M. Spataro 2002 - The First Farming Communities of the Adriatic: Pottery Production and Circulation in the Early and Middle Neolithic. Società per la Preistoria e Protostoria della Regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Quaderno 9. Trieste . Edited by P. Biagi

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MICHELA SPATARO THE FIRST FARMING COMMUNITIES OF THE ADRIATIC: POTTERY PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION IN THE EARLY AND MIDDLE NEOLITHIC

Edizioni Svevo Trieste 2002

To Paolo, my parents and Davide

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 Il presente volume vo lume è stato stampato stam pato con il contributo delle

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ISSN 1124-156X

SOCIETÀ PER LA PREISTORIA E PROTOSTORIA DELLA REGIONE FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA

QUADERNO - 9

MICHELA SPATARO

THE FIRST FARMING COMMUNITIES OF THE ADRIATIC: POTTERY PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION IN THE EARLY AND MIDDLE NEOLITHIC

Edizioni Svevo Trieste 2002 ¯3

SOCIETÀ PER LA PREISTORIA E PROTOSTORIA DELLA REGIONE FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA

QUADERNO 9 - 2002

c/o Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Piazza Hortis 4 - 34123 Trieste (Italia)

REDATTORE Paolo Biagi

CONTENTS

List of abbreviation of sites names ........................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................ ............. page Legend for thin section and SEM-EDS tables ........................................................................................................ » Aknowledgements ....................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ »

6 6 7

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................................... ........................ »

9

1. Preface ............................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................. 2. Scope of the research ......................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ................................. 3. Trade and exchange in the Adriatic Neolithic .................................................................................................... 4. The models: models: current current views views of how the Neolithi Neolithicc spread spread in the Mediterranea Mediterraneann ...... ........... ........... ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ......... ... 5. The Mesolithic background ......................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................ ....... 6. The Holocene sea-level rise ........................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................ ..... 7. The Impressed Ware Culture .......................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................... ..... 8. The Danilo and Hvar Cultures ............................................................................................................................ 9. Discussion ......................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................... ..................................................

» » » » » » » » »

9 10 11 13 15 24 24 30 33

CHAPTER 2 - METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................. ...................................................................................................................................... ..................... »

35

1. Preface ............................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................. 2. Sampling ........................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................. .................................. 3. Methodological approach ..................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................... .............................. 4. Fabric ......................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................... 5. Analytical approach ................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................ ......... 6. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) ..................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................... .............................. 7. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) .......................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................... .....

» » » » » » »

35 36 36 37 37 41 41

CHAPTER 3 - THE ISTRIAN AND DALMATIAN SITES: ANALYSES AND RESULTS .................................................................... »

43

1. Vi`ula (Pula) ............................................................................................................. .......................................................................................................................................................... ............................................. 2. Jami na Sredi (Cres Island ......................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................... ............ 3. Vela Jama (Lošinj Island) .......................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................................... ............................. 4. Tini-Podlivade (Zadar) ........................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ............................... 5. Smilčić (Zad (Zadar) ar) ..................................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................................................... .................................. 6. Vrbica (Šibe (Šibenik) nik) ..................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................................... ................................................ 7. Konjevrat Konjevratee (Šibenik) ....................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................. ...... 8. Danil Daniloo Bitinj (Šiben (Šibenik) ik) ......................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................... .................................. 9. Vela Vela špilja špilj a (Kor čula Island) ....................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................... ............................

» » » » » » » » »

43 50 60 68 73 93 103 113 125

CHAPTER 4 - THE ITALIAN SITES: ANALYSES AND RESULTS ............................................................................................. » 137 1. Fornace Cappuccini (Faenza) ................................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................................. ............. 2. Maddalena di Muccia (Macerata) ........................................................................................................................ 3. Ripabianca di Monterado (Ancona) ................................................................................................................... 4. Scamuso (Torre a Mare, Bari) ................................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................................. ............. 5. Correlation Correlation between between the fabrics fabrics of the soil samples samples analysed in thin section section ...... ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ............ .......... ....

» » » » »

137 142 151 163 175

CHAPTER 5 - THE FIGULINA POTTERY : ITS PRODUCTION AND TRADE ................................................................................. » 179 1. Preface ............................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................. 2. Analyses .......................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................................................................................. .................................... 3. The Italian sites ....................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ 4. The Dalmatian sites .............................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................................. ............................... 5. Typological comparisons ....................................................................................................................... .................................................................................................................................... ............. 6. Discussion ......................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................... .................................................. 7. Figulina production technology ....................................................................................................... ......................................................................................................................... .................. 8. Trade and exchange network .............................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................

» » » » » » » »

179 180 180 187 189 19 0 190 190 191

CHAPTER 6 - COMPARISONS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................. » 193 1. Relationships between the IW sites .................................................................................................................... 2. Relationships between the Danilo Culture sites ................................................................................................. 3. Relationships between the Hvar Culture sites .................................................................................................... 4. Changes in the pottery technology/prod technology/production? uction? ................................................................................................. 5. Discussion ......................................................................................................... ........................................................................................................................................................... .................................................. 6. Figulina ware in its context ................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ ................ 7. Later changes in pottery pottery typology typology due to to exchanges exchanges between between the two Adriatic coastline coastliness ...... ............ ............ ............ ............ ......

» » » » » » »

193 195 196 196 19 7 197 198 198

CHAPTER 7 - CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................ ............................ » 199 1. Impressed Wares and obsidian obsidian in the Adriatic: Early Early Neolithic Neolithic trade and exchange exchange ...... ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ........... ..... » 201 2. Figulina ware in the Adriatic - mid seventh millennium BP ............................................................................ » 202 3. Old models and new proposals for further studies ............................................................................................. » 202 APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ APPENDIX 3 ................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ APPENDIX 4 ................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................... ............................................

» » » »

205 209 213 213

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................... ............................................ » 241 24 1

List of abbreviations of site names

Danilo Bitinj ...... Danilo ........... ........... ............ ........... ........... ............ ........... ........... ............ ........ DB Fagnigola .................................................................. FG Fioranoo Mode Fioran Modenese nese ...... ............ ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ .......... .... FMD Fornacee Cappu Fornac Cappuccini ccini ...... ............ ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ...... FC Gravina ................................................................. GRV Grotta delle Mura ............................................ GDM Jami na Sredi ...... ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ............ ........... ........ ... JNS Konjevrate ............................................................ KNV Maddalena di Muccia ...................................... MDM Malo Korenovo......................................................MK  Ripabianca Ripab ianca di Monte Monterado rado ...... ........... ........... ............ ............ .......... RDM Scamuso ................................................................. SCA  Smil~i} Smil~ i} Impressed Ware phase ...... ............ ............ ........... ..... SML  Smil~i} Smil~ i} Danil Daniloo phase ..... ........... ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ...... SMD Smil~i} Smil~ i} Hvar phase ...... ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ........... ........ ... SMH Tinj-Podlivade .......................................................... TN Vela Jama.................................................................VJ Vela {pilja {pilja................................................................ ................................................................ VS Vi`ula ........................................................................VZ Vrbica .................................................................... VRB 6¯

Legend for thin section and SEM-EDS tables

 A ..................................................................... abundant P..........................................................................present R .............................................................................. rare VA ......................................................... very abundant n/d.............................................................not detected s.d ...... ............ ............ ............ ........... ........... ............ ............ ......... ... stand standard ard devia deviation tion

Acknowledgements For the writing of this volume, I have taken into account the materials stored in the collections of various Museums, Universities and Archaeological Superintendences of both the Dalmatian and Italian Adriatic coasts. For the ceramic samples kindly provided, for their help in the location of the sites and the collection of the soil samples, I wish to thank Prof. [. Batovi} Batovi} (Zadar University - HR), Prof. G. G. Bermond Montanari (Bologna University - I), Dr. M. Calattini (Siena University - I), Prof. B. ^e~uk (Croatian Archaeological Society, Zagreb - HR), Dr. D. Coppola (Rome “T “ Tor Vergata” Vergata” University - I), Dr. M. Mendu M endu{{i} (  ([[ibenik Museum - HR), Dr. K. Mihovili} Mihovili} (Pula Museum - HR), Dr. A.N. Rigoni (Pordenone Museum - I), Dr. M. Silvestrini (Soprintendenza Archeologica delle Marche, Ancona - I), and Prof. T. T. Te Te`ak-Gregl (Zagreb University - HR). Special thanks are due to those scholars who helped me in the interpretation of my analyses and for their analytical work, for providing help and donation of off-prints, volumes and geological maps of the investigated areas: Prof. I. Freestone (British Museum, London - UK), who also revised the final draft of my analyses, Prof. Y. Y. Goren (Tel Aviv Aviv University - Israel), Prof. M. Maggetti (Freiburg University - CH), Dr. R. Macphail (Institute of Archaeology, UCL - UK), Prof. T. Mannoni and Dr. A. Capelli (Genoa University - I), Dr. J. Müller (Otto-Friedrich University, Bamberg - D), Mr. A. Beer (Department of Geology, UCL - UK), Prof. C. Orton (Institute of Archaeology, Archaeology, UCL - UK), UK ), Mr. K. Reeves (Institute (Institut e of Archaeology, UCL - UK), Mr. I. Turk (Slovenian Academy of Sciences, Ljubljana - SLO), Mr. S. Hirons (Birkbeck College - UK), and Mr. S. Laidlaw (Institute of Archaeology, Archaeology, UCL - UK). A. and M. Mac Gregor and their family provided me with much help during my stay in London in the last two years. I want to express my gratitude to all of them for their kindness and support. Special thanks are also due to Prof. K. Thomas (Institute of Archaeology, UCL - UK), for the critical reading of the scientific sci entific chapters, to Dr. B.A. Voytek Voytek (Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley University - USA), who accurately checked the English of the original manuscript and for her useful criticism, as well as to my friend and colleague Mr. S. Nishiyama, for his help and the computer work. Finally I want to thank Prof. S. Shennan, Prof. R. Whitehouse and Prof. T. Rehren (Institute of Archaeology, UCL - UK) for discussing the many controversial points of this work. I wish to thank also Prof. M. Cipolloni Sampò (Viterbo University - I), Prof. A. Galiberti (Siena University - I), Dr. L.H. Barfield (Birmingham University - UK), and Dr. I.K. Whitbread (Leicester University - UK) for their valuable advice and useful suggestions. This work has been possible thanks to the love, encouragement and great patience of my family. I am most grateful to Prof. P. Biagi (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice - I) who introduced me to this fascinating subject and supported this research with his wise, critical and generous advice.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION 1. PREFACE This work focuses on the study of pottery pott ery production along the coasts of the Adriatic during the Neolithic when pottery first appeared within an archaeological context, around the end of the eighth millennium BP. It will contribute to the debate of when and how it emerged, and to the knowledge of its manufacture systems, production centres and circulation in the basin of the Adriatic. To reach this goal ceramic samples from thirteen sites located along both Adriatic coastlines have been taken into consideration. Following the order in which they are presented in Chapters 3 and 4, they are those of Vi` Vi`ula near Medulin (HR), Jami na Sredi on the Island of Cres (HR), Vela Vela Jama on Island of Lo{ Lo {inj (HR), Tinj and Smil~ Smil ~i} near Zadar (HR), Vrbica, Konjevrate and Danilo Bitinj near [ibenik (HR), Vela {pilja on the Island of Kor~ula (HR), Fornace Cappuccini near Faenza (I), Maddalena di Muccia and Ripabianca di Monterado in the Marche (I), and Scamuso near Bari (I) (fig. 1). The three different scientific analyses (thin section, XRD and SEM-EDS: see Chapter 2, 5.) undertaken on the pottery from these sites are expected 1) to provide a concrete contribution to the knowledge of the Neolithic in the study region, 2) to define whether Neolithic pottery production was local or non-local, 3) to identify raw material sources employed in the manufacturing process, and 4) to contribute to the understanding of the movement, exchange or trade of materials between the first farmers. It is well known that among the many different types of artefacts in archaeology, two come to the fore due to their durability: stone and ceramics “which are merely the skeletal traces of  Fig. 1 - Distribution map of the Neolithic sites from which ceramics have been analised: Grotta delle Mura (1), Scamuso (2), Gravina di Puglia (3), Maddalena di Muccia (4), a much more comprehensiRipabianca di Monterado (5), Fornace Cappuccini (6), Fiorano Modenese (7), Fagnigola (8), ve range of both staples and  Vi`ula (9), Vela Jama (10), Jami na Sredi (11), Tinj (12), Smil~i} (13), Vrbica (14), valuables” (CLARKE, 1976a). Konjevrate (15), Danilo Bitinj (16), Vela {pilja (17). ¯9

2. SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH The scope of the research is connected with a series of changes that took pla ce in the Adriatic between the eighth and the sixth millennia BP. The aims to define are the following: a) the relationship relationshipss among sites located located along along the coastlines coastlines of the Adriatic during during the the Neolithic. Neolithic. It has been postulated that permanent settlements “ permit people to accumulate possessions, to make a new range of  artifacts, and to be predictably present in one place for exchange” (H IGHAM and MALONEY, 1989: 662). The relationships among these Adriatic coastal sites are more difficult to determine. High concentrations of settlements are known in the Tavoliere Foggiano (B RADFORD, 1949), where at least 1000 Neolithic sites are supposed to exist (D ELANO SMITH, 1978: 101), the Materano, along the eastern coast of the Salentina Peninsula, in southeastern Italy (C IPOLLONI SAMPÒ et al., 1999: 14), and to a lesser extent, in the interior inte rior of  [ibenik in Dalmatia (MÜLLER, 1994). The only area in which intensive inte nsive surveys and excavations have been carried out is that surrounding the Manfredonia Gulf, in Apulia. Here, all the Early Neolithic sites are distributed along the edge of the river terraces, at an almost regular distance of some 2 km from each other. For these villages, M ANFREDINI (1987: 45) has hypothesized an egalitarian subdivision in the exploitation of the surrounding territories by the t he contemporary communities. Even though most of the t he Tavoliere Tavoliere sites consist of large settlements surrounded by ring-shaped ditches, other types of settlements are also represented. For example the site of Coppa Nevigata, which seems to have been inhabited mainly for the exploitation of marine resources, namely the collection of Cardium edule1 shellfish, even though cereal cultivation and other agricultural activities are represented by both archaeobotanical and material culture implements. Obsidian and figulina wares are considered to have been prestige items that had been exchanged or traded for other goods, such as salt or tools made of perishable materials that left no trace in the archaeological record. It is well known that obsidian was traded mainly in the shape of bladelets, that is of finished tools (AMMERMAN et al., 1978), whilst figulina wares, mainly four-handled flasks and open bowls, as suggested by BARFIELD (1981: 32) for northern Italy. The models of circulation of these goods are still almost unknown to us (T ITE, 1999: 202). This research will help clarify some aspects of the transportation and exchange or trade networks that existed in the Adriatic during the Neolithic and address the relationships between sites. These include, to a certain extent, the movement, not only of sophisticat ed types of vessels of so-called figulina ware, but mainly of those that characterise the ordinary, everyday ceramic record of  the Impressed Ware and the other Neolithic cultures of the Adriatic Sea; b) the provenance provenance of of the raw materials materials as possib possible le indicators indicators of local local manufacture manufacture or importa importation tion of the the vessels. This information is of particular importance in the study of the transitional period between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic in the whole region. The basic assumption is that the frequency of items obtained from a production centre should diminish in number and percentage according to their distance from the production centre itself (H ODDER, 1978: 158); c) th thee natu nature re of of the the so-c so-cal alle ledd  figulina  pottery. This concerns the location of manufacture centres of the vessels as well as the relationships relati onships between different sites, with evidence evidenc e of such products as indicators of  trade or exchange of specific goods. It is important to apply thin section analysis to the  figulina pottery because this is perhaps one of the few methods of analysis that can provide a good set of information about the method of manufacture of a variety of wares, to which the generic term “ figulina” has been applied simply because of its colour (buff or cream or whitish) and the “powdered” aspect of its surface. The term “ figulina” as such has no real meaning; in Italian “ figulo” means potter and “ figulina” simply means made by the potter! This research fits into the picture of the Early and Middle Atlantic climatic periods during which the transition from the Late Mesolithic to the Neolithic Neoli thic took place. The data presently available for this period are not uniform. Their variability depends mainly on the quality of the archaeological research carried out in the different countries. The following topics have been developed: 1) the trade/exchange network between the two Adriatic shores, 2) the approaches and theoretical models that have been put forward in order to explain  This species has recently been renamed Cerastoderma edule  (K. THOMAS, pers. comm. 2001).

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the Neolithisation process, 3) the scarcity of data on the settlement patterns of the last hunter-foragers and the first farmers of the Early and Middle Atlantic period, and 4) the importance of the early Holocene sea-level rise in relation to the presently available distribution map of the sites. 3. TRADE AND EXCHANGE IN THE ADRIATIC ADRIATIC NEOLITHIC 3.1. FLINT The general problems related to trade and exchange in prehistoric Europe, including those of the last hunter-gatherers and the first farmers, have already been point ed out by C LARKE (1969: 286), who also treated the procurement and distribution of flint and obsidian in the Mediterranean basin. In the 1950s the exchange patterns of lithic material in the study region were considered of particular importance since “ in the Mediterranean too, flint was mined from deep tunnels……at the mainland sites of Apulia; these supplies were also supplemented by limited exchange networks circulating the highly prized obsidian from Lipari, Italy and the  Aegean Islands ” (CLARK, 1952: 174). The information currently available for the sources of flint and the exploitation and distribution of artefacts is rather good. An abundance of excellent quality flint outcrops is well documented in the Pre-Alps of  northern Italy (B ARFIELD, 1987: 231). The models of exploitation of one of these regional sources, that of the Monti Lessini in western Veneto, throughout the Mesolithic-Chalcolithic periods, are equally well known (BARFIELD, 1994). A complex exchange pattern of flint material, especially in the shape of nodules, has been accurately studied along the northwestern coast of the Adriatic; it involves both Lessinian and Marche flint. An accurate examination of the flint assemblages from the Impressed Ware sites of Miramare di Rimini and Fornace Cappuccini in Romagna and from the Fiorano and Friuli sites site s of northern Italy, has shown that Lessinian flint was employed in the manufacture of artefacts artefact s at all the Early Neolithic sites of Friuli, including Fagnigola and Sammardenchia around, or slightly later than the mid-seventh millennium BP (F ERRARI and MAZZIERI, 1998). On the contrary, the easily distinguishable flint of the Marche Apennine chain, north of Ancona, was traded northwards and largely utilized for making tools at the Impressed Ware coastal sites of Romagna. A down-the-line transmission (R ENFREW, 1975) of flint nodules for chipping artefacts is attested along the coast of north-eastern Italy in the same period when obsidian was traded throughout the entire Mediterranean (TYKOT, 1996). According to B ASS (1998), this is the period when sea-faring movements are undoubtedly documented across the Adriatic. Another important source is that of the Gargano Promontory in Apulia. Here, at least twenty-six flint mines have been discovered to date (BASILI et al., 1995). Of these, the only excavated one is that of Defensola that is considered to be amongst the earliest Neolithic flint mines of Europe. Its exploitation took place between the start and the middle of the seventh millennium BP (GALIBERTI et al., 2001: 95), as indicated by both the radiocarbon dates and the pottery assemblage recovered in situ in the underground passages of the mine (D I LERNIA, 1993). Regarding the exportation of flint between south-eastern Italy and the Dalmatian coast, it is important to stress that characteristic, bifacial tranchets, most probably obtained from Gargano Promontory flint, have been found at Markova {pilja on the Island of Hvar ( ^E~UK, 1970), and that a flint outcrop has recently been discovered on the Mala Palagru•a Island, midway between Apulia and Dalmatia (F ORENBAHER and KAISER, 1997), and Su{ac (BASS, 1998). At present, a few flint sources are known along the coast of Dalmatia. The raw materials from these outcrops are easy to recognise. They do not yield any good quality flint, but a light grey-bluish, highly calcareous, opaque variety. They have been identified in southern Istria, near Medulin and along the Promotore Promontory (C ODACCI, 2000-2001) as well as Ravni Kotari and Bukovica (C HAPMAN et al., 1996: 192). The Impressed Ware flint industry of Vi`ula (Medulin) in Istria represents a unique case. The site is most probably related to the exploitation of a local flint source. It yielded a great number of cores, unretouched artefacts and unworked raw material pieces, while tools are much less numerous (C ODACCI, 2000-2001). These latter are represented by retouched flakes and blades and by some perforators on thick flake, with very worn, rounded, broken points (see Chapter 3,1.). A smaller collection of flint artefacts from the same site, analysed by J.K. KOZŁOWSKI (1990), is represented by a few atypical tools, among which are side scrapers and one probable tranchet . ¯ 11

