UDK 903' 12/'15(4/5)"633y'634":575.17; 903' 12T15(4/5)"633/634":574.91 Documenta Praehistorica XXVI The transition to farming in Mediterranean Europe -an indigenous response Mihael Budja Department of Archaeology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia miha.budja@uni-lj.si ABSTRACT - Abstract The transition to farming in Mediterranean Europe is discussed in the contexts of the DSA analysis of nude chromosomes, female mitochondrial genetic gradients, the maritime pioneer colonisation model, the Mediterranean sea voyages in Mesolithic and Neolithic, the 'PPSB Exodus' in Sear East and the colonisation of southeastern Europe. It was argued that the hunters and gatherers at Hipinar. in Franchlhi and Theofyetra caves, at Lapenski Vir and Padina mre capable and ready to serve as a promoters ofagro-pastoraifarming in the course of which these communities could be expected to develop or to adopt and to modify agro-pastoral practices and pottery production and integrate them with existing subsistence strategies. IZMEČEK - Prehod na kmetovanje v sredozemski Evropi obravnavamo v kontekstu DSK analiz moških kromosov in ženskega mitohondrijskega zapisa, morske pionirske kolonizacije, plovbe po Sredozemskem morju v rnezolitiku in neolitiku. "PPSB eksodusa" na Bližnjem vzhodu in kolonizacije jugovzhodne Evrope. Ocenjujemo, da so lovci in nabiralci v llinira(ju), v jamah Franchlhi in Theopei-ra ter na lepenshem I iru in Padini sami razvili ali (hi prevzeli, priredili in nato vključili posamezne dele kmetovanja in lončarstva v obstoječa gospodarstva. KEY WORDS - Mediterranean; transition to farming: demie diffusion: migration; colonisation; DSA analysis INTRODUCTION Despite many years of modern investigation into the transition from mainly hunter-gatherer Mesolithic to predominantly farming Neolithic societies, there remains a major unresolved problem in European prehistory, with the reasons for the transition and manner. rate and mechanism of this transformation all being subject to debate and controversy. The very recent debate still underlines the importance of the issue, which has historical and anthropological, as well as political, implications. Historically, the transition to the Neolithic addresses the origin and constituent elements of the Neolithic and subsequent cultures in Europe. Anthropologically , it addresses the transformation of material cultures, processes of diffusion, interaction and adoption and their recognition in the archaeological record. Politically, it raises the question of European cultural identity, and of the genetic and linguistic roots of most present-day Europeans {Zvelebil 1994(1995). 107). INTERPRETATIVE BACKGROUNDS OF FORAGER FARMER INTERACTIONS Embedded within the problem of the transition to the Neolithic lies die special issue of the mechanism of the spread of farming, which has often been polarised into a debate between the "diffusionists" and "indigenLsts". This aspect of the debate has particularly strong political connotations, as it addresses the relationship between the gene pools, language. material culture and ethnicity of present-day Europeans. Ever since Childe's seminal publication (The 101 MiKacI Bud|a Dawn of European Civilisation), it lias become an established view to regard the adoption of farming in Europe as a case of the replacement of indigenous hunter-gatherers by farmers migrating from the Near East and colonising uncultivated areas in Europe. Using the paradigm of the Neolithic rewlution and diffusionlstic assumptions, which claimed that Europe could not have achieved the transition from nomadic foraging to sedentary fanning. Childe introduce 'oriental vieu " of European cultural development, which also included an evaluation of European Prehistory "as a story of imitation" or"at best an adaptation of Middle Eastern achievements' and hypotheses that Mesolithic microliths in Europe are an expression of the stagnation of groups which were incapable of coming to terms with the difficulties of the natural environment" (Trigger 1980.66-67). A similar minimisation of the meaning of the European Mesolithic can also be recognised much later in other authors who formulated the complex cultural and historical picture of European prehistory. Thus Miiller-Karpe treated Mesolithic cultures as a "a mi-crolithic cultural phenomenon lagging behind in cultural development (MidlerKarpe 1976.19). The diminution of the role played by Mesolithic groups in the neolithisation processes in Europe is still current. It is particularly evident in authors who formulate a holistic image of European prehistory on the basis of a linear cultural development and a succession of periods which linked mobile hunter-gatherer groups with the Mesolithic. and sedentary farmers with the Neolithic. This paradigm still maintains that Mesolithic and Neolithic artefact sets are culturally, chronologically and spatially mutually exclusive. It is interesting to note also that in the context of the humanistic evaluation of the development of European civilisation in the 18'1' century . Rousseau was sceptical about the appearance of agriculture. It w as his view that agriculture was a discovery that caused the first revolution, the civilisation of man. but destroyed humanity (Harris ¡981.3). Unfortunately, the surviving historical records for the relations between foragers and farmers illustrated the destructive examples in the agricultural frontier zone. Mcrodotos, Strabo and Diodorus in 51,1 century BC describe hatred and destruction. The case of the Al-thiopi and Garamanti is instructive. The former, hunters and gatherers living in caves, were hunted and killed in their territory bv the latter, who were farmers (Vend ¡982.662-670). There is some indirect evidence of inter-group and Intra-group violence in European Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlement contexts. First comes from the Groge Ofnet (Fig. 1) and Hohlestein rock-shelters in southern Central Europe where human skulls w ere placed in shallow pits, often described as nets. At Ofnet, 34 skulls were found deposited in two "nests" and. it became clear from the very lieginning that some of the skulls show definite signs of violence, indicating a violent death and beheading inflicted by polished stone axes (Orschiedl 1998. 153,157). The skulls seem to belong to a group deposited in a single event radiocarbon dated between c. (>-t00 and 6150 BC (Hedges et al. 1989.224- 226). At Hohlestein a child and an adult male and female were deposited after being killed anil decapitated as attested by cut marks on the remaining cervical vertebra (Orschiedl ¡998.157; Gronenborn 1999.134135). Fig. 1. Ofnet Skull nest' (After Schulting 1998a. Figure 12.4). Violence in the Early Neolithic has been identified at Vaihingen, a fortified Neolithic settlement, where human bones from disarticulated skeletons in refuse pits were assessed to be more robust that those from ordinary burials in the refilled ditch surrounding the settlement (Krause 1997, online). It was suggested that the sturdier skeletons deposited in the disarticulated burials could be the remains of local hunter-gatherers leading a marginalized life within societies and having no rights to a proper burial (Veil 1993-107-140; Gronenborn 1998). It seems also that the transition to farming in the Le-penski Yir cultural context in the Danube region was not a peaceful process. Evidence of possible violence has been noted in the burial remains and has been 120 The transition lo farming in Mediterranean Europe - an indigetwus response interpreted as resulting from violent confrontations between the indigenous and intrusive populations (Voylek & Tringham, 1990495). although the traces of violence could likewise be explained by internal conflicts (Radovanoiic 1996.42). And we can not avoid the fact that a high proportion of apparent v iolence is reflected in human remains in Lithuania w hich were buried in the period of transition to farming in the Baltic region (Autanaitis 1999.97). These records are not in accordance with Zvelebil's model of forager-farmer interactions, suggesting that in the early phase of forager-farmer contact, cooperation would prevail (Zvelehil I994( 1995). 