thelater Upper Palaeolithicscattered state of the evidence and the small sizeandthin deposits at these sites that we are dealing witha small part of the extended range of the humangroups that occupied them.87Ranging over hun-dreds of squarekilometers, from the coastal plainsto the high elevations of the interior mountain val-leys,smallbands of humans utilized extensive tractsof land in a highly specialized version of a logisticalforaging pattern. Klithi Cave in northern Epirusgives the best picture of one of these specializedhunting camps (fig.8).8 The cave was excavatedbe-tween 1983 and 1988,reachingadepthof 2.9mbelowsurface. Ten major stratigraphicunits were recog-nized and have been dated to between 16,000and13,000B.P.The cave was occupied briefly after thelast glacial maximum when the interior mountainvalleys were free of glaciers. Located in the steep-sided valleyof the Voidomatis Riverjust above the

Konitsa plain, this area was probably inaccessiblein the winter because of the snow pack and nearbyglaciers.Visited only in the warmestmonths, it wasused for thespecializedhuntingof chamoisandibex.This is demonstratedbythe bones and horns of theseanimals in the site, which are very numerous. Thehorizontal excavationof the deposits revealed averysmall area that wasoccupied in the cave.The occu-pation debris is nevertheless abundant. There arehundreds of thousandsof tools,manyof them backedbladelets and shoulderedpoints used forprojectilesand end scrapersuseful for making and repairingweaponsandprocessingof meat andhides from ani-mals.Analysisof the abundant stone tools and bonefragments, which show little sign of weathering orabrasion, suggests that the site was occupied onlyinfrequently,and probably by very small groups ofpeople, perhaps no more than 5-10 persons.Klithi

87Bailey (supra n. 22).88Bailey (supran. 22) summarizesthe excavationsand givesa complete list of publications.


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Fig.8. View of Klithi Cave,Epirus.The shallowrockshelter is visible in the center of the photograph,in the side of the gorge cut by the VoidomatisRiver.(Photo G. Bailey)was occupied during a relatively brief period andwas abandoned as soon as there was a significant re-turn to colder, dryer conditions.89The foregoing model of seasonal movement overa large territory was originally proposed by Eric Higgsin the 1960s, and was in turn based on the conceptof Site Catchment Analysis developed by Higgs andClaudio Vita-Finzi. In a series of influential papersHiggs and his colleagues argued for a pattern of sea-sonal movement in the Upper Palaeolithic that insome ways resembled the transhumant pattern ofthe modern Sarakatsani and other pastoralists whomove their flocks of sheep and goats from summerfields in the mountains to winter pasture near thepresent coast.90 Higgs considered the different posi-tions of Kastritsa and Asprochaliko, including their

suitability for summer or winter habitation (basedon mean daytime temperatures in different seasonsas measured by buried thermometers), as indicationsthat these caves were stopping places along a pathof seasonal movement followed by red deer duringthe glacial period. In this model humans closely fol-lowed the herds of deer much as the Sarakatsanifollowed their flocks of sheep. Higgs pointed to theexistence of modern transhumant routes that passedthe caves, more as examples of a similar pattern thanas a claim for the continuity of this behavior.In the 1980s, Geoffrey Bailey and his colleagueschallenged this simple but compelling model, andproposed a subtle but significantly different modelto replace it.9"They noted that the two caves usedby Higgs to construct his model, Kastritsa and

8"Bailey (supra n. 22) 27.90Higgs andVita-Finzi(supran. 15);Higgs et al. (supran. 15).91Bailey (supra n. 22); Bailey et al. (supra n. 79) 302;Bailey et al. (supra n. 15);Bailey et al., "EpirusRevisited:

Seasonality and Inter-site Variationin the Upper Palaeo-lithic of North-WestGreece,"n G.Baileyed.,Hunter-GathererEconomynPrehistory: EuropeanPerspective Cambridge 1983)64-78.