3.2. OBSIDIAN The occurrence of obsidian bladelets (T YKOT, 1996) and flint artefacts (S TA TAN N~I} et al., 2000; BARFIELD, pers. comm. 1998) of south Italian provenance, at a few Neolithic Dalmatian sites, would suggest the idea of  possible trade of pottery between the two coasts of the Adriatic, as the results of the excavations carrie d out by BENAC (1975) in Bosnia, and other archaeologists in southern Italy indicate (R ADINA, 1981). The research of A.J. AMMERMAN (1985: 111) has proved that Liparian obsidian from the two sources available in Neolithic times, those of Acqua Calda and Gabellotto, was traded to the Stentinello settlements of  both the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian coastal sites of Calabria, around the beginning of the seventh millennium BP, most probably following a down-the-line distribution model (R ENFREW, 1977). Obsidian, together with flint and greenstone, is amongst the few raw materials of long distance provenance, discovered in the Neolithic settlements of the Acconia Plain. Pottery, on the contrary, is most probably of local production as the presence of both good sources of clay and riverine sand would suggest (A MMERMAN and ANDREFSKY, 1982: 168). At about the same time Sardinian, Mt. Arci and Palmarolan obsidians were utilised by the Impressed Ware communities settled at the Arene Candide and other western Liguria caves (A MMERMAN and POLGLASE , 1993). A few centuries later, obsidian “emporia”, “emporia” , such as that of Pescale, from which come at least lea st 950 pieces, are known in the Tusco-Emilian Apennines (see Chapter 5,8.). They most probably acted as distribution centres of obsidian bladelets of Sardinian provenance, to the Neolithic villages of the Po Valley (M ALAVOLTI, 1951-1952a). Along the eastern coast of the Italian Peninsula, Liparian and Palmarolan obsidians are reported from the Impressed Ware sites of the Marche (B ARKER, 1981: 62), from Fornace Cappuccini near Ravenna (B ERMOND MONTANARI et al., 1991: 182; AMMERMAN and POLGLASE, 1998), Sammardenchia in Friuli (F ERRARI and MAZZIERI, 1998: 170), and two Trieste Karst caves (W ILLIAMS THORPE et al., 1979; T YKOT, 1996). Obsidian bladelets of  Carpathian provenance are also recorded from the two latter regions (R ANDLE et al., 1993). The presence of obsidian artefacts in the Neolithic sites of the Dalmatian coast is documented from the Danilo habitation layers of Smil~i}, Danilo itself, and Vela {pilja (MARTINELLI, 1990: 148; ^E~UK, pers. comm. 2002). Even though no scientific analysis has ever been made m ade on these artefacts, their colour and transparency t ransparency would indicate that they are of Liparian origin (B IAGI, pers. comm. 2000). Since much work has been done on the trade of obsidian across the Mediterranean, and particularly the Adriatic Sea (TYKOT, 1996: 69), and, according to the available literature, li terature, some authors suggest that Neolithic pottery was exchanged between the two coasts (B ENAC, 1975; CHAPMAN , 1988: 12), it is now necessary to try to define the location of the pottery production centres. 3.3. POTTERY Pottery, like any other artefact, can be connected in space and time to different periods of its existence. The archaeological method implicitly supposes that Early Neolithic pottery was produced and used in the place were its waste was found, whilst “the model of craft specialization and trade suggests a complex structure, with defined roles for potter, trader and customer, and a particular, limited, and formal set of interactions between settlements largely maintained by professional travellers“ (CHAPMAN , 1988: 32). 3.3.1. The “ordinary” pottery In order to study the three main research issues, as outlined outline d above, and to achieve a more complete picture pict ure of the trade/exchange activities concerning the Adriatic Sea in the above-mentioned time-span, an average number of 20-30 potsherds from each of the key sites attributed to the Early Neolithic Impressed Ware and to the Middle Neolithic Danilo and Hvar Cultures, has been sampled for thin section analysis (Chapter 1, 1.). To my knowledge, the only Adriatic sites from which scientific scienti fic analysis on pottery (TITE, 1999) has been conducted are those of the Defensola Impressed Ware flint mine (10 samples), the Arciprete open-air site (3 samples) (DI LERNIA et al., 1993), the Tavoliere villages of Passo di Corvo (M ANNONI , 1983: 22 samples), Guadone (BERNABÒ BREA and TINÉ, 1980: 20 samples), and Amendola (M ANNONI , 1983: 16 samples), the open air, coastal site of Scamuso (C REMANTE and STORTI, 1997: 5 samples), the Scaloria Cave (TINÉ and I SETTI, 1980: 3 samples), and La Quercia (K NOWLES and SKEATES, 1995-1996: 20 samples). These results have demonstrated the local manufacture of the vessels that, in the case of the Defensola mine, were most probably produced by “one single human group/single settlement ” (DI LERNIA et al., 1993). 12 ¯

Apart from Greece, where the pottery assemblages from the Neolithic sites of Nea Nikomedia (Y OUNI, 1996) and Achilleion (B JÖRK, 1995) have been analysed with the thin section technique, the only north Mediterranean region where Early Neolithic pottery has been systematically systematica lly studied in detail from a scientific point of view, is southern France. The results obtained by B ARNETT  (1990: 863) indicate that, according to this author, in this region, pottery may be used to interpret the way material goods moved between betw een the first farmers and the last hunter-foragers. The same author, focusing on the specific case of the Impressed Ware Culture, suggests that Cardium  decorated ceramics were “more commonly transported than t han other Impressed Wares Wares”. 3.3.2. The figulina pottery Another aspect to be developed is that of the  figulina pottery. It has been described by M ALONE (1985: 120) as “the most readily defined of the finewares that is characterised by a pale buff-yellow untempered,  polished, evenly fired material”. Its distribution covers various regions of the Italian Peninsula during the Early and Middle Neolithic. It is thought to be characteristic of the Ripoli Culture in central Italy, and of the Danilo Culture along the Dalmatian Dalmat ian coast. One of the main production centres centre s has always been considered the Middle Neolithic open-air site of Ripoli in the Vibrata Valley Valley of the Abruzzi (CREMONESI, 1965). This is a deeprooted assumption (MALAVOLTI, 1940) of the Italian and Dalmatian archaeologists that is still awaiting confirmation. This suggestion is based on observations made by R ELLINI (1934) in his volume on the Ripoli village. According to CREMONESI (1965: 88) “ l’opinione del Rellini che più ha avuto influenza sugli studi successivi è quella che fa della ceramica figulina il fossile guida della cultura di Ripoli, alla quale venivano in tal modo assegnate molte stazioni, specialmente marchigiane, in cui mancavano la ceramica dipinta e tipi altrettanto rappresentativi”; Rellini’s view was accepted and even reinforced by B AROCELLI (1934) in the same year. The importance of the  figulina wares in the Italian and Dalmatian prehistory has been pointed out by various authors (M ALAVOLTI, 1940; BATOVI}, 1975a; BARFIELD, 1981). Figulina painted and unpainted vessels have been found at several Early and Middle Neolithic sites of northern Italy, such as the Ligurian caves, including that of the Arene Candide (M ANNONI , 1999: 215), and many Fiorano, Vhò, Fagnigola, and Square Mouthed Pottery Culture sites (BARFIELD, 1981: 32). The commonest shapes are those of typical Ripoli flasks and hemispherical bowls, while Serra d’Alto handles and vessels are known from many Square Mouthed Pottery sites (MOTTES, 1997). The problem of the figulina ware in northern Italy has been treated tr eated by BARFIELD (1981: 32) who observed that “the predominant vessel shapes represented among the trade pieces are narrow necked jars, often with rim lugs to facilitate sealing. This might suggest that some valuable liquid was traded in them……This ceramic trade towards northern Italy might well be expected to be linked with the trade of obsidian ”. anal ysed in thin section, by XRD and SEM-EDS in i n order Figulina potsherds from several sites have been analysed to define their origin and their possible socio-economic and cultural role. The question of their provenance is particularly important because they have often been considered containers of specific goods. As suggested by MALONE (1985: 139), its “ production may have been on a restricted restricted local scale, as specialist craft production, with exchange networks carrying the pottery to a number of secondary and tertiary destinations. Unfortuna”. tely, little research has yet been carried out on clay sources, so centres have not yet been identified ”. 4. THE MODELS: CURRENT VIEWS OF HOW THE NEOLITHIC SPREAD IN THE MEDITERRANEAN One of the main problems in the study of the first food-producing cultures is whether their origin is to be sought from a local background or they diffused from elsewhere. As reported by A MMERMAN   (2002) “the spread of farming in Europe is a subject of interest to a number of disciplines ranging from archaeology and  anthropology to human genetics and linguistics”. At present the debate is substantially divided between two schools of thought, that of A MMERMAN and CAVALLI-SFORZA (1971; 1973) with their “wave of advance advanc e model”, and that of M. ZVELEBIL and P. R OWLEY-CONWY (1984) who put forward their “availability model”, developed from the experience of the two authors in northern Europe, especially in the Baltic countries and in Denmark. According to the demic diffusion model proposed by A MMERMAN  and CAVALLI-SFORZA (1984), the spread of farming through Europe is to be seen as the result of two different processes: “ 1) the first involves cultural diffusion that is the passage of cereals and farming techniques from one local group to the next without  geographic displacement of the respective groups; 2) the second is…demic diffusion, diff usion, where the spread is due ¯ 13

to the movement of the early farmers themselves. This movement in the case of the “wave of advance model” may be due to the frequent re-location of Neolithic settlements over short distances”  (AMMERMAN , 2002). These authors clearly define the meaning of the term “demic diffusion” to be distinguished from that of  colonisation. The latter refers to groups of people who intentionally move to settle in distant lands, while “demic diffusion” is to be seen as a slow and continuous dispersal of populations in a defined space. The eventual contact of the incomers with local bands of the last hunter-foragers is also taken into consideration implying the adoption (as possible exchange goods) of domesticated animals and cereals and (isolated) material culture objects. The “availability model” suggests that “the adoption of farming passes through several forms of frontier  situations which can occur simultaneously in geographical space…the transition to farming, when viewed in terms of replacement of hunting-gathering adaptations by farming as a way of life, rather than as an introduction of element of farming economy, is likely to have taken much longer to complete than is usually supposed ” (ZVELEBIL, 1986: 11). One of the basic assumptions of the indigenist model is that of “continuity” between the Late Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic in a defined region. This assumption presupposes an almost identical sett lement distribution and population density throughout the “transitional” period. According to the available evidence, the number of Late Mesolithic camps or occupational layers in rock-shelters and caves in the entire study region is very low, which makes the reliability of Zvelebil’s model for the central Mediterranean area, questionable. One point worth stressing is the distribution of the Late Mesolithic sites (Z ILHÃO, 1997; BIAGI, 2002; GUILAINE , 2002; SKEATES, 2002) and their chronology that covers some 1000-1500 radiocarbon years, according to the different regions. The picture currently available for both the Adriatic basin and the western Italian coastline is quite different from that provided by Z VELEBIL (1995: 118). A proposal for the application of Zvelebil’s model to Italian prehistory was made by LEWTHWAITE (1987). According to this author it is inevitable that this model passes through a number of changes in order to be applicable to a Mediterranean context. Following CLARKE (1976: 21) he stresses “ la premessa di una intensificazione costiera che permetta ai raccoglitori di raggiungere livelli di densità, complessità e sedentarismo paragonabili a quelli dei coltivatori presuppone una scala di produttività del mare propria del Baltico o del Mare del Nord… and… La premessa della programmazione stagionale in contrasto con, da una parte, la raccolta autunnale di piante selvatiche e, dall’altra, con lo sfruttamento delle ghiande e degli ungulati…non è applicabile al Mediterraneo”. The major weakness of this model is represented not only by the “ riluttanza a dare il giusto peso ai fattori sociali invece che a quelli ecologici o ergologici come stimolo al cambiamento economico” but by the low number of Late Mesolithic camps in northern Italy, where most sites are represented by flint scatters of typologic ally characteristic types, or by sites attributable to the transition between the Boreal and the Early Atlantic (B IAGI, 2002). The distribution of the Late Mesolithic sites of northern Italy does not coincide with that of the Early Neolithic settlements. Even though the horizontal distribution of the sites of the two periods (Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic) is rather similar, the vertical, that is altitudinal, pattern does not coincide at all (B IAGI, 2001: 80). Little can be said of the distribution of the Mesolithic sites along the Italian Peninsula because of  the scarcity of sites of this period. Another model has recently been proposed by J. Z ILHÃO (1997). It is primarily based on his experience at Portuguese Mesolithic shell-middens and Early Neolithic sites. Portugal is mainly an Atlantic-oriented country, both from a geographical and a historical point of view. vie w. All the sites mentioned me ntioned by Z ILHÃO (1992; 1993) are strictly related to the sea-level sea -level rise of the tidal Atlantic Ocean. All the sites mapped in his paper pa per are connected with the Ocean and not with the Mediterranean Sea. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that his re-assessment of the archaeological materials uncovered from the shell-midden and the Impressed Ware sites of the region and the results of his excavations at the Caldeirão Cave (Z ILHÃO, 1992) “show an overwhelming sup port for the pioneer colonisation model ” (ZILHÃO, 1997: 38). His considerations are based on the study of the material culture assemblages, on the re-evaluation of the radiocarbon dates and on his personal excavation experience. His colonisation model is based on the fact that, apart from some very old absolute dates of the Portuguese and Andorran Cardium  Impressed Wares (Caldeirão Cave: 6870±210 BP: ICEN-296; Balma Bal ma Margineda: 6850±150 BP: Ly-3289 and 6670±120 BP: Ly-2839) (Z ILHÃO, 2002), most of them are slightly more recent than those of both Mediterranean France (M ILLS, 1983: 140; G UILAINE, 2002), and Spain (BERNABEU AUBAN, 1997). According to ZILHÃO the spread of farming from the southeast to northwest Mediterranean Mediterra nean took place quite rapidly, that is at a rate of some 5 km per year, as the radiocarbon dates from the Arene Candide 14 ¯