114-116; 1998. 16-21). It has already been pointed out that in spite of the unavoidable fact that Herodotos and Childe are separated by two and half millennia, their ideological perceptions of farming and foraging societies are very similar (Budja I996a.69-7I). This perception maintains a cultural and ethnic zoning, with farmers linked to a civilised centre and foragers to the barbaric periphery of Eurasia. The frontier between civilisation and barbarism w as defined as an agricultural frontier. The agricultural frontier zone and the genetic palimpsest: the male and female stories Perhaps the most popular version of the agricultural frontier is represented recently in the work of Ammerman and CavaUi-Sforza (1984:1995; 1996). They determine the frontier as an "isochronic line of agricultural expansion in Europe" (Ammerman, Ca-ialli-Sforza 1984.58-62, fig. 4. 5). Using the concepts of demic diffusion" and "wave of advance" they anticipate a slow expansion of people into Europe that is driven by population growth resulting from agricultural surpluses, and either the displacement or absorption of the less numerous hunter-gatherer populations. They hypothesise that the rate of advance of agriculture into Europe is compatible with the estimation that the farmers, not farming, spread (i.e. by demic diffusion as opposed to cultural diffusion), assuming rates of fertility and mobility of early farmers comparable to those observed in ethnographically similar situations. In correspondence with the relocation of the agricultural frontier, shifting at a rate of 1km per year across the continent, demic diffusion is supposed to have had a dramatic effect on the European gene pool. The most important consequence is that the major component of the modern European gene pool derives from Near-Eastern Neolithic farmers rather than in- digenous Mesolithic foragers. In other w ords, the European neolithisation process in the period 75005500 BP w as exclusively the domain of Near-Eastern farmers who were allowed to plant their genes and farming practices across Europe and preserve their ethnic, cultural and social identity. Ammerman and CavaUi-Sforza introduced into archaeology the principle of syntethic genetic maps, geographical maps of lines of equal value of the interpolated principal component values of gene frequencies of modern European populations. The overall topological similarity betw een one of these maps, the map of the first principal component (genetic-landscape of Europe based on the distribution of the first principal component of the frequencies of 95 genes) and an archaeological map of radiocarbon dates of the earliest Neolithic settlement deposits in Europe leads to the conclusion that modern European populations as a "Neolithic package", arrived in Europe at 7500 BP. the beginning of the Neolithic (Ammerman. CavaUi-Sforza 1984: CavaUi-Sforza. Cavalli-Sforza 1995.147-153 f'g 6 l0: CavaUi-Sforza ¡996 53. 57-65. fig. 4.1a). The indigenous hunter-gatherer communities were deleted or absorbed. and their contribution to the subsequent development of the genetic and cultural history of Eu rope was insignificant. However, they believe in the story which was recorded in the genetic pattern produced by DNA from the Y (male) chromosomes (Cavalli-Sforza. Minch 1997.274-251). A different story is found in the pattern of mitochondrial DNA genetic gradients, giving us the female picture. An analysis of five major lineage groups with different internal diversities and divergence times in the European mitochondrial gene pool, which is based on phylogenetic and diversity analysis of the mitochondrial DNA sequence variations in the control region of Europe and the Middle East leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of the great majority of modern, extant lineages entered Europe much earlier, in the Upper Palaeolithic (Richards el at. 1996185-203). On the other hand, geneticists strongly suggest that the spread of agriculture was a substantially "indigenous development. accompanied by only a relatively minor component of contemporary the Middle Eastern agriculturalist". However, they determine the pattern of lineages group (2A) originated in the Middle East and that several different lineages migrated into Europe, dividing into the western (2A-W, halotype 5-4) and central European (2A-C, halotype 52) clusters, but having little impact on the extant lineage. The ances- 121 Mihael Bud|a tral haloty pes of both groups reach hack to Anatolia and the Middle East, implying at least two distinct founding lineages, and it is worth noting that these clusters in Europe do not overlap geographically or chronologically, in spite of being very widespread (Fig. 2). The age of the w estern lineage w as estimated "in minimum age -12 >00 years" and only 6000" years in central and northern Europe, although estimating the dates of origin of the observ ed patterns is admittedly difficult (Richards et al 1996.185-203. Chikhi et al. ¡998.654). The migration of lineages has been linked to the pioneer colonisation model, w hereby there was "selective penetration by fairly-small groups of Middle Eastern agriculturalists of a Europe numerically dominated by the descendants of the original Palaeolithic settlements." (Richards et at 1996.196.197). The very well known Neolithic colonisation routes from the Near East through Europe. one through the Balkans to central Europe, and another across the Mediterranean to the Iberian Peninsula, have also been taken up to correlate the two halotvpe clusters with the process of neolithisa-lion. Halotvpe 52 has to be linked to the genesis of the LBK culture in Central Europe, and halotvpe 54 to the cardial w are cultural complexes of the Mediterranean coastline and Atlantic west. It is suggested, then, that in the 13 millennium BP the small group of middle Eastern farmers (west European lineages) migrated to the Iberian Peninsula. Although having little impact on the extant foraging lineages, they alone initiated the genesis of the w est Mediterranean Neolithic cardial cultural complex and farming economy in the region. This interpretation fits almost perfectly with Zilahao s maritime pioneer colonisation model, which assumed that the spread of the Neolithic around the northern coasts of the Mediterranean had involved not just the circulation of ideas, artefacts and resources hut also people, if we exclude from consideration the calendriacal time as the first variable (ZiUtào 1997.19- 42). Archaeological upgrade: "maritime pioneer colonisation" and "the dual model" The maritime pioneer colonisation model demonstrates that Neolithic farmers and herders reached the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula in the 7ecifically reserv ed cultic areas, there are living quarters which were separated from the rest of the community; there the buildings are bigger, better built and possess w hat can be called status objects." (Or. 10) These objects were linked to an elite group, evidently in control of spiritual and probably other aspects of die community. Dominance in the community is reflected in the rigid order of the settlement organisation, deliberately designed burial houses and in the construction of plaster floors that evidently needed the extensive organisation of labour. The maritime colonisation of Cyprus and Crete in the Aegean archipelago was an isolated process, but if we look for Mediterranean island colonisation broadly contemporary' with that of Crete and Cyprus, examples are found far to the west on Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. Whether the farmers brought their social elite with them or not. Neolithic island colonisation involved not only a conceptual shift from the Mesolithic usage of die sea but also a distinct shift in nautical technology and in the design of boats. It w as hypothesised that the total scale of transportation for a mere 40 human colonists and their accompanying cargo, including grains and animal package was 15 KK)-18900 kg (Broodbank c- Sirasser ¡991. 