Maria Ntinou

Late Pleistocene archaeological and fossil human evidence from Lakonis Cave, Southern Greece

Abstract Current models of interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans and the Middle- Upper Palaeolithic transition are contradictory due to the uncertainties of the dating methods and the lack of diagnostic hominid fossil remains associated with early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages. In the Balkans and southeastern Europe available evidence consists largely of sketchy, fragmentary, ill-dated finds. Greece represents one of the routes by which modern humans may have entered the continent from the Near East. Excavations at the recently discovered cave complex of Lakonis in Southern Greece have documented an extensive record of hominid use from ca. 100–40 kyr (thousands of years ago). The deposits are chiefly assigned to the Middle Palaeolithic and contain extremely rich cultural remains and overlapping hearths. The lithic assemblages exhibit pronounced technological variability, expressed mainly through the Levallois methods of core reduction, and morphological affinities with the Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean sequences. The faunal evidence indicates that hunting was the prime method of animal food acquisition. A Neanderthal tooth associated with Initial Upper Palaeolithic assemblages radiometrically dated to ca. 40 kyr adds to the very small number of taxonomically diagnostic human fossils from early Upper Palaeolithic European contexts. Technological analysis documents a local development of Initial Upper Palaeolithic industries from a Middle Palaeolithic substratum. The latter finds are directly relevant to the current debate regarding Neanderthals and modern humans and indicate that, at least in southern Greece, the makers of early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages were Neanderthals.

Prehistoric exploitation of Grevena highland zones: hunters and herders along the Pindus chain of western Macedonia (Greece)

Abstract The surveys and excavations carried out in the highland zone of the Grevena Pindus Mountains have revealed that the watershed that separates western Macedonia from Epirus was (seasonally) inhabited in different prehistoric times, from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. The highest concentration of ‘sites’ is known from the surroundings of the modern village of Samarina, which is rich in good-quality chert raw material outcrops. This territory is still nowadays heavily exploited by Vlach shepherds who seasonally carry out pastoral activities, moving their flocks from the eastern lowlands up to the high-altitude pastures. The excavations carried out at three different sites, all lying on a flysch substratum, revealed the presence of a redeposited lower sediment, characterized by a polygonal soil caused by ground freezing that was later effected by erosion canals produced by human interference in the landscape. The results so far obtained from a few charcoal radiocarbon dates indicate that this fact took place in at least three different periods from the middle Bronze Age to the seventh century ad.

Finding the early Neolithic in Aegean Thrace : the use of cores

Using a new approach that combines high-quality coring with AMS dating, the authors are mapping the start of the Neolithic in Aegean Thrace – a missing link in the arrival of agriculture in Europe. The method also revealed the edge of the marine transgression dating to some 2900 years ago, implying that sites located near the coast in early Neolithic times have in all likelihood been lost to the sea.

Did Greek colonisation bring olive growing to the north? An integrated archaeobotanical investigation of the spread of Olea europaea in Greece from the 7th to the 1st millennium bc

This paper discusses the distribution of archaeobotanical remains of Olea europaea (olive) across space and through time in mainland Greece and the Aegean from Neolithic to Hellenistic times (7th millennium-1st century bc) in order to explore the history of olive use in the study area. Olive stones and olive charcoal retrieved from prehistoric and historic sites on mainland Greece and the islands offer the basis for a discussion of the context and processes involved in the introduction of olive cultivation to the study area. The olive was nearly absent for most of the Neolithic and only appears in the southern parts of mainland Greece and the islands towards the end of the period. From the Early Bronze Age onwards it becomes increasingly visible in the archaeobotanical record. A possible cause for the introduction and increased presence of the olive during the Bronze Age could have been for oil production for elite use and trade. From the Bronze Age palaces of the 2nd millennium bc to the Hellenistic kingdoms towards the end of the 1st millennium bc, the olive thrived and was introduced northwards to new terrain, more marginal for olive growing than the warm lands of southern Greece. This introduction of olives to the northern Aegean region could be attributed to Greek colonisation and the increase in later times to a gradually increasing need for olive oil, perhaps associated with the emergence of new lifestyles, such as training in gymnasia.