Cave in Liguria (MAGGI and CHELLA, 1999), would suggest. Furthermore, the oldest of these latter dates are rather similar to those of Apulia (V ARTANIAN et al., 2000) and the Dalmatian coast (MÜLLER, 1994). According to ZILHÃO (1997: 21) “ at a level of resolution allowed by radiocarbon dating, this spread of Cardial farmers and shepherds could be described de scribed as a punctuated punc tuated event, not the outcome out come of a slow slow,, regular, regular, east-west spread   from one contiguous area to the next”. In a more recent article Z VELEBIL (2000: 57) proposes a new Neolithisation model assuming that “ neither  the introduction of farming through contact, nor by migration can alone explain the establishment of the  Neolithic”. He reutilises the concept of “leapfrog colonisation” introduced by Z ILHÃO (1997) that implies the “ forming an enclave settlement among native inhabitants”. ZVELEBIL  (2000: 61) applies the hypothesis of  “agriculture frontier” to the Dalmatian coast that presupposes “small scale movement of population within contact zones between  foragers and farmers, occurring along the established social networks, ne tworks, such as trading partnership, kinship lines… ” (ZVELEBIL, 2000: 58). Nevertheless the simplest, or may be the most difficult question to answer is: where were the last Mesolithic hunter-foragers around the first half of the seventh millennium BP (BIAGI, 2002)? 5. THE MESOLITHIC BACKGROUND The terms Sauveterrian and Castelnovian Culture that are employed in this volume are those generally accepted for the Mesolithic of the study region 2. The number of Mesolithic sites so far known in the Adriatic

Fig. 2 - Distribution map of the Early, Preboreal and Boreal (circles) and Late, Atlantic (dots) Mesolithic sites mentioned in the text: Tourkovouni (1), Preveza (2), Loutsa (3), Ammoudia (4), Konispol Cave (5), Sidari (6), Traba~ki Kr{ (7), Medena Stijena (8), Malisina Stijena (9), Odmut (10), Crvena Stijena (11), Vela {pilja (12), Kopa~ina {pilja (13), Gopodska pe}ina (14), Pupi}ina pe}, and other caves (15), Nugljanska pe} (16), Podosojna (17), Pod ^rmukljo and Dedkov Trebe`ž (18), Breg and Ljubljana marsh sites (19), Trieste and Slovene Karst caves (20), Grotta del Prete 21), Pievetorina (22), Ripoli (23), Ortucchio (24), Grotta Continenza (25), Grotta di Pozzo (26), Grotta Latronico (27), Grotta delle Mura (28), Torre Testa (29), Oria (30), Terragne (31), San Foca (32),  Alimini Lakes La kes (33) and Grotta Marisa (34) (after BIAGI and S PATARO, 2002, with modifications).  They follow the terminology partly introduced by KOZŁOWSKI and KOZŁOWSKI (1979) and later applied to the Adige Valley Mesolithic sequences that are among the most complete of southern Europe (BROGLIO and KOZŁOWSKI, 1983; CLARK, 2000). According to this cultural sequence, the time-span of the Sauveterrian Culture covers the entire Pre-boreal and Boreal climatic phases, and is characterised by triangular (hyper)microliths (hyper)microliths of isosceles shape. The latter often obtained with the microburin technique, during the Preboreal and of scalene, elongate form, during the Boreal. According According to most authors, the Sauveterrian derives from the Final Epigravettian Culture (GUERRESCHI, 1983; MARTINI, 2000), while BROGLIO (1973) is more sceptical due to the different typology of the cores yielded by Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic assemblages. The beginning of the Atlantic is marked by the appearance of the Castelnovian Culture (KOZŁOWSKI and KOZŁOWSKI, 1979: 159) that derives its name from the rock-shelter site of   (piquant trièdre ) trapezes (scalene, isosceles and Châteuneuf-les-Martigues, in Provence. The flint industry is characterised by various types of  piquant rectangular) obtained from bladelets with the microburin technique. Other typical tools are long end scrapers and denticulated blades and bladelets. All the instruments are obtained from subconical blade or, more often, bladelet cores. Industries similar to this characterise the new period all over Europe (KOZŁOWSKI, 1987). 2

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region is very scarce (B IAGI and SPATARO, 2001) (fig. 2). This might be due to different factors, which have already been taken into consideration by various authors and that will be discussed at the end of this chapter. It is well known that Mesolithic sites are extremely rare in the Balkan Peninsula (BAILEY, 2000: 32). This is the case also for Turkish (Ö ZDOGAN, 1997; 1998) and Greek Thrace (A MMERMAN, pers. comm. 1999), where intensive surveys and the excavation of a series of cave sites have revealed the first traces of Mesolithic camps. 5.1. GREECE In Greece, the distribution pattern of the Mesolithic open-air stations is limited to the coast of Epirus, where RUNNELS (1995) discovered only four sites buried by coastal dunes. They consist of scatters of flint artefacts, among which are trapezoidal, geometric microliths. microli ths. Three of these have been mapped by VAN ANDEL and RUNNELS (1995: 482). Another Ionian site is known along the northern coast of the Island of Corfu (S ORDINAS, 1969). The best-known cave site is that of the Franchthi Cave in the eastern Peloponnese (V AN ANDEL and RUNNELS , 1995: 482). Others have been discovered in Argolis (Klisoura Cave) (K OUMOUZELIS et al., 1996), in Thessaly (Theopetra Cave), and in the Youra Island (Cyclope Cave) (S AMPSON et al., 1998). This distribution pattern strongly contrasts with that of the Early Neolithic settlements, which are particularly numerous, especially in the Thessalian Plain, where at least 275 Neolithic open-air sites are known to date (K YPARISSIAPOSTOLIKA , 1998: 241). The only Mesolithic site of this region is the Theopetra Cave, whose stratigraphy produced evidence of  Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Early Neolithic occupation layers. According to K YPARISSI-APOSTOLIKA (1999: 234) “the appearance of an intervening sandy layer (90 cm thick) between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, with distinguishing characteristics not related to any of these two periods, sets the problem of the existe nce of  the Mesolithic in the deposit of the cave”. A radiocarbon date of 9275±75 BP (DEM-315) attributes this layer to the Boreal climatic period (KYPARISSI-APOSTOLIKA, 1998: 249). No typical Mesolithic tools, such as geometric microliths or backed microbladelets and microburins, have been recovered from this layer (A DAM, 1999). The radiocarbon dates available from this cave show a gap of some 1000 years between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic occupation layers (BIAGI and SPATARO, 1999-2000: 21; K YPARISSI-APOSTOLIKA , 2000: 136; THISSEN, 2000: 142). A more reliable, but still problematic sequence for the understanding of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition in Greece, is that of the Cyclope Cave in the northern nort hern Sporades. From this site the radiocarbon chronology shows an almost continuous sequence with a gap of only some 300 years between the “aceramic” Mesolithic levels, and the Neolithic ones (B IAGI and SPATARO, 1999-2000: 18), which is characterised by the appearance of  monochrome and red painted wares similar to those of Sesklo (S AMPSON et al., 1998). Of major importance are the deposits of the Franchthi Cave in Argolis. Here the excavations brought to light an almost “continuous” sequence that covers the entire Mesolithic and Early Neolithic periods. The stratigraphy of this cave is rightly considered one of the most important of the central Mediterranean basin. The accurate study of the flint assemblages carried out by P ERLÈS (1987) has shown the peculiarity of the Franchthi Mesolithic assemblages that are characterised by the scarcity of geometrical tools since the beginning of the period, radiocarbon dated between the middle (P-2227: 9430±160 BP) and the end (P-2228: 9060±110 BP) of the tenth millennium BP (P ERLÈS, 1999: 316). Microlithic, trapezoidal and triangular tools, sometimes obtained from bladelets, make their appearance during the Late Mesolithic phase, dated between 8940±120 BP (P-1664) and 8530±90 BP (P-2107). The levels above, very poor in lithic artefacts, are attributed by PERLÈS (2001: 26) to the Final Mesolithic (?). Various authors have supported the archaeological “continuity” of the Mesolithic layers into the Early Neolithic ones, up to recent times (see for instance B UDJA, 1999: 129), in order to demonstrate the local origin origi n of the Neolithic in the Peloponnese 3. According to THISSEN (2000: 144) the discontinuity between the end of the Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic occupation of the cave is also demonstrated by the radiocarbon evidence. Another Mesolithic sequence, covering the Early and Late Mesolithic period, but missing any evidence  This view has been firmly rejected by PERLÈS (1999: 317) who, discussing the problem of the Neolithisation in the area on the basis of the finds from the Franchthi Cave, observes that although at the beginning of the Early Neolithic “the basic tool kit maintained the traditions of the Mesolithic….. a few pieces, such as pressure-flaked blades and trapezes……clearly belonged to a different, Neolithic tradition ”. Furthermore, she also points out that “whether pottery was in use during the Initial Neolithic is still debated, even amongst Franchthi experts ”, and concludes that “suddenly (and   probably after a break in occupation), occupation) , one witnesses a fully developed Early E arly Neolithic, Neoli thic, with the complete range of domesticated species found in Greece, a different lithic assemblage, pottery, bone tools, grinding implements, celts, ornaments, etc. ”. 3