240). The cargo makes it necessary to imagine a flotilla of 10-15 boats carrying one or two tonnes of cargo each for a relatively small-scale colonisation 125 Mihael B,jd|a Fig. 4. Mediterranean Sea Vojuges and accompanying cargo (after Broodbank & Strasser 1991.240/ including colonists and "Neolithic package (Fig. 4). For the East Mediterranean no evidence has survived, either in the form of actual Neolithic boat remains or artistic representations to indicate the size and nature of the craft that carried farmers and "Neolithic package" on the islands. The earliest rock caning of a longboat on Naxos is dated to the Aegean Cycladic Early Bronze age (Fig. 5) (Cherry 1985.22-23, Fig.2-6). In modelling the process of colonisation. Williamson & Sabath made the important point that human groups are well aware of the demographic instability of small populations. If the colonisation is intentional and voluntary, a decision concerning group size is taken less with a view to the hypothetical minimum that might succeed, than to the larger number of individuals that the colonising society considers will succeed. Deliberate colonists set out in groups that expect to make it. rather than ones that might or even might not be success-fill (cfr. Broodbank & Strasser 1991246). The "safe size" on Crete is speculative, but has been estimated that the basic settlement unit appears to be between -40-200 inhabitants (I.e.). Little is known with any certainty about their behavioural and logistic pat- terns, which hypothetically could have altered the Cretan landscape to the point at which they caused the extinction of the island's endemic fauna (Lax and Strasser 1992.203-224). WhiLst the Neolithic settlement's palimpsests, which are clearly connected w ith the beginnings of farming on Cyprus and Crete, show the movement of farmers, the evidence on Sicily. Sardinia and Corsica, the central and western Mediterranean islands fits far better with the prediction of a long period of acquaintance and experimentation w ith the new resources by the indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherers before farming became the dominant mode of subsistence. A model of the slow transition to farming was originally proposed by M. Zvelebil and P. Rowly-Conwy fifteen years ago (Zvelebil 1990.10-13)1 On Sardinia and Corsica, central and western Mediterranean islands, the spread of agro-pastoral economies and the transition to farming began with the piecemeal introduction of pottery and some domesticates, par- 2 The model distinguish«, an availability phase, when foraging is the principal means of subsistence, and domesticates and cultigens constitute less than 5% of total remains, a substitution phase, when fanning strategies develop, but foraging strategies are retained, and domesticates and cultigens comprise about 5-50",, of total remains; and a consolidation phase, when farming is the principal mode of subsistence and domesticates and cultigens comprise more than 50% of total remains (Zteiebil 199012). 126 The transition lo farming in Mediterranean Europe - an indigetwus response ticularly sheep, and (heir adoption as prestige items of exchange amongst the hunter-fisher-gatherers' social elite, having been acquired through a long-distance exchange network (Halstead 1989.23-5J; Barker 1996. ¡09). In conformity with the "island filter model" it was hypothesised that the paucity of large mammals on the Tyrrhenian islands stimulated the rapid adoption of animal husbandry as the major subsistence strategy before the acceptance of crop cultivation. (Leuthuaite 1990.543-545.547549). On Sicily , a "faunal and floral package without any indication of filtering was identified in the context of an "aceramic occupation phase" in the Uzzo cave on the northwest coast of the island. Costantini pointed out the close chronological concordance and similarity in the appearance of species of cultivated plants in "an aceramic occupation phase" in the Uzzo cave (7910 ±70 BP) on Sicily and the Fran-chthi cave (7980 ± 110 BP) on Peloponnese {Costantini 1989202)*. It is interesting that the only difference documented in both deposits is in the type of wheat cultivated: Triticum monococcum in Uzzo and Triticum dicoccttm in Franchthi. The remainder of the "Neolithic package": Hordeum vulgare and Lens cidinaris. Otis/Copra, Bos taurus and Sttsdo-mesticus was the same. The transition to farming at the l'zzo site is supposed to have been a gradual process, with no marked traumatic changes in subsistence; in other words, there was no change during the Neolithic either in the continuation of marine resource exploitation, or in the gathering of wild plants. The only exception was the appearance of the wild olive and fig (Costantini 1989.202-203: Grifoni Cremonesi 19%. 72). In contrast to the eastern Mediterranean the appearance and distribution of obsidian tools on Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica correlates strictly with the appearance of Cardial pottery and with the expansion of village-based farming. It is interesting that in the central and western Mediterranean, obsidian was not used before the Neolithic, although Tykot hypothesises that the sources must have been known to the hunters and foragers on the Aeolian Islands and. that virtually all obsidian artefacts found in the central and w estern Mediterranean come from sources located on four of those islands: Lipari. Palmarola, Pantelleira and Sardinia (Tykot 1996.46.65). If we accept the idea that obsidian signified social importance and prestige v alues in the context of exchange netw orks and long-distance connections in the eastern Mediterranean even before the Neolithic and the hypothesis of a seafaring farming colonisation from the East, it is extremely surprising that obsidian from Melos should have been found at only a single site in the central and western Mediterranean (O.c. 42). Moreover, we should not overlook the broadly accepted fact that the Aegean and Thyrrenian obsidian distributions have been exclusive from the very beginning (Renfrew 1977.71-90. Perles 1992: Tykot 1996fig. 10). The Sicilian obsidian artefacts were presumed to have originated on Lipari Island. 10 nautical miles Fig. 5. Rock can ing from the site of Korphi t'Aronion in southeast \a.vos. dates to the Early Cycladic period, provides illustration of Mediterranean Sea I'o-vages and accompanying cargo (after Cherry 1985.Figure 2-6> 3 Costantini believed he correlated uncalibraied dates "981 ± 105 bp in Franduhi and "910±70 bp in Uzio (Costantini 1989202; see also the notion in Harris c- Hittman (eds.) l989xxxW-t). However, the correct chronological positions for both deposits anas follows: In lao 7910±70 BP (Grifoni Cremonesi 19%. 72); and in Franchthi: 7980± 110 BP. calibrated to 2o 7210 - c.6500 BC Clacobsen. Farrand l987.Ptate 71; VUeM t993 Table 13). 