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1995] THE STONE AGE OF GREECE 719Asprochaliko, were very different from each other.Kastritsa was used in a much more intensive man-ner (as measured by the density of artifacts and bonesin the sediments) than Asprochaliko, despite its muchsmaller size. There are also significant differencesin the species of animals available to the inhabitantsof the two caves. They draw attention also to therather careful selection of the small shelters suchas Kastritsa, Asprochaliko, and Klithi, which are onthe margins of areas where the bedrock tends to con-trol the type of vegetation available for browsingherbivores. The pockets of suitable grazing pasturefor the animals are often small and rather circum-scribed by rugged ridges that create topographic bar-riers. From their hidden shelters, just out of sightof the circumscribed areas supporting herds of graz-ing animals, small parties of human hunters wereable to cull their quarry from their preferred habi-tats and to ambush them as they passed through nar-row defiles between one area of grazing and another.This very carefully thought out pattern of foragingwas successful as long as the colder drier climate ofthe last glacial encouraged growth of shrubby vege-tation ideal for the support of large herbivores.In this model, seasonal mobility of animals suchas red deer, horse, cattle, ibex, and chamois is stillassumed and hunters certainly shifted their settle-ments to take advantage of these movements. A differ-ent perspective is offered, however, by the revisedmodel. The hunters do not follow the herds, like mod-ern transhumants, but shift their camps on a seasonalbasis within a very large territory to take maximumadvantage of the circumscribed animal habitats. Theknown sites (Klithi, Kastritsa, and Asprochaliko) arenot the base camps, but seasonal encampments thatare part of a complex and hierarchical settlementpattern that included major base camps, perhapsopen-air sites, on the coastal plains.This well-balanced existence apparently did notinclude the intense ritualistic and artistic activitiesthat are well known from the densely inhabited re-gions of southwestern France and northeasternSpain. Cave art and mobilary art are unknown fromthe Greek Palaeolithic, except for small quantitiesof pierced animal teeth and marine shells that evi-dently served as ornaments.92 Burials are unknown,and the only stratified human remains known are

the scattered finds of teeth and bone fragments inthe Franchthi sediments.93 Perhaps if the putativebase camps and aggregation sites on the coastalplains are located and explored, we shall learn some-thing of the intellectual life of the Palaeolithic people.

The last glacial began to break up by 16,000 B.P.,and by 10,000 B.P.the global climatic conditions thatcharacterize the Holocene were established. Some-time during this period of transition from the Pleisto-cene to the Holocene, most of the Palaeolithic sitesin Greece were abandoned.TheMesolithic

In 1865 SirJohn Lubbock divided prehistory intotwo great periods: the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic.This simple classification was based chiefly on thepredominant type of edged stone tools in commonuse: flaked tools in the Palaeolithic and polished im-plements in the Neolithic.94 Other criteria havebeen added over the years, but the basic classifica-tion has survived. After its introduction an uncon-formity between the two periods was noticed. Whenclimatic and economic factors were added to theother criteria for the definition of the terms, the"Palaeolithic" turns out to correspond to hunters andforagers who lived in the Pleistocene epoch and the"Neolithic" to village farming peoples in the Holo-cene. Excavations in Europe, however, revealed theexistence of foragers who continued to hunt andgather in the early Holocene until they were replacedby Neolithic farmers. Some scholars considered thatthe logic of climatic and economic factors of defini-tion required a separate designation for Holoceneforagers, and the term "Mesolithic" was proposed.95The concept of the "Mesolithic" has been debatedsince its introduction. The term has been retainedby some archaeologists working in Europe, but it haslost ground in other regions. Archaeologists in closelyneighboring areas such as the Balkans or the NearEast sometimes use the term "Epipalaeolithic" insteadof Mesolithic. The term "Epipalaeolithic" suggeststhat this phase is regarded as a continuation of thePalaeolithic into the Holocene, with a hint that itis a kind of Palaeolithic twilight where foragers at-tempted to adjust to the new climatic conditions ofthe present age, and in this sense it is often jus-tified."96Whether "degenerate" or merely "transi-

92For Palaeolithic shell ornaments from Franchthi, seeShackleton (supra n. 84) 49-53; for ornaments made fromanimal teeth, see Higgs et al. (supra n. 15) 24.9 Cullen (supra n. 36) 274 n. 6.94 ir J. Lubbock, Pre-Historic Times (London 1865).95The first use of "Mesolithic" was by the Irish archae-

ologist H. Westropp in 1866: see B. Grdislund, TheBirth ofPrehistoric Chronology Cambridge 1987) 38; and G. Clark,MesolithicPrelude: ThePalaeolithic-Neolithic Transition n OldWorldPrehistory (Edinburgh 1980) 1-7."6Clark (supra n. 95) 4.


