F ROM STONE TO HISTORICAL AGE. N EOLITHIC A GE (6.800 – 3.200 BC) People started making clay and...
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Transcript of F ROM STONE TO HISTORICAL AGE. N EOLITHIC A GE (6.800 – 3.200 BC) People started making clay and...
FROM STONE TO HISTORICAL AGE
NEOLITHIC AGE (6.800 – 3.200 BC)
People started making clay and metal pottery to store grain, food, etc.
They started leading a community life, living in larger groups.
They domesticated goats, sheep, donkeys, and similar animals for their benefit.
They invented the wheel and they used it to fetch water from wells, to make pottery, etc.
They created some family tombs. They started making earrings, necklaces,
ring idol figurine - pendants of silver and gold.
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE 1899-1906: the first
archaeological investigations of the Neolithic Period in Greece, by Chr. Tsountas in Thessaly
Most important archaeological points:
o Sesklo & Dimini (Thessaly)
o Paradimi (Thrace)o Sitagroi & Dispilio
(Macedonia)o Knosos (Crete)
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE Stabilization of climatic
conditions
Permanent group settlements
Economy based on systematic farming, stock-rearing, exchange of raw materials and products and pottery production
Transition from the hunting, food-gathering and fishing stage to the productive stage
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Characteristics:o Usually open
settlements in coastal or inland areas, lowlands or hills, close to water sources (lakes, rivers, etc.)
o "magoula“ or "toumba“ (< "tymvos”): a form of artificial low hill (2-4 m. high, with a diameter of 100-200 m.), created by successive habitation layers on the same spot
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE Characteristics:o Pile-dwellings (Dispilio) or
huts with walls made of posts and later houses with stone foundations and walls of mud-bricks
o One-room houses or with an additional open or closed porch ("megaron-type").
o Settlements often surrounded by ditches or stone enclosures, for defense or to mark the limits of the settlement
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Characteristics:o Communities of 50-100 individuals at the
beginning, which later increased to 100-300, organized on the basic unit of clan or extended family
o No economic differentiation among the members of the community or social stratification (at least until the very late Neolithic Age)
o Signs of community and equality: ditches & stone enclosures – shared production - hearths and ovens in open spaces for common use – no private property
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE Characteristics:o Primitive form of authority, exercised by the
oldest or ablest members (needed) o Exchange networks of products with many
communities-partners o Some kind of social prestige in the late Neolithic
Age, based on finds of distinctive objects, owned only by a few members of the community (leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, jewels of gold, silver or even sea-shell and copper tools)
o Defined roles of both sexes, ALTHOUGH the role of the woman in Neolithic society seems to have been stressed, at least at a symbolical level (numerous female figurines)
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Characteristics:
o Hunting and fishing in a secondary roleo Domestication of specific plants - Cultivation
of cereals, pulses and flax (+ wool = the basic raw materials for weaving)
o Domestication and rearing of animals (sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and dogs)
o Leather working, weaving, basketry and pottery (as a part of the household)
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Characteristics:o Tools of stone and
boneo Figurines of stone or
marble (forerunners of the Cycladic figurines) with a wide ideological content, expressing different aspects of life, or used in symbolic acts (e.g. as offerings for a house-foundation).
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Pottery for the preparation, consumption and storage of food, also produced by its users (at first) in a surprising variety of colors and decorative styles and themes
Seals, probably used for the adornment of the body (tattoo)
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE Characteristics:o Import of obsidian from
Melos, used in making sharp tools & arrows
o Practice of metallurgy in the Aegean, to manufacture gold and silver jewels
o Development of exchange networks in the Aegean & the Balkans
o Specialization of production Workshops specialized on pottery & jewels of metal or sea-shell
GREECE IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE
Jewels & seals Human need for decoration & social promotion
Belief in life after death (burial gifts)
An early form of written speech (probably) Wooden tablet with engraved linear symbols, from the lakeside settlement of Dispilio (5260 BC)