127 Mihaat Sudja away. Surprisingly, more then 4()0.. of the obsidian artefacts found in the I'zzo cave came from Pantel-leria Island, which is close to the African mainland, almost 60 nautical miles away. Pantelleria is presumed to have been the source of most of the obsidian artefacts found in North Africa, and it is reasonable to suggest a correlation between Pantellerian obsidian distribution and continual sea voyages and the spread of domesticates from the North Africa to Sicily (Tykot ¡996.58-59). On the other hand, the high rate of obsidian artefacts in Uzzo allows us to hypothesise that the farmers from Sicily had direct access to the obsidian source on Pantelleria. and their ow n local production of obsidian tools; that is, there is no straightforward link in principle between the distribution of sources and that of production centres {Pertes 1992.125-130). It must be noted that the local, Sicilian domestication of cattle and pig was recently confirmed (Grifoni Cremonesi 1996.73: cfr. Bokottyi ¡988-1989371-385). It fits perfectly with Bokonyi's evaluation that "...complete Neolithic domestic fauna containing all five domestic species appeared in southeast Europe some 500 years earlier, around 8500 years ago..." than in southeast Asia (Bokdnyi 1994.393). The "PPNB Exodus" in Near East and the Colonisation of South-eastern Europe In tracing the transition to farming at the regional and continental level it is broadly accepted that the Peloponnese and the tip of the Balkan Peninsula constitutes the contact zone between south eastern Europe. Anatolia and the Middle East. And. there seems to be broad agreement that in this zone, whether through demic diffusion or migration, farmers entered primarily into the Europe. Although it has become an established view to regard the adoption of farming in Europe as a case of colonisation, an increasing number of "indigenists" have been arguing for the local adoption of farming by local hunter-gatherer communities throughout Europe or in most of its regions. The diminution of the role played by hunter-gatherer groups is still current mainly because of the assumption that the contact zone was almost uninhabited in the early Holocene. This lack of an indigenist component has been applied to show that empty and therefore uncontested landscape w as av ailable to .Anatolian settlers. It is worth remembering the taphonomic filter - the lack of research thorough enough to justify the inference that the zone was actually uninhabited (An-dreou, Fotiadis, Kotsakis 1996.596-597). However, the neolithisation of the contact zone wis described as "a fully exogenous process" linked to the "PPNB exodus" in the Near East (Perlés ¡994. 646-649). A new model of demic diffusion into Europe has recently been published by van Andel and Runnels (¡995.481-500). The model was based on four basic assumptions: (1) that the Neolithic advance in the southern Balkans proceeded mainly in areas not occupied by an indigenous population: (2) that the migrating farmers preferred to occupy the flood plains of riv ers and lakes, as in the environment in the Konya Basin in central Anatolian; (3) it w as not only population grow th immediately behind the front of "the wave of advance" that drove demic diffusion, but environments - fertile floodplains large enough and av ailable at a considerable distance from each other, supporting populations ultimately large enough to start the next migratory move, and (4) it was the Larissa plain in Thessaly, the only region in Greece that provided a reasonably assured harvest and was large enough for significant population growth. All these assumptions have been already criticised (Andreou. Fotiadis. Kotsakis ¡996.596-597; Wiikie & Satina ¡997. 201-207) the third one the most sharply, as '...their own calculations fail to substantiate the population grow th rates necessary for such a model to operate." (Zvelebil 1998.412). that is to say that, even in the Larissa plain, it took too long, some 1500 years, to reach saturation" and demic diffusion into the nearest floodplains large enough in Macedonia and Thrace. The initial demie diffusion into the Larissa plain has been correlated with the "preeeramic" level in Argissa (Demoule and Perles 1993365366). although a re-examination of the "Preceramic Neolithic" sites in the region clearly shows that the pottery w as found and documented in all the "ace-ramie strata" (BUx-dow ¡991.1-143: Gallis 19%. 61). The concept of an "aceramic Neolithic cultural phase" in Europe similar to those in the Near East was introduced V. Milojfic in the sixties to support idea that all the inventions took place in the Orient and the domesticates and pots came to Europe as part of an already developed tradition. An aceramic phase implies the introduction of farming and herding at the beginning, and the later introduction of pottery as a second influx of influence" (Milojcic 1952. 313-318: 1956.208-210: 1960.320-335). Milojcic identified an aceramic stratum" in Argissa Magoula and his results were soon followed by the identification of a similar phase at other sites in the region, so that in the 'seventies Theocharis could claim five 128 The transition to farming n Mediterranean Europe - an ina^ertous resjxinsy aceramic sites: Argissx Sesklo, Soufli, Achilleion and Gediki (Theocharis 197335) As far as pottery production is concerned, Bloedow believes that there is no evidence available of any incipient experimentation in pottery making in the region, and when pottery containers appear, the technology is already advanced. We have mentioned already that, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but this does not necessarily disprove the idea that at least the knowledge of clay technology came from outside Europe. At the sante time, cultural discontinuity between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers is broadly accepted. On the basis of the standardised production of blades in Argisa, most probably produced by using the complex pressure-flaking method of debitage, it was concluded that there is no argument for the local evolution of lithic production (Peries 1990.130-136; Bloedow 1991.18). And it is almost a matter of course that the complete "Anatolian faunal and floral" package, without anv indication of filtering has been found (Detnoule and Peries 1993362.365-366). However, it is worth remembering that van Andel & Runnels have been dealing with non-representative settlement patterns* and that the settlement tells in the Larissa floodplain were temporary and not permanent, being occupied only outside of the flood seasons. The analy sis of soil history shows that floods in the region were quite frequent during the period of incoming demic diffusion from Anatolia. The choice of site for repeated occupation and the permanence and continuity of that occupation has already been discussed, and doubt about year-round occupation has been shown very clearly (ran Andel etal. 1995131-144; Whittle 1996 49-54). The "pre ceramic levels" on all the sites were thin, with no definite structures other than ditches and pits, and there were sterile layers separating these levels from the Early Neolithic ones. Extrapolation from the radiocarbon dates has suggested a maximum duration of 200 years (Bloedow 1992/9356). Vie would speculate that the initial agriculture was not so intensive as it is hypothesised in the estimation that "...the Thessalian floodplains as floodplains have done elsewhere, offered Neolithic farmers dry dwelling places and much arable land on abandoned levee/channel systems..." (tan Andel & Runnels 1995.490). Our speculation is in complete agreement with the recent work carried out by