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720 CURTIS RUNNELS [AJA 99tional," the Mesolithic is often thought of as the tailend of the Palaeolithic, a slightly uncomfortable termto cover an awkward segment of prehistory that doesnot fit well in the sequence. There have been attemptsin recent years, most notably by Grahame Clark, toreevaluate the Mesolithic and to depict it as a forma-tive era standing apart from the other prehistoricperiods, but this effort has not been altogether suc-cessful.7" Despite these reservations, the evidencefrom Greece suggests that the Mesolithic is a periodstratigraphically, chronologically, and economicallydistinct from the Palaeolithic and Neolithic.The Mesolithic period belongs to the early Holo-cene, an era of rapid changes in global climate asthe result of the change from cold, dry glacial con-ditions to the warmer, wetter regime of the modernclimate. The exact effects of this climatic change onGreece are difficult to measure, because the proxydata used to reconstruct past climates, such as pollenfrom cores, tree rings, and biological remains fromexcavations, are few and far between in Greece forthe late Pleistocene and early Holocene. The gen-eral consensus, however, is that the rise in temper-ature and precipitation encouraged the expansionof arboreal species, chiefly pine and deciduous oak.The change in vegetation was accompanied bychanges in the fauna, with the disappearance of manylarge herbivores and an increase of woodland spe-cies such as red deer and pig. These changes weremore dramatic in coastal areas where marine trans-gression submerged the coastal plains.98Until the 1960s the existence of a Mesolithic periodin Greece was uncertain. Although Perles has demon-strated that the caves explored by Markovits in the1920s and 1930s were probably Mesolithic, Markovits'sfindings were ignored for a long time.9" The firstdefinitive evidence for the Mesolithic came in 1964with the excavations at Sidari in Corfu and in 1967at Franchthi Cave in the Argolid (fig. 9). These twosites are the only Mesolithic sites yet tested by mod-ern excavation methods. In the last five years the pic-ture of the Mesolithic has changed rapidly as theresult of substantial new finds from surface surveys.

It is necessary to review the results of the two exca-vations before turning to the new finds.The FranchthiCaveexcavationswere carried outin four areas within the cave,which were testedwitha series of deep trenches.The long sequenceof Meso-lithic layers,up to 4 m thick in some areas, has beendivided by the excavators nto two phases dated byconventional uncalibrated radiocarbon determina-tions: the Lower Mesolithic (ca.9500-9000 B.P.)andthe Upper Mesolithic(ca.9000-8000 B.P.).Perlesusesthe lithicsto distinguisha thirdphase,the FinalMeso-lithic, but she stresses the essential continuity thatconnects the phases. In this paper, I will considertheUpper MesolithicasincludingPerles'sFinalMeso-lithic.The latest Palaeolithic evels areseparated romthe Lower Mesolithic by a hiatus of approximately300-600 years.""'n addition to the stratigraphicbreakthatseparatesthe Mesolithic fromthe Palaeo-lithic, the Mesolithic at Franchthi has many novelfeatures. The lithic assemblage of the Lower Meso-lithic lacks the geometric microliths and backedbladelets of the Final Palaeolithic and is made upinstead of simple flakes, often with multiple re-touched edges formed by a small nibbling retouch.Notches anddenticulates are the most common tooltypes,and the entire assemblageis remarkablemorefor the manytypes that it does not have than for anydefinite character.Melian obsidian, present in theUpper Palaeolithic, is definitely part of the Meso-lithic assemblage,although very rare (ca. 1%).It isevidence neverthelessof maritime contact with theobsidian sources of Melos. The faunal remains, al-though they havenot been published in detail, alsoreflect a break with the Palaeolithic pattern. Mostof the great herbivoresdisappear and are replacedby red deer with smaller numbers of pig. There ismore evidence of plant collecting in this phase,andcarbonized remains of wild barley,oats, and nutssuch as almonds and pistachios are common. Anincrease in fish bones and changes in the speciesof marine shell reinforce our view that the cave in-habitants had a familiaritywith the sea, albeit withfish found chiefly in coastal lagoons and estuar-

97Clark (supra n. 95) 101-103.' The evidence for the manifold changes in early Holo-cene climate and environment is summarized inJamesonet al. (supra n. 2) 165-68, 194-213, 335-38.-"-'erles (supra n. 7) 120-22.0""The xact length of the Mesolithic period at Franch-thi is unknown, but may be as much as 1,500 radiocarbonyears. Deposition of Mesolithic deposits may have begunas early as 10,500 B.P. in some parts of the cave, but the

generally accepted beginning of the Mesolithic is placedlater, ca. 9500 B.P. For a discussion of the Franchthi chro-nology, see Hansen (supra n. 84) 119-20, 129, 135. Perlks(supra n. 7) 107-15 discusses the differences in lithics fromphase VI (latest Palaeolithic) to phase VII (Lower Meso-lithic). The stratigraph

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