Bemerkungen zu dem Aufsatz von Birgit Gehlen und Werner Schön, Das „Spätmesolithikum" und das initiale Neolithikum in Griechenland Implikationen für die Neolithisierung der alpinen und circumalpinen Gebiete

Abstract

The first Settlements with a sedentary lifestyle have been documented in the area of the Fertile Crescent in the Near East. In the course of several millennia (10* to 7Ih mill. BC) new ideas and resources made their way to Europe, reaching due to the proximity to Anatolia, Greece first. But not all Greek landscapes were involved simultaneously and in the same intensity in the transition from hunting/
gathering to herding/harvesting. 14 Cdates show that the oldest Settlements were founded in Thessaly between 6500 and 6300 cal BC. But only after sites like Nea Nikomedeia or Hoca Cesmecame into being in the Northern Aegean (ca. 6100 BC) did the Neolithisation of the Balkans and consequently of Middle Europe take place.
Neolithic Sites dating to the early 7,h millennium are not known in the southern part of Europe either. The Early Neolithic Settlements in the Adriatic Region or Italy are not older than 6000 BC. For this reason pollen diagrams from the Alpine and Circumalpine Region which were dated back to Mesolithic times stirred the attention of scholars quite early. But it is especially these sensitive data which have to be scrutinized and analysed carefully.