Willis and Bennett (1994327; Willis 1995.9-24) suggests that the archaeobotanical evidence is recording early farming communities that were small in size, and occupied sites on a short-term basis without a significant impact upon the landscape. The impact of agriculture is not in ev idence until ca (>000 BP. which is not to say that farming did not occur earlier, but that it had a negligible impact on the landscape. AN INDIGENOUS RESPONSE (Fig. 6) Alternative data are still available in the cave deposits in the Theopetra cave in eastern Thessaly. In the Mesolithic deposit, which has been chronologically fixed by seven radiocarbon dates xs ranging from ca. 9780-6700 BC, Horedutn ndgare. Triticum hoe-licum. wild goat, pig and "primitive pottery " have also been found. It should be pointed out that the Mesolithic has been dated for the first time in Thessaly and stratigraphicallv separated from both Neolithic and Paleolithic deposits. Interestingly, the lithic industry does not seem to be typical of the Mesolithic as known from other European or Greek littoral sites. Hie assemblage consists of a large number of flakes but no baked bladelets or geometric micro-liths, and no evidence of the microburin technique (Ay/tarissi-Apostolika 1998.247,249: 1999. 237238). The interpretation of the process of transition to farming in the Argolide on Peloponnese was bxsed on the decoded palimpsest of Mesolithic/Neolithic transition in the Franchthi cave. In contrast to Thessaly, an indigenous hunter-gatherer tradition in flint working techniques is clearly presented (Peries 1990. 135; Detnoule and Peries 1993; 365.368). Pottery appeared beside the complete faunal and floral package in the initial, "aceramic" Neolithic. However, here it is interesting to note that "...the abrupt increase In quantity and varieties of pottery ..." in the following phxse "...points to abrupt change in cultural practices and possibly to a hiatus in site use. (Vitelli 199339). In other words, abrupt changes happened 200 years after the initial introduction of the farming economy and pottery production if Bloedow's (1992 93 56) calculation of the av ailable radiocarbon data is correct. Wild barley, oats and lentils were adopted xs part of the subsistence strategy in the late Palaeolithic. While an increase in the use of both was detected about 9300-9 KM) BP. a "sickle-gloss" on a stone tool that could relate to har- 4 2>8 Neolithic settlements have been identified in the eastern Thessalian plain and both the hilly and mountainous regions sur rounding it. During the Early Neolithic 35-50% of settlements were located in a hilly or mountainous region (Gatlis tW.64). 129 Mihael Bud|¿i Fig. 6. Cluster of indigenous forager's settlements In south-eastern Europe and north-western Anatolia capable and ready to serve as a promotion centres ofagro-pastoral farming in the course ofuhich pro cess these communities could be expected to develop or to adopt and to modify agro-pastoral practices and potter) production and integrate them u ith existing subsistence strategies. vesting was identified after about 8700 BP in botanical zone V, corresponding to the later part of the upper and the final MesoHthic lithic phase from about 9000 BP to 8000 BP as defined by Perles (Hansen 1991.135,161,169; cfr. Perles 1990). The paucity of botanical remains in the Late Mesolithic has been interpreted as a decrease in intensity of occupation of the cave that may have been the results of either a seasonal pattern or periodic longer abandonment. In the following, early Neolithic sequence (i.e. zone VI) an abrupt change in the botanical record was identified. The hypothetical absence of wild oats and barley on the one hand, and the appearance of entrner wheat and two-row hulled barley, along with domestic ovicaprids on the other, have been interpreted as proof of the sudden appearance and external origin of the Neolithic agricultural system at the Franchthi cave and in northern Greece (Hansen 1991.161,169-170.182-183). Whereas a hypothetical discontinuity between the Meso-lithic and the Neolithic is seen in the fact that the wild cereals, oats and barley completely disappear from the botanical record before the appearance of domesticated cereals, while other species previously present, such as lentils, pistachio, almond and pear continue to be exploited. In addition, it was emphasised that "...there is no positive evidence of cultivation prior to the sudden appearance of domesticated emmer wheat and two-row barley." and that the increase in lentil size apparently coincides with these domesticates (O.c. 163). Although the idea of an abrupt change in the botanical record was broadly accepted (Halstead 1996. 299), and the "indigenists" in debate with "diffu-sionists" have already been labelled as "reactionist" (Ozdogan 1997.2), some further thoughts on the restrictions connected with the definition of artefact and ecofacts sets in Franchthi cave should be considered. The taphonomic filter can be traced at the documentary and interpretative levels, primarily in connection with inadequate sampling, (misunderstanding of the formation processes of the deposiLs, and stratigraphic contexts, etc. Hansen herself has pointed out very clearly that the absence of wild oats and barley in the Neolithic botanical sequence "...could be the result of a sampling problem, in that the final sieving and cleaning of the plants to remove the larger weeds may not have taken place in an area that has not been excav ated, or in the Neo- 130 Tr,e I'ansJtion to farrrfig in Mediterranean Europe - a", ndigerous response lithic village on Paralia. where plant remains have not been preserved." (Hansen 1991.142). Sampling and water sieving had been limited to two small excavation units located beside one another (FAS and FAN). We believe that the interpretative relevance is weak beside the unrepresentative sampling pattern mostly because of the exclusive results of the sampled units. Namely, in the FAN interzone V/Vl (i.e. Mesolithic /aceramic Neolithic interzone) "...several units contain both oats and emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum), while in the same interzone FAS the first appearance of emmer wheat is in the unit above that containing the last appearance of oats." (O.c. 24-5. ¡38). Inconsistency in determining the chronological and cultural context of "an abrupt" change is also intriguing. While the abrupt change in the botanical record has been embedded within the discontinuity between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic and linked to the sudden appearance of Neolithic farming and herding, there was no discontinuity in flint working techniques (Perles 1990. 