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of Early Neolithic occupation, is i s that of Klisoura Cave, in Argolis, where excavations are currently in progress (KOUMOUZELIS et al., 1996). The survey carried out by C. R UNNELS  (2002) in Thessaly, which is the core of Early Neolithic Greece, even though mainly oriented towards the discovery of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites, failed to discover sites of these periods. By contrast, a few Mesolithic flint scatters sca tters were found in Epirus and Argolis (K ARDULIAS and RUNNELS, 1995: 88). The Impressed Ware Ware sites in these regions are extremely e xtremely poorly documented. Sidari is i s a mound located in northwestern Corfu, with stratigraphy producing evidence of both Mesolithi c and Early Neolithic occupation. According to SORDINAS   (1969: 26) the Mesolithic “cigar-shaped ”, ”, shell-mound (level D) had a maximum thickness of 90 cm, while the overlying Neolithic layer (C, base) had a thic kness of some 50-60 cm. This layer yielded the earliest Neolithic pottery. This is followed by a sterile layer, some 70-80 cm thick (C, middle), which separates it from the Impressed Ware pottery layer (C, top) which was radiocarbon dated to 7340±180 BP (GXO-772). Other sites are those of Kastritsa Cave in the Pindus Mountains (H IGGS et al., 1967), whose topmost, disturbed layers yielded a few Impressed Ware potsherds, some pluri-stratified mounds of the Thessalian Plain and its i ts adjacent regions, such as Tsani, Tsani, Prodromos, Achilleion, Sesklo, Gendiki, Nesonis, Ne sonis, Karagats and Soufli (HAMEAU, 1987: 330; PAPATHANASSOPOULOS, 1996: 198) as well as the mound village of Nea Nikomedia in Macedonia, along the left l eft bank of the Haliakmon River, from which 9% of the analysed pottery has impressed decorative patterns (R ODDEN and WARDLE, 1996: 89). The excavations carried out by S ORDINAS (1969: 401) at Sidari produced evidence of Mesolithic occupation, dated to 7770±340 BP (GXO-770). This layer yielded an assemblage mainly chipped from non-local flint “dominated by flakes followed, fol lowed, in decreasing order, order, by debris, chips, cores and technical pieces, tools, bladelets and a single blade” (ADAM, 1999: 269). The picture given by this latter author, who has recently reexamined this assemblage, is quite different from that furnished by S ORDINAS (1970) who describes it as produced on local flint pebbles, including a few very atypical geometrics among which are rectangles, trapezes and triangles as well as a few microlithic microli thic backed points. The Early Neolithic level above, containing c ontaining flints and a few fragments of pottery, has been dated to 7670±120 BP (GXO-771). According to the radiocarbon dates the Late Mesolithic shell-midden site was abandoned slightly before the advent of the first Neolithic community that settled in the area. 5.2. ALBANIA Moving northwards, the Konispol Cave that opens at 400 m of altitude, is located in the Sarandë district, close to the Greek border (S CHULDENREIN, 1998), some 7 km from the present Strait of Corfu. A good set of  radiocarbon dates is currently available for both the Late Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic periods of this cave (fig. 3) (H ARROLD et al., 1999: 367). The Late Mesolithic dates fall between 7630±140 BP (Beta-67804) and 7410±80 BP (Beta-79999), while the Early Neolithic ones occur between 7060±110 BP (Beta-56415) and 6470±70 BP (Beta-80002). The Mesolithic horizons yielded a typical Late Mesolithic assemblage characterised by a bladelet industry, produced from subconical bladelet cores, with isosceles trapezes obtained without the microburin technique, and notched bladelets (H ARROLD et al., 2002). 5.3. MONTENEGRO The most important Mesolithic sites of Montenegro (Crna Gora) (M ARKOVI}, 1985) are the caves of Odmut (SREJOVI}, 1974), Crvena Stijena (B ENAC and BRODAR, 1958), Malisina Stijena (MIHAILOVI }  and DIMITRIJEVI}, 1999), Medena Stijena (M IHAILOVI}, 1996), and Treba }ki Kr{ (DURI~I}, 1996). The only site of this region from which are known Late Mesolithic occupation layers is that of Odmut, whose cultural sequence has recently been re-published by K OZŁOWSKI et al. (1994: 61). According to these authors the Mesolithic lithic industry from this cave “ is striking for its for its surprising stability, over the time-span of ca 1500 radiocarbon years”. The assemblages from the different layers are all characterised by a blade technology. The most typical tools are isosceles trapezes obtained without the microburin technique, very similar to those recovered from the Albanian Cave of Konispol, notched bladelets and short end-scrapers. The occurrence of this peculiar industry has led K OZŁOWSKI et al. (1994: 67) to locate the boundary between the Late Mesolithic Castelnovian Culture and the Odmut Culture in Montenegro, even though in a previous paper KOZŁOWSKI and KOZŁOWSKI (1983) had attributed this latter assemblage to the Castelnovian Culture. Following KOZŁOWSKI et al. (1994: 67, 68) “ it should be noted that the Castelnovian commonly ¯ 17

Fig. 3 - Konispol Cave (AL): graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme). Source: S CHULDENREIN, 1998.

 - utilized at the neighbouring cave employed the microburin technique to produce trapezes, while this method  site of Crvena Stijena, attributed to the Castelnovian, Late Mesolithic - was not used at Odmut. Differences are also found in the end scrapers group. The Castelnovian industry contains a rich group of blade forms (more numerous numerous that at Odmut) with a number of specimens with angulated fronts and lateral retouch. These types are not found in the Odmut industry. Moreover blades at Castelnovian comprise a larger proportion of  notched forms”. Eleven radiocarbon dates have been obtained from this sequence. Nine of the m fall between 7790±70 BP (Si-2226) and 6736±130 BP (Z-142); two more, which are considered to be too old, yielded the following results: 9135±80 BP (Si-2228) and 8590±100 BP (Si-2224) (K OZŁOWSKI et al., 1994: 54) (fig. 4). 5.4. DALMATIA AND ISTRIA No Mesolithic site is known along the Dalmatian Da lmatian coast as far fa r as Vela Vela {pilja on the Kor~ula Island (^E~UK and RADI}, 2000) and Kopa~ina {pilja on the Bra~ Island (^E~UK, 1996: 18). Even the accurate survey carried out in the t he Province of Zadar (B ATOVI} and CHAPMAN , 1985) did not yield 18 ¯

Fig. 4 - Odmut Cave (YU): graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration proOZŁOWSKI gramme). Source: K OZ  et al., 1994.

any Mesolithic find against a relative high number of Palaeolithic (42) and Neolithic (44) findspots in the territory. This fact is explained by C HAPMAN et al. (1996: 61) as caused by the “ large-scale sea-level changes that affected the Adriatic Sea between 10,000 and 5000 Cal. BC, flooding many coastal sites. Secondly, post Neolithic deposition de position of >1m of sediments sedi ments has covered c overed areas of bottomland in the valleys, a zone potentially attractive to foraging groups. Thirdly, the absence of retouched artefacts diagnostic of the Mesolithic period  inhibits the identification of dated sites ”. Another Croatian site, in the Istria region, is that of the Podosojna Cave, whose stratigraphy covers both Sauveterrian and Castelnovian periods (M ALEZ, 1979). A charcoal sample from this latter horizon has been ¯ 19

dated to 6460±90 BP (Z-198). Another Istrian cave, is that of Pupi }ina pe} (MIRACLE, 1997), which produced evidence of Final Pleistocene and Early Holocene occupations, even though the flint assemblages from these latter levels are so poor that they do not allow any consideration considerati on on the cultural aspect they represent. Here the earliest Holocene occupation has been radiocarbon dated to 9590±180 BP (Z-2572) and 8770±310 BP (Z2577), levels 26-25, and to 9200±170 BP (Z-2643) and 8708±170 BP (Z-2635), level 24. The Late Mesolithic M esolithic is totally missing from the stratigraphy of this site. A few more Mesolithic cave sites have recently been discovered near Pupi }ina, those of [ebrn Abri, Nugljanska pe} and Klanj~eva pe} (MIRACLE and FORENBAHER, 1998). All this caves showed traces of Boreal occupation. The richest finds come from [ebrn Abri. The Mesolithic layers of this cave yielded a poor assemblage, represented by very typical microlithic tools such as elongated, scalene triangles obtained with the microburin technique. Three radiocarbon radioc arbon dates have been obtained from the Boreal levels, ranging rangi ng from 9280±40 BP (Beta-120272) to 8810±80 BP (Beta-127707) (M IRACLE et al., 2000) (fig. 5).

Fig. 5 - Adriatic Mesolithic: graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme) (after BIAGI and SPATARO, 20 2002 02:: 16 169) 9)..

