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Aegeus Society For Aegean Prehistory

ARTICLES | 2018

Experimental stone-cutting with the Mycenaean pendulum saw

Antiquity 91.361 (2018): 217-232

The development of an advanced stone-working technology in the Aegean Bronze Age is suggested by the putative Mycenaean pendulum saw. This device seems to have been used to cut through hard sedimentary rock at a number of sites on the Greek mainland and, according to some scholars, also in central Anatolia.

The Palaeolithic record of Greece: A synthesis of the evidence and a research agenda for the future

Quaternary International 466.A (2018): 48-65

The Palaeolithic record of Greece remains highly fragmented and discontinuous in both space and time. Nevertheless, new surveys and excavations, along with the revisiting of known sites or old collections, and the conduction of lithic and faunal laboratory analyses, have altogether enriched the Greek Palaeolithic dataset with important new evidence and novel interpretations.

Cooking plant foods in the northern Aegean: Microbotanical evidence from Neolithic Stavroupoli (Thessaloniki, Greece)

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 140-151

Intensive archaeobotanical research in northern Greece and other circum-Mediterranean regions over the last two decades has demonstrated an extensive spectrum of domestic and wild plants consumed by Neolithic communities. However, macrobotanical remains are seldom associated with the artefact in which they were cooked, and therefore we know the list of ingredients but not what ingredients were cooked together or how were they cooked.

Strong bias towards carcass product processing at Neolithic settlements in northern Greece revealed through absorbed lipid residues of archaeological pottery

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 127-139

The emergence of agriculture in Greece denotes the start of the Neolithic in Europe, however, little is known about dietary practices in the region. Archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological remains indicate reliance on cereals and pulses, together with meat-based subsistence practices, including sheep/goat and pig husbandry.

Neolithic animal domestication as seen from ancient DNA

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 102-107

In recent years, archaeological, archaeozoological and population genetic studies have increasingly converged on a southwest Asian origin for the four Neolithic farm animals: cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. The power of ancient DNA studies lies in the possibility of tracking the genetic traces of major demographic processes, such as domestication itself and subsequent migration, at their spatiotemporal sources.

People and plant entanglements at the dawn of agricultural practice in Greece. An analysis of the Mesolithic and early Neolithic archaeobotanical remains

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 80-101

Investigation of the incipience of agriculture in Greece employing archaeobotanical remains is a challenging field of inquiry, aiming at gaining insights into the complex socio-economic transformations that gradually shaped the way of Neolithic life.

Following their tears: Production and use of plant exudates in the Neolithic of North Aegean and the Balkans

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 68-79

Resinous and tarry materials have been valuable commodities since prehistory as their widespread use for numerous purposes indicates, but remain largely neglected by archaeological research, in part due to their poor preservation and the need for chemical analyses to identify them.

Neolithic woodland management and land-use in south-eastern Europe: The anthracological evidence from Northern Greece and Bulgaria

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 51-67

Wood charcoal (anthracological) remains accumulated in archaeological deposits provide a valuable tool for reconstruction of past local vegetation and its use. They can offer evidence complementary to pollen analysis or be the main source on past vegetation change in areas where no pollen preservation is available.

The rapid spread of early farming from the Aegean into the Balkans via the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean Vegetation Zone

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 24-41

Close examination of the geographic position of Early Neolithic settlements in SE-Europe shows that the oldest sites are almost exclusively situated in some very specific biogeographic areas. These earliest Neolithic settlements are all concentrated in a region that Pavle Cikovac calls the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean (SMA) biogeographic region.

The physical environment in Northern Greece at the advent of the Neolithic

Quaternary International 496 (2018): 14-23

The transition from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene in the Eastern Mediterranean is marked by an abrupt change in sea levels, landforms, ecology and resources. These new geomorphological conditions favored the formation of attractive environmental settings for the early farmers, having at the same time a significant taphonomic impact on the archaeological record of the Late Pleistocene.