135; Demoule and Perles 1993365). It appears later, parallel with the abrupt change in pottery technology, which was identified 200 years after the initial introduction of the farming economy to the "ceramic" Neolithic (ViteUi 199339; Bloedotr 1992/ 93.56). Changes have more in common with Neolithic open settlements in Thessaly than with Mesolithic Franchthi. The same pictures emerge from the study of marine molluscs from the cave, which exhibit continuity in the mollusc assemblage dominated by Cerilhium vulgatum. A change to a more mixed assemblage occurs in the "ceramic" Neolithic. It was suggested that these changes correlate with the founding of the open settlement at Paralia outside the cave, based on a sedentary , mixed farming economy (Halstead 1996.300). However, it might be realistic to link the change to a corresponding rise in sea level, when the transgression reached a short distance to the settlement (van Andel and Sutton 1987.44). The long-term cultural continuity in the Mesolithic and the initial Neolithic in Franchthi has been interpreted as an expression of cultural identity (Perles 1990.135; Demoule and Perles 1993365.368). and it is reasonable to hypothesise that the transition to farming in Argolide was an autochthonous process, although the introduction of at least some domesticates has been thought suggestive of immigrant farmers. However, plant remains, harvesting and plant processing, as well cattle and pig hunting, hint at Mesolithic pre adaptation to the use of cultigens. Moreover. it is no coincidence that in Franchthi before 9000 BP. lentils were roasted prior to being ground or pounded into a coarse flour, and they are wide enough in diameter to be identified is domesticated (Hansen 1991.124.138). In the case of barley the genetic data indicate that the domestication event was polyphylethic, which means that the crop has been taken into cultivation more than once and in different places (Zohary 1996.155). And, it is important to know that the detection of the start of cultivation is problematic and that cultivation prior the domestication can be recognised only from indirect evidence, not from the remains of the crops themselves. The experimentally-based model of Hillman and Davies (1990.157222) suggests that, once the wild ty pes of cereals were under cultivation, morphologically altered domestic forms could have "taken over" the crops within two centuries if the cultivators used harvesting methods favouring the domestic mutants and, while these methods would have offered the cultivators some immediate advantages, some groups may well have used methods which left their crops in the wild species state for centuries or millennia. In addition, even when domestication-inducing methods were applied, the harvesting of genetic infiltration of wild type genes from nearby populations of wild cereals, could have caused domestication to take many centuries. It is inevitable even with the most rapid domestication that these genes would have ensured that the crops continued to contain an admixture of wild forms. This "genetic contamination" resulted in a correspondingly protracted period of "pre-domestication cultivation'. This effect, combined with the inherent problems of distinguishing wild and domestic cereals from charred remains. ensures that the detection of continuing domestication in the archaeological record is extremely difficult (Hillman 1996.194. see also Hansen 1991.173). While it is possible, therefore, that barley and lentils had reached at least the level of "pre-domestication cultivation" in Franchthi and in Argolide (Zohary 1996.145.155). there is no evidence for local wild progenitors of emmer and einkorn w heat (Hansen 1991.138.145), which means that Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum (T. dicoccum) and Triticum monococcum subsp. monococcum (T. monococcum) must have been introduced from Anatolia or the Near East There is also no evidence for Triticum monococcum ssp. aegilopoides (T. aegilopoides), another einkorn wheat which occurs in the wild mainly in the Balkans and Western Anatolia, where it occupies marginal habitats. It is of interest because it shows domestication traits similar 131 Mihael Bud|¿i to those of T. monococcum, although the genetic data "...seem to be compatible with the notion of single origin." (Zohary I996 /55) and. "...that T. aegi-lopoides is probably a feral form of the cultivated types w hich reached the Balkans as a result of the spread of agriculture." (Heun et al. 1998.67). However, the situation has become even more complicated since the appearance of wild progenitors of einkorn wheat, Triticum boeoticnm in Mesolithic context in Theopetra cave allow us to hypothesise the autochthonous process of plant cultivation in eastern Thessaly. It is necessary to incorporate all these fragmentary data into the interpretative context of an indigenous adoption of agriculture, which has had nothing directly in common with the "PPNB exodus" we mentioned before. In eastern Thessaly the wild progenitors of barley and einkorn wheat, as well as w ild goat and pig. suggest local processes of plant cultivation and animal domestication. It is reasonable, therefore, to accept the idea that the transition to farming wis an autochthonous process there, and that the adoption of domesticates took place piecemeal over a period of several centuries {Hals te ad 1996.297). In Argolide barley and lentils were locally adopted. Km mer. sheep and goat were introduced in the initial "aceramic" Neolithic. Einkorn wheat and cattle are first documented in the "ceramic" Neolithic, although it is not clear if the earliest specimens of cattle and pig (from the end of the aceramic" Neolithic) were domesticated or not (O.c. 297). In this way we can really "...envisage the transition as an enhancement of the existing social system, rather than as the kind of radical break which is often proposed." (Whittle 1996.43). The system seems to collapse after 5000 BP. when the site and the site catchment area, located on a terrace, were flooded in the process of marine transgression (ran Andel and Sutton 1987.44; Lambeck 1996.597-610). But before being flooded, these people were takers of opportunities and. on voyages by sea for the acquisition of obsidian and tunny fishing, could have been involved in the Aegean Mesolithic and Neolithic forager-farmer exchange network, w here they could have been moved to adopt pottery , as well thé chance to collect some domesticates and cultigens. There is indirect evidence of Neolithic exchange in the Franchthi cave. Statuette-like artefacts have been interpreted as tokens designed either as contractual devices or as identifying tokens between individuals or groups, symbolising the obligations of an agreement. friendship or common bond. It is hypothesised that in the context of inter-settlement contact in the region, various ty pes of bonds between communities would have been beneficial during the Neolithic, and that contractual devices or identifying tokens could have been used in a variety of contexts. They may have been used its tokens in a "down the line" mode of exchange or. perhaps, to identify messengers between villages, particularly in times of crisis, or even as markers of inter-village marital connections (Talalay 1993-45-46; Budja 1998.222223). It is much more difficult to decode the late foraging and early farming palimpsest in the Marmara area, although the north-western part of Anatolia, comprising of the littoral areas around the Sea of Marmara and the Black .Sea, has always been considered a cultural bridge between Europe and the Near East. It is well known that the region underwent a series of environmental pressures due to drastic changes in the marine conditions of Marmara. The Sea of Marmara in the Holocene was subject to alternating brief episodes of more saline or brackish periods. At first there w as an overflow of cold and fresh water from the Black Sea, soon to be followed by the resumption of lacustrine conditions. The first intrusion of warm and saline waters from the Aegean had taken place by 6500 BC, and was soon followed by the establishment of a link with the Black Sea. The radiocarbon dating of the death of freshwater molluscs in the Black Sea. and therefore the ingression of the saltwater from the Marmara is around 5600 BC It is suggested that the Black Sea did not assume its present form immediately after the breakthrough. As late as the end of the third millennium BC. people were able to live in settlements along the western Black Sea coast, all of w hich are now about 810 meters underwater (Ozdogan 1998.29; Kuni-hohn l999.on line) However, in the context of neolithisation there are three different processes identified in the Marmara area (Ozdogan 19973-33; Ozdogan and Gatsov 1998.209-232). The first was linked to an endemic movement from central Anatolia which took place by the end of PPNB. The migration was identified by the sites indicated in the mound formations in Calca Muslu^e$me. Kabakli, Ketfcayi, Agacli Anzavurte-pe, Gavurtarla (Ozdogan and Gatsov 1998.214.223: Thissen 1999.Fig. I) and by the lithic assemblages, which are distinctively different from those of the local Epi-Palaeolithic. The most specific aspect of these assemblages is the presence of technologies of "large blades with occasional ventral retouch" and "bifadally pressure-flaked points". It was hypoth- 132 The transition to farming n Mediterranean Europe - an ina^ertous resjxinsy esised thai because the sites are located in a mountainous region, far from the alluvial plains, subsistence "depended more on hunting than farming" (Ozdogan 1997.18; Ozdogan atidGaisor 1998. 