Chronology of Greece and South-east Europe in the Final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

Abstract

Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age chronology in Greece remains obscure due to a lack of stratified deposits and radiocarbon dates. In this paper the Greek evidence is considered in the light of typological parallels, stratigraphic sequences, and the larger series of radiocarbon dates available from the south-east European cultures, and a tentative chronology for Greece and south-east Europe is presented. The evidence does not support the earlier notion of an overlap between the Thessalian Rachmani period and the Early Helladic period of southern Greece, but rather suggests that Rachmani is essentially contemporary with the southern Greek Final Neolithic. The Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition in southern Greece shows affinities to Petromagoula in Thessaly and the Bolerdz culture of Europe. Several radiocarbon dates place the Bolerdz period in the early 5th millennium BP, suggesting that dates from FN-EBA transitional contexts in Greece may, in the future, help to fill the existing early 5th millennium gap in the Greek radiocarbon date series.

New 14C evidence for the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition in Southeast Europe

“…This leads to an artificial spreading of the calibrated dates reducing precision and prohibiting discrimination between events that could be dating close to 3300 and events close to 3000 BC, since they all give 2σ calibrated dates generally in the range 3300-3000 cal. BC (Boyadziev, 1995;Johnson, 1999;Maniatis and Papadopoulos, 2011). In order to improve the discrimination within this range, we apply statistical modeling on the eleven dates of the sole phase B using OxCal v 4.1.5 (Bronk Ramsey, 2009, 2010.…”

“…BC, and especially the first half of the 4 th millennium, was altogether very poor in radiocarbon dates (Manning, 1995; Alram- Stern, 1996;Andreou et al, 1996;Treuil et al, 2008). More recently, evidence came up suggesting the existence of an independent, truly transitional phase also in Greece (Adrymi-Sismani, 2007;Johnson, 1999). However, the large deviations in the majority of the available radiocarbon dates, together with the widespread suspicion among the archaeologists, although not always clearly stated, that this gap could be simply (or partly) due to problems in the radiocarbon technique itself, somehow masked the problem.…”

“…BC, but a possible earlier start in some regions is not excluded although cannot be verified due the very large error bars of the particular samples [e.g. Sitagroi IV in Greek Eastern Macedonia (Johnson, 1999)]. …”

Let’s stop speaking “cultures”!

“…The two major "cultural" complexes here are "Rachmani" in Thessaly and "Attica-Kephala" in Southern Greece and the islands. Both of them presumably start in the second half of the 5th millennium BCE and continue for most of the 4th millennium, until the advent of what is commonly taken as the Early Bronze Age (Alram-Stern 1996: 95-101;Andreou et al 1996;Gallis 1996;Johnson 1999;Alram-Stern 2007;Papadimitriou and Tsirtsoni 2010). The only scholar so far in Greece to contest the continuous character of this transition is John Coleman (2000Coleman ( , 2011, who claimed that both these "complexes" ended in fact at the end of the 5th millennium BCE.…”

Creating identities in the mortuary arena of the Greek Final Neolithic: a contextual definition of practices in Central and Southern Greece

“…In Greece, the later stages of the Neolithic spanning from 4500 BC to 3500/3300 BC or 3100 BC (Andreou et al 1996.538;Johnson 1999;Tomkins 2009.127) are rendered by the German archaeologists (in Thessaly) as belonging to a Chalcolithic period (Wace, Thompson 1912;Alram-Stern 1996;, according to the terminology in Asia Minor and the northern Balkan peninsula, while in recent decades, especially for southern Greece, the term 'Final Neolithic' has been used (Phelps 2004.103). The term 'Final Neolithic' (hereafter FN) as used in this paper, was suggested by Colin Renfrew (1972.68-80) to define the character of a cultural horizon of the last Neolithic phases, characterised by relatively homogeneous pottery assemblages in the areas of Attica, Euboea and the north-western Cyclades (the so-called 'AtticaKephala culture', named after the excavation at Kephala (Fig.…”