5.5. THE SLOVENE AND TRIESTE KARST Apart from these sparse Croatian sites, the densest Mesolithic concentrations are those of the Trieste and Slovene Karst. In Slovenia many sites are known around the Ljubljana marsh (Ljubljansko Barje) (M LEKU`, 2001), although only one has been published in detail. The open-air site of Breg (F RELIH, 1987), attributed to the Castelnovian Culture on the basis of the characteristic flint assemblage, has been radiocarbon dated to 6630±150 BP (Z-1421). Nevertheless, a more recent excavation reveal ed an older Mesolithic occupation layer with a stone structure radiocarbon dated to the Boreal climatic period (M LEKU`, 2001: 47). Other sites are 20 ¯

known at the rock shelter of Pod ^rmukljo (BRODAR, 1992) and in the lowest layers la yers of the cave Mala Triglavca (LEBEN, 1988), not far from the Italian border, which both yielded typical Castelnovian assemblages. Another Boreal rock-shelter has recently been discovered at Famlja, very close to the left bank of the Reka (Timavo) River (TURK, pers. comm. 2000). The situation in the Trieste Karst is rather different. There are at least fourteen caves, which have so far produced evidence of Mesolithic occupation (MONTAGNARI KOKELJ , 1993). The last Castelnovian hunter-foragers inhabited just a few of these, while most of them show the presence of Boreal, Sauveterrian occupation. The radiocarbon dates so far available for the Mesolithic of the Trieste Karst are those of Benussi (B ROGLIO, 1971), Ciclami (C ICCONE, 1993), Zingari and Edera caves (B IAGI et al., 1993). The best-dated sequence is that of Grotta Benussi from which five radiocarbon radi ocarbon dates have been obtained. They are: 8380±60 BP (R-1045) and 8650±60 BP (R-1045a) for the Sauveterrian occupation, 7620±150 BP (R-1044), 7230±140 BP (R-1042) and 7050±60 BP (R-1043) for the Castelnovian levels. The Boreal Sauveterrian of Ciclami Cave has been dated to 8260±70 BP (R-1041); while the Sauveterrian horizon of Zingari Cave has produced a result of  9570±80 BP (R-971a). Of great interest are the dates recently obtained for the Preboreal, Boreal and Early Castelnovian Mesolithic layers of Edera Cave (B IAGI and SPATARO, 1999-2000: 36). The radiocarbon dates from this cave are in accordance with the flint assemblages and the bioarchaeological material collected during the excavations. Regarding the Mesolithic/Early Neolithic sequence, three main distinct anthropogenic phases can be recognised, the first belonging to the Preboreal (Sauveterrian), the second to the (Middle) Boreal (Sauveterrian) and the third to the (Early and Middle) Atlantic (Late Castelnovian and Early Neolithic Vlaška Culture). The systematic analysis of some of these Mesolithic assemblages (B ROGLIO, 1971; CREMONESI, 1984; BOSCHIAN and P ITTI, 1984; C ICCONE, 1993) have demonstrated that most of the Trieste Karst caves were inhabited during the Boreal, Middle Sauveterrian period. Most sequences are truncated at the beginning of the Atlantic phase when, in the material culture flint assemblage, the first trapezoidal arrowheads make their appearance. This fact, which has been recorded from most of the Mesolithic sequences of the Trieste Karst as well as from the excavations in progress at Edera Cave (B IAGI, 2001) occurs at most of the Mesolithic stratigraphical sequences so far known in northern Italy (B OSCHIAN, pers. comm. 2000), such as those of Trentino (BROGLIO, 1992; CLARK, 2000) and of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines (CASTELLETTI et al., 1994). The occurrence of pure, Late Mesolithic Castelnovian layers is far more rare, and is restricted to Grotta Benussi (B ROGLIO, 1971), Cavernetta della Trincea (ANDREOLOTTI and STRADI, 1963) and to hearth 3a of Edera Cave (B IAGI et al., 1993). 5.6. THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL WESTERN ADRIATIC COAST West of the Trieste Karst no Mesolithic site has been recovered along the Marano Lagoon. All the Friuli stations are distributed further inland, along fluvial morainic amphitheatres (C ANDUSSIO et al., 1991), while a few sites exist rather close to the present coastline of the Venetian Lagoon (B ROGLIO et al., 1987). Along the Italian Adriatic coastline, south of the Veneto, no Mesolithic site is known as far as the Marche (PLUCIENNIK, 1994: 54). From this region, S KEATES (1999) lists six sites, none of which belongs to the Late Mesolithic. The only dated site is that of Grotta del Prete. Here, above the Final Epigravettian levels, traces of Preboreal occupation have been found, radiocarbon dated to 9990±190 BP (R-645). A poor flint industry recovered from the valley bottom, open-air site of Pieve Torina, along the Chienti River is attributed to the Boreal, Sauveterrian Culture (B ROGLIO  and LOLLINI , 1982: 56). The finds from the open-air sites of Ortucchio and Ripoli in the Abruzzi, are of uncertain stratigraphic position (R ADMILLI , 1997), while those of the Mesolithic sequence (spits 28-25) of Grotta Continenza (B EVILACQUA, 1994) 1994) are typically Sauveterrian. They are dated to 9680±100 BP (R-557: spit 28), 9650±100 BP (R-555: spit 27), 9330±100 BP (R-554: spit 27), 9100±100 BP (R-553: spit 26) and 9490±100 BP (R-552: spit 25). The poor assemblage from Grotta di Pozzo in the Province of Potenza has yielded dates falling between 8110±90 BP (TO-3420) and 9370±80 BP (TO-3422). It is attributable to a slightly later period in t he development of the Sauveterrian Culture (MUSSI et al., 2000: 279). Even the accurate survey carried out in the Biferno Valley Valley of Molise, failed in i n recovering Mesolithic sites. Despite the abundance of Epigravettian and Early Neolithic Impressed Ware settlements, no Mesolithic has ever been discovered in this region (B ARKER, 1995: 97). ¯ 21

5.7. THE SOUTH WESTERN ADRIATIC COAST Apulia is most probably the region of southern Italy from which we have the best information regarding the Mesolithic period. Although most of the finds are from surface collections, some cave sequences have yielded Mesolithic habitation levels. This is the case for Grotta delle Mura near Monopoli in the province of  Bari. Layer 2 of this cave sequence gave a Boreal Mesolithic Mesoli thic assemblage dated to 8290±50 BP (Utc-1417) and to 8240±120 BP (Utc-780) (C ALATTINI, 1996), above a Romanellian Romanellian,, Final Palaeolithic layer dated to 10,850±100 BP (Utc-1462). Late Castelnovian assemblages, on the contrary are known from the open-air sites of the Salento Peninsula (MILLIKEN and SKEATES, 1990), such as those of Torre Testa (C REMONESI, 1978), S. Foca (INGRAVALLO, 1980), Terragne (G ORGOGLIONE et al., 1995), most probably in the surroundings of Oria (I NGRAVALLO, 1977), and around the Alimini lakes (M ILLIKEN and SKEATES, 1990). In south-east Italy the SauveterrianCastelnovian sequence seems to be documented at only two caves, both still unpublished: Grotta Marisa in the Salento Peninsula (GRIXONI , 1997) and Grotta Latronico in Basilicata (PLUCIENNIK, 2000). The Castelnovian levels of this latter site have recently been dated between 7800±90 BP (R-449), and 7400±90 BP (R-447) (GRIFONI CREMONESI, 1996; CIPOLLONI SAMPÒ et al., 1999: 20). 5.8. DISCUSSION The importance of the Mesolithic background in the study of the Neolithisation has been pointed out by several scholars (see for instance K OZŁOWSKI and KOZŁOWSKI , 1983; L EWTHWAITE, 1986; ZVELEBIL and LILLIE, 2000). Nevertheless, a detailed map of the t he Mesolithic sites which might have been involved in the process has never been drawn by any of the above-mentioned authors. At this stage of the research, it is necessary to point out that only the Late Mesolithic Castelnovian Culture might have been involved, to some extent, in the Neolithisation process, and not the preceding Sauveterrian one, which disappeared at the beginning of the Atlantic period (B INDER, 2000: 121; B IAGI, 2002). According to the available data, our knowledge of the Mesolithic along the south Adriatic coastlines and the adjacent regions is very scarce. Most of the data come from Preboreal and Boreal sites, while Early Atlantic, Castelnovian ones are extremely extreme ly rare. At some of the above-mentioned cave sites, the Boreal Sauveterrian occupation lies beneath beneat h the Early Neolithic Impressed Ware one. This fact has already been noticed by several authors, such as G RIFONI CREMONESI (1996), CREMONESI and GUILAINE (1987) and G UILAINE  and CREMONESI (1987), who also noted the occurrence of trapezoidal microliths of “Castelnovian tradition” at some of the oldest Impressed Ware sites of the Apulian coast. The general impression is that the evidence for Mesolithic occupation is very poor also in the territories where accurate surveys have been carried out (B IAGI and SPATARO, 2002: 174). The available evidence comes from cave sites and scatters of surface artefacts from which a limited amount of information can be obtained apart from the typological characteristics of the lithic assemblages. Furthermore, the occurrence of Late Mesolithic Castelnovian sites is even less documented. This highly contrasts with the following Early Neolithic distribution pattern, which indicates the presence of numerous settlements, settle ments, distributed over large areas. These data do not favour the view of a balanced balance d population density during the “transitional” “transitional ” period between the Late Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic. Along the Italian Tyrrhenian coast, the evidence for Mesolithic occupation occupati on is even scarcer. The chronology and the typological characteristics characteristi cs of the chipped stone assemblages are more difficult to interpret. The best Mesolithic/Neolithic sequence of Sicily is that of Grotta dell’Uzzo in the Province of Trapani (T AGLIACOZZO, 1993). Apart from several claims to the continuity of this stratigraphy, the radiocarbon chronology shows a gap of more than 1000 years between the so-called Mesolithic/Neolithic transition layer and the first Early Neolithic occupation of the cave (BIAGI and SPATARO, 1999-2000: 25) 4.  Another problematic site is that of Perriere Sottano in the Catania Plain. The pedology of the deposit is very homogeneous. It is composed of only one layer produced by the dissolution of the sandstone that characterises the bedrock. The subdivision of this deposit made by the excavators (A RANGUREN and REVEDIN, 1989-1990) is based on the presence of a supposed hardened “walking floor” discovered 50 cm below the surface. The upper “level” is richer in flint chipped stone artifacts and faunal remains than the lower “level”, some 60 cm thick down to the bedrock. Spit 54 of the upper level has been dated to 8700±150 BP (UtC-1424), while the lower-lying spit 60 of the same level has produced a result of 8460±70 BP (UtC-1355). The chipped stone assemblage from the two horizons, composed of both flint and quartzite artifacts, is unique. Macrolithic tools and two atypical microliths, one abrupt retouched point and one flakelet represent the assemblage from the upper level; while the lower one is rich in macrolithic and hypermacrolithic tools as well as in microliths. The latter include types never recorded at any other Italian Mesolithic sites, such as leaf-shaped, hypermicrolithic, double points and large, bilateral, abruptretouched points (ARANGUREN and REVEDIN, 1998). A fragment of Liparian obsidian comes from the spit just below the radiocarbon date UtC-1424. The chipped stone assemblage from this site is very different both from those of the Final Epigravettian sites known in the island and from those of the other Mesolithic sites such as the Uzzo Cave and the Cala dei Genovesi where the upper layers are dated to the beginning of the Holocene (LEIGHTON, 1999: 271). 4