214223). Hie second was linked to permanent fishing sites at Fikirtepe. Pendik, Kerenkoy and Tuzla on the Marmara coast which were settled by "a direct offspring of the Epi-Palaeolithie industries of the region" (Ozdogan 1983-409: Thissen 199934). Subsistence was based on hunting, fishing and mollusc collecting The buildings are oval wattle and daub hut-like structures. The third has been identified in llipinar (phase X), the earliest farming village site settled by farmers migrating from central Anatolia around (>000 BC (Roodenberg ¡993251-267; 1995.171-174). The founding of the village was linked up with the genesis of the Fikirtepe culture (Ozdogan 1997.19-23). The contrast in settlement location, house structure and subsistence with the llipinar phase is evident. The llipinar and Meniere dwellings were built of pise with wood reinforcement (Roodenberg 1993. 253-254.264. Fig. 3). There are some interesting details that should be pointed out if the Ozdogan palimpsest reading was correct. It seems that the first wave of an endemic movement originated in the Konya plain in the 'later phases of the pre-pottery Neolithic", although during what has been determined as the "initial phase of neolithisation" (Ozdogan ¡997 /8) it had no impact on stimulating the process of adopting agriculture in the region. There w as a second, much more intrusive wave, directly linked to "late (¿atal Hoyuk" (0. c. 22). The area around Lake Iznik was directly colonised by setting up the primary centre of farming colonisation in llipinarAlthough the complete Neolithic subsistence package was available, local fishers and foragers living in permanent villages at Fikirtepe, Pendik, içerenkôy and Tuzla on the Marmara coast were much more interested in pottery than domesticates and cultigens. Comparative analyses of dominant vessel categories between the farmers' and fishers pottery assemblages show that the introduction must have been selective, Differences in the quantitative ratio of "open vessels" in farmers' (> > "<.) and fisher's (27.7 ".>) settlements have led to the conclusion that the pottery was introduced selectively according to subsistence strategies (Thissen 1999.32). In the scenario of endemic movement the beginning of colonisation of northern Aegean w as linked up with the foundation of a farmers' colony at H oca Çesme in Eastern Thrace6. The small colonial settlement by the estuary of the Maritza River was heavily fortified with a massive stone wall (Ozdogan 1997.23-27). Perhaps it would be too simplistic to correlate the fortification at Ht>ca Çesme and "acera-mic" walls at the colony at Knossos with the structures of power and the agricultural frontier. How ever, we believe that Ozdogan's scenario of endemic movement is highly compatible with van Andel's and Runnel's demie diffusion - the modified version of wave of advance model, where the idea of an agricultural frontier has usually been associated w ith models of colonisation analogous to farmer colonisation in the colonial period of recent centuries. On the other hand, permanent and fortified communities might reflect a new ideology of social order and control over social and natural resources. It w as hypothesised that the underlying basis for greater social domination was domestic production, and productive activities were couched w ithin the ideology of downs as the guarantor of social life against the wild (¡¡odder ¡990). A fortified domus as a structure of power and signification located on the agricultural frontier could have been provided a new and powerful way in w Inch social relationships between farmers and foragers at the local level could be created and manipulated. 5 Analysing the colonisation route from the Konya plain to the northern Marmara region. Thissen suggested recently that the dusters of sites at Mente$e, Marmaracik. Yeni$ehir and Demircihiiyuk. which are located more to the south, were settled a few centuries earlier than lltpmar (phase X). t'sing morphological similarities in pottery production, he hypothesised the beginning of colonisation in the period of Çatalhoyiik East levels VIA-1II as being anywhere between 6500/6400-6500/6200 cal BC (Ihissen 1999.37). 6 There is chronological inconsistency in Ozdogan s scenario of endemic movement That is. there should have been a farmer s settlement colony In llipinar In the Marmara region established first, followed after a few centuries by Hoca Çesme in the north Aegean (fhdogan 1997.19-27). In the available sequence the later settlement predates the former. It is worth noting that the founding of Hoca Çesme (6400-6100 cal BC) fits with the "exodus" in the Kony a plain in the period anywhere between 6500/ 6-010-6.500/6200 cal BC" (tf. supra 2) on the one hand, and the ■ceramic" early Neolithic in Thessaly on the other Bloedow has proposed 64.5K-622I cal BC for Argissa, 6489-6406 cal BC for Seskk 6469-6373 tal BC for Nea Nlkomedeia and 6-181-6216 cal BC for Achilleion. The proposition was based on the selection of calibrated (lo) dates (Bloedow 1992 1993 56). 133 Mihael Bud|¿i Despite the strong evidence for forager-farmer interaction and their coexistence for certain period of time, little attention has been paid to the existence of farming-foraging frontiers and forager-farmer interaction in western Anatolia and Balkan. The agriculture frontier and principles of forager-farmer interactions are conceptualised in Zvelebil's model of agricultural transition, describing the process in three stages: availability, substimtion and consolida-don (ZvelebU 1990, Zvelebil and Rouiey-Conuy 1990). Each is defined by the economic evidence, w hich is considered at a regional scale in order to interpret the traditional notion of a rapid transition to farming by colonisation (supra I). It is suggested that in the early phase of forager-fanner contact the effect of the frontier would have been largely supportive and that co-operation would prevail. The exchange of foodstuffs across the frontier would reduce the stochastic v ariation in food supply and the risk of failure for both the hunting and farming communities. This would have been especially true for farmers who had recently adopted farming, or recently moved into a new area. With the increasing duration of the agricultural frontier, disruptive effects gained the upper hand. This may have been marked mainly by increased social competition, the opportunistic use of hunter-gatherer lands by farmers through the establishment by the farmers of hunting lands" in hunter-gatherer territories as part of a secondary agricultural expansion, and by the increased exploitation of export commodities by hunter-gatherers to the long-term detriment of the forager economy (Zvelebil 1994(1995). 