7 - A case study in Early Neolithic settlement patterns: eastern Thessaly

Summary

The exceptional density of long-term Neolithic settlements in Thessaly was recognized from the beginning of the century. In the decades that followed, successive surveys gradually increased the number of sites identified, bringing the total to more than 300. In 1984, Halstead exploited an already impressive corpus and offered the first thorough analysis of settlement patterns in Thessaly (Halstead 1984). Although the details of his analyses have remained unpublished, the main diachronic and synchronic conclusions can be found in several papers (e.g., Halstead 1977, 1981a, 1989a, 1989b, 1994, 1995). Not much can presently be added to his analyses of western Thessaly, the Karditsa plain. In the meantime, however, Gallis had resumed surveys in eastern Thessaly with his collaborators, leading to the publication of a systematic ‘Atlas of prehistoric settlements in eastern Thessaly’ (the ATAE). This included several newly discovered sites and refined chronological attributions, as well as various statistics on the chronological distribution of sites, the duration of their occupation, their size, etc. (Gallis 1992).

Relying on Gallis' Atlas and recent geomorphological fieldwork (van Andel et al. 1995), van Andel and Runnels published another study that concentrated on the palaeo flood-plains of the Larissa basin. Though more restricted in scope than the previous analyses, its conclusions differed and were the basis of important theoretical developments on the causes and dynamics of the Neolithic expansion (van Andel and Runnels 1995).