22 ¯

The presence of peculiar Mesolithic assemblages, without (or with few) microlithic tools along the Tyrrhenian coast has led M ARTINI (2000) to adopt the term “undifferentiated Epipalaeolithic” for these assemblages. This idea derives from the discovery of a Mesolithic assemblage, dated to the be ginning of the Holocene, in the stratigraphic sequence of the Serratura Cave in Campania (M ARTINI, 1993). A few lithic industries, chronologically attributed to the beginning of the Holocene should be referred to this aspect. They are characterised by assemblages without (or with very few) microlithic geometrics, such as those of Riparo Blanc in Latium (T ASCHINI , 1964), dated to 8565±80 BP (R-341), possibly the cave of La Porta di Positano in Campania, dated to 8619±200 BP (Pi-10) (F ERRARA et al., 1959), and the Mesolithic levels of  Grotta del Santuario della Madonna near Praia a Mare along the north Calabrian coast (C ARDINI , 1970). The stratigraphy of this cave spans from the end of the Final Epigravettian to the Middle Bronze Age (Cardini, 1970; Bernabò Brea and Cavalier, 2000). In addition the radiocarbon sequence shows a gap of some 1000 years between the Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic occupation levels (Biagi and Spataro, 1999-2000: 30). P. BIAGI (2001; 2002) has recently rediscussed the problem of the distribution distribut ion of the Late Mesolithic sites site s of northern Italy in relation to the Early Neolithic ones. According to this author the two distributions do not coincide other than in two well-defined regions, the Trieste Karst and the Adige Valley rock-shelters of the Trento Basin. The occurrence of non-local pottery in the Late Castelnovian hearth of layer 3a of Grotta dell’Edera, in the Trieste Karst (S PATARO, 2001), is so far a unique case for this area. The complexity of the archaeology of the upper Adriatic Basin around the middle of the seventh millennium BP, BP, or slightly earlier, earl ier, has been recently reconsidered by B IAGI (2003a) who suggested that three cultural aspects, one Late Mesolithic (the Castelnovian) and two Neolithic (the Impressed Ware and Danilo/Vla{ka) were active in the region between the Karst and the Istrian Peninsula roughly at the same time. Given the difficulty (or the impossibility) of establishing a very detailed seriation of the events that took place in the area, it is also problematic to define whether the first Impressed Ware Ware farmers were present in the whole region when the last hunter-gatherers settled in the Trieste and in the Slovene Karst, and whether or not the Impressed Ware and the first Danilo communities coexisted at roughly the same time (SPATARO, 2001: 98). The current archaeological evidence can be summarized as follows: 1) the distribution of the Impressed Ware and Danilo sites seem to be complementary; 2) the Impressed Ware is poorly represented in the Trieste Karst caves, the sequences of which never show a ny defined Impressed Ware Ware horizon; 3) apart from Edera Cave and Pupi }ina pe} (M IRACLE, 1997), most of the other sites of this period are undated; 4) apart from the two above-mentioned ones, all the other cave and open-air sites were excavated with out-of-date retrieval methods. The evidence from Edera Cave, layer 3a, might represent the only indisputable example of relationships between the last hunter-gatherers and the first farmers of the region. In Z VELEBIL’s (1986) terminology this might represent the only evidence of an “availability” phase where contacts between the two populations are attested by the exchange of goods, in this case of pottery as isolated items. Contrary to this author (Z VELEBIL and LILLIE, 2001), the area where pottery is represented in hunter-gatherer contexts is known only from Edera Cave and not all along the Dalmatian coast and the Italian Peninsula where (Late) Mesolithic traces of occupation are very scarce (B IAGI, 2002; BIAGI and SPATARO, 2002). There is no doubt that the “availability” and the “demic diffusion” models (Z VELEBIL, 2000) are reflected in different ways in the ceramic contexts. The only evidence so far known for the first model comes from Edera Cave, while the second seems to find better confirmation in the Adriatic basin. Thus, the supposed balanced number of Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic which is supposed to be necessary during the availability phase is not confirmed by the archaeological data. Whether a “demic diffusion” or a “leapfrog” model might help explain the spread of the Neolithic in the Adriatic region is still disputable. The distribution of the Impressed Ware Ware (and also of the Danilo) D anilo) pottery would support the idea of some kind of population movement from south-east to north-west. Their rate of advance, can be hardly defined beca use of the very limited number of radiocarbon dates, although that of the Danilo Culture might have been rather rapid, as confirmed by the strong similarities between the Gudnja pe }ina and the Trieste Karst radiocarbon dates, all falling around the middle of the seventh sevent h millennium BP. BP. The only evidence of a “Mesolithic background” bac kground” in the Impressed Ware material culture assemblages of the first farmers might be represented by trapezoidal geometrics in the chipped stone industries, although this is a phenomenon that occurs almost all over Europe around the beginning of the Neolithic. ¯ 23

6. THE HOLOCENE SEA-LEVEL RISE RISE Another point of this research is to define whether the scarcity of Mesolithic sites along the Adriatic coastline is due to the post-Pleistocene sea-level rise, which undoubtedly submerged part of the plain that might have constituted suitable land for the settlement at least of the Pre-boreal and Boreal Mesolithic communities of the upper Adriatic (G EDDES et al., 1983; M ILLS, 1983: 103; S HACKLETON  and VAN A NDEL, 1986). There is little doubt that the scarcity of Mesolithic sites in this region can be linked to the sea-level rise, as demonstrated by the marine shellfish remains, of the Trieste Karst Azzurra (C ANNARELLA and CREMONESI , 1967) and Edera Caves, around the middle of the seventh millennium BP. BP. The Early Atlantic Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of these two caves exploited the marine resources of a rocky coastline, as demonstrated by the great amount of Patella caerulea and  Monodonta turbinata shellfish, while their Boreal Sauveterrian predecessors do not show any familiarity with the marine resources. This indicates that the Boreal sea-shore was too far for their gathering radius. The geography of the upper Adriatic basin between t he last glacial maximum and the beginning of the Boreal has been summarized by V AN ANDEL and SHACKLETON (1984: 310). Following these authors a high number of Late Palaeolithic to Boreal sites were undoubtedly lost between 18,000 and 9000 BP, BP, assuming that the sea-shoreline at this latter time was some –35 m lower than the present one. Research in the Venetian Lagoon still in progress by A.J. A MMERMAN  (pers. comm. 1999), however, has not yet revealed any trace of Mesolithic and Neolithic submerged sites. In contrast, little is known of the location of the Early Atlantic sea-shore of most of Greece, Dalmatia and south Adriatic region with the only exception of the fluctuation of the coastline in front of the Franchthi Cave in the Peloponnese (SHACKLETON and VAN ANDEL, 1986). A number of studies on the post-Glacial sea-level rise along the coasts of the Greek Peninsula have been written in the recent past. Starting from S ORDINAS  (1969), who attempted to reconstruct the Early Holocene coastlines of the Island of Corfu, to V AN ANDEL and SHACKLETON  (1982), and more recently P SYCHOYOS  (1988) and LAMBECK (1996), the bibliography on the subject has steadily increased. The recent discovery of Mesolithic sites with trapezoidal microliths along the Ionian littoral of northern Epirus is of great importance for the definition of the shoreline of this region at the beginning of the Atlantic. The six sites consist of dense flint scatters, located on fossil dunes distributed on the present shoreline between the town of Preveza and the mouth of the Acheron River (R UNNELS , 1995: 724). Following MÜLLER (1994: 279), whose view of the problem regards the Early and Middle Atlantic periods along the Dalmatian coast, the “loss of land as a product of the rising sea-level was minimal, thus it mainly happened about 1000 14C-years earlier than the appearance of first Impresso communities at the East Adriatic region ”. According to the current knowledge, there is little littl e reason to support the disappearance of Late Mesolithic Castelnovian sites, due to sea-level rise along the south Adriatic coastline, while Early Neolithic, Impressed Ware sites still exist close to the t he present coastline (see for example Scamuso: B IANCOFIORE and COPPOLA, 1997, and Torre Sabea: C REMONESI and GUILAINE , 1987). The evidence of submerged Early Neolithic sites, along the north Mediterranean coast, is so far limited to the Impressed Ware ones of Cap Ragnon, in the Marseille Bay (C OURTIN et al., 1970-1972) and of LeucateCorrège, north of Perpignan (G UILAINE et al., 1984), where systematic studies on this subject were carried out in the 1970’s (D E LUMLEY, 1976). 7. THE IMPRESSED WARE CULTURE The appearance of the early farming communities communiti es along the coasts of the Mediterranean is marked by the occurrence of large settlements characterised by an abundance of pottery wi th impressed decorations obtained by finger, fingernail, marine shell ( Cardium or more rarely Pectunculus), and various instruments. Even though these patterns vary region by region, the common characteristic is the technique adopted to decorate the vessels, which is in most cases impressed. This technique gives the name to this widely spread aspect, which is generically called Impressed Ware (IW). 7.1. TERMINOLOGY A discussion on the meaning of this term at the last Round Table on the “Impressed Ware of the Western 24 ¯

Mediterranean” held in Nice in June 1999, failed to develop a better terminology te rminology or to define the “Culture” as a whole. Nevertheless, it has been decided to adopt this term mainly because all the Early Neolithic potsherds collected from both the Italian and Dalmatian sites have been described in the literature as belonging to the Impressed Ware Ware (or Ceramica Impressa or Céramique Imprimée or Abdruckkeramik-Kultur or Impresso-Kultur). It is well known that Impressed Wares throughout the Mediterranean basin 5 are differentiated group-bygroup and region-by-region and that their chronology covers at least 1000 years. BERNABÒ BREA (1946; 1956) is one of the first scholars who described the main characteristics of this cultural aspect in the publication of the results of his excavations at the Arene Candide Cave in Liguria. Thanks to this scholar the chrono-typological seriation of the Neolithic cultures that characterise part of the northwest Mediterranean coast was first established. 7.2. DISTRIBUTION The distribution of the settlements of this Culture covers most of the coasts and some internal regions of  the Mediterranean Basin. It has been subdivided into many distinct, regional groups, mainly on the basis of  the pottery shapes and their decorative patterns. Apart from the material culture assemblage (mainly the pottery and, to a certain extent, the chipped stone industry), many of the most important characteristics of this culture, such as the subsistence economy, and the structure and the distribution of the villages, are poorly known because of the limited number of surveys and excavations carried out in some regions where the Impressed Ware Culture is distributed. For instance, while some of these aspects are well known to southeastern Italy (BARKER, 1975; 1995; B ÖKÖNYI , 1991), Liguria (R OWLEY-CONWY, 1997), and southern France (GEDDES, 1980; ROWLEY-CONWY, 1995), very little is known along the eastern east ern Adriatic coast (MALEZ, 1975) and Greece (BARKER, 1985: 64). 7.3. CHRONOLOGY The problem of the chronology and of the distribution of this cultural aspect has been discussed in several papers and is still a subject of controversial debate (P LUCIENNIK, 1997). In effect the first Impressed Ware settlements seem to have been established in south-eastern Italy around the last two centuries of the eighth millennium BP. Rather similar dates are known from the Cardium sites of the same culture along the coast of  Croatia. In contrast, the Impressed Ware Culture took some 1000 radiocarbon years to spread along the Ital ian Adriatic littoral (SKEATES, 1994: 65) as far as Romagna where the sites of Fornace Cappuccini (A NTONIAZZI et  al., 1985) and Rimini (B AGOLINI et al., 1989) are known. Quite a different situation is documented along al ong the Tyrrhenian Tyrrhenian coast of the Italian Peninsula. According to the radiocarbon chronology, the Stentinello sites of Calabria (A MMERMAN, 1985) are more or less contemporaneous to the first Impressed Wares Wares of the Ligurian caves (M AGGI and CHELLA, 1999). This implies quite a rapid spread of the first Early Neolithic farmers along this coast. Furthermore, while the Cardium  decorated wares are considered to be typical of the south-eastern Italian and Dalmatian coastline, they are not represented in central Italy, north of the Pescaro River (M ÜLLER, 1994). Farther north they re-appear in Liguria and Provence both in the “Cardial” and “Ligurian” facies of the Culture (G UILAINE , 2002). 7.4. THE SOUTH WESTERN ADRIATIC COAST At least two hundred Early Neolithic sites are known to date in Apulia. This picture strongly contrasts with the very low density densit y of last hunter-gatherer sites of the Castelnovian Cast elnovian Culture. These Impressed Ware sites show thick concentrations in the Tavoliere Foggiano (ODETTI, 1975: T. T. 33), along both the t he Adriatic and Ionian coastline of the Salentina Peninsula and in the Materano (Basilicata). The excavations carried out with interdisciplinary methods at some key sites, such as Trasano (G UILAINE and CREMONESI, 1987), Ripa Tetta (TOZZI, 1988), Torre Sabea (C REMONESI and GUILAINE, 1987), Scamuso (B IANCOFIORE and COPPOLA, 1997), and Rendina (CIPOLLONI  SAMPÒ, 1977-82), yielded results of great importance for the neolithisation of the Adriatic region. From these sites all the bioarchaeological materials have been collected and the habitation structures have been brought to light for the first time. According to most of the recent authors (W HITEHOUSE, 1986; CIPOLLONI SAMPÒ et al., 1999), the oldest aspect of the Apulian Impressed Ware is the so-called Prato Don Michele, Cardial  facies that takes its name  It must be remembered that “impressed “impressed wares” were in use in northern Africa up to recent times.

