Prehistoric Thessaly: Mobile and sedentary communities south of Mount Olympus

• Applicant: Dr. Agathe Reingruber
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 315184342

According to the present state of research, the oldest sedentary farming populations in Europe were established around 6500 BC in the vicinity of Mount Olympus, especially south of it in the Thessalian Plain. There, the first continuously inhabited sites developed to form through time meter-high mounds. In this area in the course of only a few centuries, the irreversible process known as ¿Neolithisation¿, with all its economic, social, cultural and also religious consequences, had concluded even before the Neolithic way of life spread into the Balkans around 6000 calBC, and subsequently from there into Central Europe. This knowledge is largely based on investigations and interpretations carried out in Thessaly during the 1950ies to 1970ies. Since that time no systematic research has been conducted in this region, which envisages the transition from mobile to sedentary communities, even though from there emanated major impulses for a new and revolutionary lifestyle in the whole of Southeast Europe. Nevertheless, in the last decades the Ephorate for Antiquities in Larissa has gathered a great amount of new material from soundings, rescue excavations and surface collections, material that leads to new insights concerning typo-chronological considerations. Both these new collections as well as older ones from the last century will be analysed in a joint project with modern research methods, applying foremost radiocarbon analysis. Detailed analysis of finds in their context and of sites in their natural environmental setting will also be a target of the project. Until now only magoules were extensively researched and only sites that are visible in the plain have been recorded and mapped, leading to a distorted view concerning the dynamics of population in prehistoric times. Whereas several systematic surface reconnaissance programmes have been carried out in many landscapes in Greece since the 1990ies, such field work was not undertaken in Thessaly. Therefore, envisaged in collaboration with the Ephorate in Larissa are prospections on the northeastern fringes of the Thessalian Plain, south of Mount Olympus. Foreseen are diachronic studies that should encompass the periods of the Holocene with emphasis on the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. The aim is to obtain fundamental insight into the transition from mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher communities to sedentary farming cultures and to analyse the population dynamics in prehistoric times. Anticipated are new and important insights concerning both economical aspects as well as different strategies applied in the land use in prehistory. The results of this work can serve as a basis for future research programmes that will be dedicated to detailed investigation of single places/sites.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Greece
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Giorgos Toufexis