107-127: Zvelebil 19989-27). Inter-group violence, the presence of fortified farming villages, and the existence of a "no-man's land" in the north European plain, could have also been interpreted as indicators of conflict and competition within the agricultural frontier (Zvelebil 1998.21). It is broadly accepted that contacts between foragers and farmers, occurring within an agricultural frontier zone must have had a direct effect on the nature an the rate of the transition, and may have acted as a delay ing mechanism in the process of the transition in north-western and eastern Europe (Derga-chev et al. 1991. /-16, Zvelebil 1996.341; Zvelebil 1998.23). However, one of the most important points is that playing an active part as individuals and as communities, hunters and gatherers contributed to the generation of a different kind of Neolithic through their own communities and their influence on the established farming settlement (Zvelebil 199821: cf. Bogucki 1988: Whittle 1996). IN PUCE OF CONCLUDING REMARKS There are not very many Mesolithic-Neolithic palimpsests available in south-eastern Europe which can be used to decode the hunter-gathers' and farmers' interactions. It is not because they do not exist, but because of taphonomic fillers which operate in the context of unsystematic and inconsistent research procedures, and interpretative postulates which maintain that Mesolithic and Neolithic artefact sets are culturally, chronologically and spatially mutually exclusive. Many of these have been successfully erased from the archaeological records in the last few decades (Budja l996a.61-76: Budja 1996b. 323-329). However, one of the best-documented examples of long-term forager-farmer interactions in south-east Europe is embedded in the Lepenski Vir culture in the Danube Gorges region. Mesolithic communities continued to reside in the region for several hundred years after the appearance of the local Early Neolithic and did not adopt available farming practices. But they did adopt pottery, which was buried w ithin the multi-layered Mesolithic sites of Lepenski Vir and Padina. There could be several reasons for resistance and the refusal to accept the complete "Neolithic package". The geographical isolation of the deep Danube gorges is one of the frequently stated explanations, imply ing that the Mesolithic population lived in a "dead end", off the beaten tack of the "neolithisation process" and indifferent to it. However. Radovanovii, Voytek and Tringham have suggested recently that the reasons seem to be decoded in another aspect of the Iron Gates Mesolithic - its intensive contact with neighbouring, as well as more distant communities. It was hypothesised that there were groups undertaking "expeditions" to acquire particular goods in distant areas, skipping the "dow n-the-line" mode of exchange. Evidence comes in the form of lithic resources and ceramics (Voytek & Tringham 1990: Rado variolic 1996. 39-43: Radovanoiic & Voytek 1997.21). Unfortunately, most of the pottery assemblages are still scantily published and there is no direct evidence of any incipient pottery available, and one might speculate that the pots appear as prestige items or as containers for plant foods, which were the real items of barter. How ever, pottery has been reported in the contexts of Mesolithic trapezoidal houses at Lepenski Vir and Padina. Interpreting the Mesolithic culmral phase Lepenski Vir I and II D, the excavator pointed out that the houses "contained 134 The transition lo lamiing in Mediterranean Europe - an indigenous response some sherds of monochrome ware" (Srejoric 1968. 24; ¡969.153-154;). He was very precise in locating the pottery distribution, mentioning that pottery fragments had been lying on the floor in the houses "Am FuKboden der Hauser 19,24.26. 28.35, 47,48. und 54 wurden auch vereinzelt Tonscherben gehoben. Die erwahnten Bauten sind der Endstufe von Lepenski Vir I zuzuweisen." (Srejoric 1971. 5) (Fig. 7)7. A similar pattern has been recorded at Padina. where whole pots were deposited in trapezoidal houses 7 and 15 (or 18) (Jovanovic 1969.30; 1987. 1-16). Srejovic has proposed the idea of post-depositional processes that caused the infiltration of pottery fragments from the upper Early Neolithic layer into the lower Mesolithic one. It is worth remembering that a recent analysis did not confirm the hypothesis "of intrusion" (Radotanoric 1996.39-43; Boric 1999. 47-53) They show , on the contrary , that the pottery deposition in Lepenski Vir I and II was not a matter of a taphonomic filter - stratigraphie problems of vertical displacement and post-depositional disturbance. It is hard to believe, indeed, that complete pots found in situ on the house floors at Padina were infiltrated through the superposed layers. On the other hand, there is "one almost metaphorical piece of evidence" available. We believe that a fragment of monochrome pottery was not firmly embedded by coincidence between the red deer's teeth and the floor of house 28 at Lepenski Vir I (Boric 199952). In interpreting the pottery's appearance in the foraging context of Lepenski Vir I and II the correlation between the pottery distribution and the distribution of sculptures and "altars" should be pointed out very clearly (Table 1). There are houses. 1, 16, 19, 20,'24. 26. 28. 32, 35, 37. 46. 47 and 54, where pottery fragments, "stone heads" and other decorated sculptures, "altars" and artefacts ornamented by motifs that perhaps represent various symbols have been found (Cpejomh 1969; 1971.139; Srejoric. Bahoric 1983). It is not our intention to enter into the discussion of die cognitive principles operating at Lepenski Vir (Hodder 1990.20-31) or to contextualise the symbolic structure and social power in the Djerdap Mesolithic (Chapman ¡993-71-121). And. whether Chapman's principal conclusion "that the social transformations in the gorge moved largely parallel to those of farming cultures outside the gorge but that increased interaction between the two social networks led to the collapse of one without any significant change in the other" (Chapman 1993 I ¡5) is 5640-5482 cal BC Fig. 7. lepenski Vir. phases I and II. Pottery distribution, marked with shaded house plans (ajter CpejOBHh 1969; Srejovic 1971; Srejovic, Rahovic 1983) and 'H dates calibrated on 2a (after Bonsall et al. I997.Table I). 7 Two years before Srejovic published a slightly different list of houses of Lepenski Vir I and II: 1. 4. 15. 16, 19. 20. 2-1. 26. 28. 32. 35. 37. 46. 47 and 54 (Cpq,mit\ 1969153,154) 135 House No. Pottery Stone sculptures Stone "shrines" 1 • 4 • 15 • 16 • A 19 • A ■ 20 • 24 • A ■ 26 • ■ 28 • AA 32 • ■ 35 • ■ 37 • A ■■ 46 • A ■ 47 • A 48 • 54 • AA ■ Tab. 1. lepenski »7r. phases / and II. Correlation between the houses, potten distribution and the distribution of sculptures and 'altars". Sources: CpejoBHh 1969: 1971: Srejovic. Babovic 1983). correct or not. the presence of features bearing witness to participation in regional exchange networks within both Mesolithic and Early Neolithic contemporary settlements, speaks in favour of a process in which a sedentary hunter-gatherer community in the Djerdap was first "neolithicised" - in all aspects except the essential one (Radomnovic 1996 43). It is worth remembering that pottery appears to have been adopted before the full adoption of cultigens and domesticates, and that the areas where the pots occur are marked by a continuity between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic in settlement location and material remains, especially in burial procedures and architectural elements, including the famous sculptures. 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