Mesolithic-Neolithic transition

For Mesolithic people, the flux and flow of the cosmos seemed to be a natural and unconsidered axiom of their everyday experience, but new modes of dwelling and thinking at the beginning of the Neolithic led to new cosmological ideas explaining humanity’s place in the world, and vital forces that had once been free-flowing and ubiquitous came to be regarded as specific to particular locations, objects and people. Through examination of the architecture of monuments, portable material culture and the treatment of the dead, I argue that strategic practices of wrapping not only continued but intensified throughout the fourth and third millenniums BC as a way of containing and controlling unpredictable and potentially dangerous powers that were perceived as inherent in transformational processes.

Several years ago we proposed a model for the spread of farming along the eastern Adriatic. According to that model, the spread occurred in two phases, the first of which was marked by a rapid expansion of exploratory groups, and the second by a slower spread of groups of colonists and the creation of farming enclaves. The number of radiocarbon dates for the late Mesolithic and early Neolithic in the eastern Adriatic has since doubled. This paper deals with three issues closely related to the spread of farming in the Adriatic: the modification of our original model prompted by new radiocarbon dates, possible archaeological evidence of Zvelebil's "availability phase" (the earliest phase of the spread of innovations related to the Neolithic), and the origin of Impressed Ware, the earliest pottery style in the Adriatic.

The authors present a new, two-stage model of the spread of farming along the eastern Adriatic coast based on the first appearance of pottery. The initial stage was a very rapid dispersal, perhaps by 'leapfrog colonisation', associated with cave sites in southern Dalmatia. The second stage was a slower agropastoral expansion associated with cave and open-air sites along the northern coast. Migration was a significant factor in the process. The mountainous hinterland formed an agricultural frontier zone, where farming was adopted piecemeal by indigenous groups.

chapter IV. Remains of the Late Mesolithic and the oldest Funnel Beaker Culture settlements were recorded within almost all excavated area of the site 1 at Rzucewo, however with different intensity. Relatively most numerous finds of clay vessels and all the lithics come from trenches located by a fossil beach zone of the lake. Additionally, dispersed pottery fragments in secondary position were found in the upper part of the site. The density of finds in cultural layers was rather low-ca. 1200 fragments of pottery and over 160 flints. Both settlements (Late Mesolithic and FBC) existed in close relations of the lake, nowadays covered by waters of Puck Bay. The end of the coastal lake fall on the period just after 3740 BC as it is indicated by the dendrological dating of wooden posts' construction located in the beach zone of the lake, related to FBC occupation. Just after above date the area was covered by the waters of Littorina Sea. The economy most probably based on exploitation of terrestrial and fresh water environment as it was the case of Dąbki site (Kabaciński et al. 2015). The discussed occupations are examples of a unique type of settlement that developed along the shores of the Baltic during the Vth and in the beginnings of IV millennium BC. Its characteristic feature was highly advanced hunter-gatherer economy allowing optimal exploitation of diversified environment of the littoral zone. The oldest Rzucewo societies maintained intensive cultural contacts with the Late Mesolithic groups living along the Baltic coast. It resulted in similarities in pottery assemblages and in cultural transformations toward the initial stage of the FBC. Rzucewo site is by now the most southeastern site of the FBC Northern Group.

A large and complex lithic collection from Pelješac, a peninsula on the eastern Adriatic seaboard of southern Croatia, provides extensive information about raw materials, formal typology, and technology of flaked stone artifacts from the Early Neolithic up to the Iron Age. Most of the evidence comes from two stratified sites: a cave named Spila and the hillfort of Grad, both located on the Nakovana Plateau. The most conspicuous characteristic of the Nakovana lithic collection is continuity, both in production technology and in the choice of raw material. Changes are manifest in frequencies of lithic artifact classes, rather than in kinds of lithic artifacts. Virtually all lithics are made of cherts imported from the Gargano Peninsula, which testifies to persistent trans-Adriatic connections throughout post-Mesolithic prehistory. Prismatic blades were brought to Nakovana as finished products. They are present from the Early Neolithic, their frequencies peak during the Copper Age, and they disappear from the record soon after the transition to the Bronze Age. An ad hoc flake-production technology is present throughout the sequence, but its importance diminishes as the prismatic blade technology takes over. After the disappearance of prismatic blades, Bronze Age lithic assemblages consist mainly of flakes and expedient flake-based tools. While the Nakovana sites did not yield any Mesolithic finds, comparison with other eastern Adriatic sites indicates that raw material procurement patterns changed radically at the time of the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, which also coincided with the introduction of prismatic blade technology.

Neolithisation of the Republic of North Macedonia is one of the most important issues related to the beginning of the Neolithic on this territory, but also to the wider area of the Balkans, especially its central parts. Unfortunately, although this topic has been opened decades ago to date, there is still no new knowledge about it. Therefore, the paper below is a retrospective of the data thus far on this extremely important process(es) concerning early agricultural communities in the Republic of North Macedonia. For that reason there will probably be only one more attempt to select the more important elements of the story of the earliest Neolithic societies in this part of the Balkans.