115-126

Lithic raw materials and reduction sequences during the late neolithic in northern Greece : the example of Dikili Tash

• Κουρτέση-Φιλιππάκη, Γεωργία

The study of the chipped stone industries from the recent archaeological excavations (1986-2001) at the prehistoric site of Dikili Tash, Eastern Macedonia, and particularly the characterization of the raw materials and the analysis of the reduction sequences (“chaînes opératoires”) as well as the comparison with lithic material from Sitagroi and Dimitra allowed us to determine the Drama basin as an important economic, technological and cultural “unit” during the first part of the Recent Neolithic (5.300-4800 B.C.) in Northern Greece. In this area supplying network was organized around local rocks as opal-chalcedony, quartz and rock crystal, occurring in the Rhodopian lithostromatographical zone, with the addiction of two exogenous materials: honey flint, from the north, and melian obsidian, from the south. A third material, jaspe, which occurs in the Pindos lithostromatographical zone, represent a new challenge for the study of the relations and exchange in an east-west direction. If the Drama networks seem to be in use further in the North, at least till the site of Promachonas-Topolnitsa, the Eastern boundaries of the Drama unit cannot be stressed because of the preliminary level of specialized studies. In the contrary, available data from Central Macedonia, through the sites of Thermi B and Stavrou polis, present a different view concerning the supply of raw materials: Neolithic inhabitants continue to use local materials, which in this case are quartz and limonite, but external supply is limited now only to melian obsidian. The absence of honey flint could suggest changements in the relations with the Northern Balkan areas. Consequently, Central Macedonia seems to form another “unit” with its own specific rules. Research should point in the future on the factors which created and entertained this differentiation between these two “units”.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)
• Αρχαιολογία

Νεολιθική εποχή, Φίλιπποι

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