5

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from the homonymous site on the Tremiti Islands (F USCO, 1965). Some of the recently excavated Apulian sites are to be attributed to this facies, from which are known the oldest radiocarbon radi ocarbon dates of this Culture. They are from Trasano (7030±160 BP: Ly-5297; 6980±130 BP: TAN-88248; 6950±130 BP: TAN-88067; 6950±140 BP: TAN-88056; TAN-88056; 6950±150 BP: Ly-5296; 6830±190 BP: Ly-4410; and 6790±120 BP: TAN-88313), Scamuso (7290±110 BP: Gif-6339), and Torre Sabea (6960±130 BP (?)). The site of Masseria Giuffreda has been dated to 7125±200 BP (MC-2292) (W HITEHOUSE, 1987: 96) from a context that many authors consider “unclear” (GUILAINE et al., 1981). Many authors (G RIFONI CREMONESI, 1996: 70; P LUCIENNIK, 1997: 119) agree on rejecting the far too early dates from Coppa Nevigata and Casa San Paolo which yielded yie lded results between the end of  the ninth and the beginning of the eight millennia BP (M ÜLLER, 1994: 355) (fig. 6).

Fig. 6 - Impressed Ware of south-eastern Italy: graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme). Source: BIAGI and S PATARO, 2002:171, with modifications.

7.5. THE DALMATIAN COAST Almost identical dates are reported from the Cardial sites of the Dalmatian coast. Recent investigations carried out between the Gargano Ga rgano Promontory and the Islands of Mjlet, Kor ~ula and Hvar, have produced early, earl y, Cardium Impressed Ware sites at both Palagru `a (FORENBAHER and KAISER, 1997) and Su {ac Islands (BASS, 1998). These discoveries reinforce the idea that trans-Adriatic connections were already established by the beginning of the Neolithic as they already were in other areas of the Mediterranean (C HERRY, 1990; MALONE, 1997-98; MARTINI, 2000). The radiocarbon dates obtained from some of the Dalmatian Cardial Impressed Ware sites are almost identical to those already mentioned for Apulia. This suggests that the spread of the Early Neolithic along both sides of the Adriatic took place quite rapidly. Other indicators of trans-Adriatic connections come from the open-air settlement of Obre I, in Bosnia (BENAC, 1971: 106; 1973: 387; 1975: 147), which yielded both Star ~evo and Guadone style Impressed Wares 26 ¯

(Chapter 6, 7.). Recent surveys carried out in the islands of the north Dalmati an archipelago by the University of Birmingham have led to the recovery of Gargano Promontory flint artefacts (B ARFIELD, pers. comm. 1999). In fact, the Impressed Ware flint mines of Defensola started to be exploited around the beginning of the seventh millennium BP (G ALIBERTI et al., 2001: 95). From the distribution map of the Adriatic Cardial sites developed by M ÜLLER (1988: 121) one can note that, in south-eastern Italy the Cardium Impressed Ware Ware sites are restricted restri cted to a territory territ ory that covers Apulia and the Abruzzi, with a boundary that does not extend farther then the Pescaro River. Along the east Adriatic coast, the Cardium Impressed Ware extends from Albania and Montenegro, where are known the sequences of Crvena Stijena, Odmut and Spila (MARKOVI}, 1985), to Istria (LEBEN, 1978-79) and, perhaps (?), the Trieste Karst, although the finds from Vla{ka Jama (or Pejca v La{ci or Grotta del Pettirosso) (BATOVI}, 1975: 65) are of uncertain provenance 6. The Cardium  Dalmatian sites from which have been obtained radiocarbon dates comparable to those from the Apulian Prato Don Michele aspect, are those of Vela {pilja on the Island of Kor~ula (7300±120 BP: Z-1967 and 7000±120 BP: Z-1968) (B ASS, 1998: 173), Gopodska pe }ina (7010±90 BP: Z-579), Gudnja pe }ina (7170±70 BP: GrN-10315 and 6935±50 BP: GrN-10314) (C HAPMAN  and MÜLLER, 1990: 129) and Tinj-Podlivade (6980±160 BP: GrN-15236) (C HAPMAN et al., 1990: 32) (fig. 7).

Fig. 7 - Impressed Ware of the Dalmatian coast: graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme). Source: M ÜL LER, 1994.  B ARFIELD (pers. comm. 1999), who reanalysed the Moser collection (LEBEN, 1967: 66; BARFIELD, 1999) now in the stores of the Postojna Museum (SLO), suggests that they are not from the Karst caves, but from one of the many Impressed Ware sites of the Dalmatian coast. The potsherds are labelled with “Vla{ki” (Italy) and not Vla{ka Jama, which might be a consequence of the fact that Postojna (Postumia) was in Italy until the end of  World War Two (BIAGI, 2003a). 6

¯ 27

The concentration of open-air settlements in the Istria, Zagora and and Ravni Kotari allowed BATOVI } (1966) to define three phases in the development of the Dalmatian Impressed Ware Ware Culture: those of 1) Crvena Stijena, 2) Smil ~i}, and 3) Gudnja. According to his subdivision, the Crvena Stijena style (B ENAC, 1957; BENAC  and BRODAR , 1958) is characterised by Cardium and simple, instrumental impressed patterns. Its distribution is restricted to the caves of Montenegro, Bosnia, and to the Kvarnar Islands. The Smil~i} style (BATOVI}, 1966) is characterised by the appearance of various, impressed decorations, decorations, among which are geometric, triangular motifs, motifs, and by the first incised patterns. The distribution of this style style covers the entire Dalmatian coast as far as Istria and, according to some authors, it reaches the Trieste Karst. The Gudnja style is characterised by the disappearance of the Cardium decoration, while scratched and incised patterns are rather common. This style is mainly distributed along the coasts of central and southern Dalmatia. More recently, MÜLLER (1988: 106) proposed a more detailed subdivision of the Dalmatian Impressed Ware. According to this author, the “ Impresso A is primarily simple unconnected impressions or incisions, covering the entire surface (Design I, II, III, IV). These are the basic decoration patterns for Impresso Pottery, which survives throughout later Early Neolithic. Impresso B motives are the zig-zag design groups (Design V), which are added to Impresso A motives. Impresso C is characterised by fine tremolo decoration and  geometric incisions, added to Impresso A and B motives ”. Following MÜLLER’s (1994) detailed study, the distribution of the Impressed Ware sites seems to be closely related to the soil characteristics, geomorphology, and annual temperature. Furthermore, the area for settlement was selected because of the fertility of the territory. The subsistence economy of the sites is mixed, based on agriculture (cereal cropping), herding, and hunting. The collection of marine shellfish ( Mytilus, Ostrea , Venus, Cardium, and Spondylus) also played an important role at the sites close to the seashore, as in the case of Vi`ula, Smil~i}, Nin, etc. “ Agriculturally exploited  “  “nuclear zones” were surrounded by areas for  herding” (MÜLLER, 1988: 106). In this region, the Impressed Ware Culture is known from 44 sites located along the coast and in the western Dinaric Alps. 18 of these are open-air settlements and 26 are caves. 70% of the ceramics come from open-air sites (M ÜLLER, 1988: 102). 7.6. THE CENTRAL AND NORTH WESTERN ADRIATIC COAST The Impressed Ware villages of the central and north Italian Adriatic coast are characterised by ceramic assemblages decorated with finger, fingernail and instrumental (but not Cardium) impressions. They are generically defined as belonging to the so-called “Middle Adriatic Impressed Ware Culture” (C IPOLLONI SAMPÒ et  al., 1999: 20). As already mentioned, the Cardium decorated wares did not cross the Pescaro River, although many Impressed Ware Ware open-air and cave sites are known from here northwards. Their ceramics are decorated de corated with fingernail, finger, and instrumental impressions. The earliest radiocarbon dates of these sites fall around the middle of the seventh millennium BP (Grotta Continenza: 6590±75 BP: R-1411; Maddalena di Muccia: 6580±75 BP: R-463a; Villaggio Leopardi: 6578±135 BP: Pi-101; S. Stefano di Ortucchio: 6575±80 BP: R468) (fig. 8). They are comparable with those of the Apulian Scratched (“Graffite”) Wares. The most recent aspects of the Impressed Ware Culture in the Marche and Romagna regions (B AGOLINI et al., 1989) have yielded more recent dates, which range around the last two centuries of the seventh millennium BP (I MPROTA and PESSINA, 1998: 111). The pottery from these sites includes also linear, grooved decorations, which find some parallels with those of the more or less contemporaneous north Italian Po Valley aspects of Fiorano and Vhò (BAGOLINI  and BIAGI, 1980; 1987). 7.7. THE CHIPPED STONE ASSEMBLAGES Regarding the flint industries, the tool inventory is characterised by a greater variety compared to that of  the Castelnovian Late Mesolithic. Among the new types are different burins and end-scrapers, straight perforators obtained with abrupt, alternate retouch, which are a typical characteristic of the north Italian borers, sickle blades and, at some of the Apulian sites, bifacial tranchets. The chipped stone assemblage from Torre Sabea includes some types, such as isosceles trapezes, obtained with the microburin technique (C REMONESI and GUILAINE , 1987: 381). Trapezoidal piquant trièdre armatures obtained with the microburin technique are also known from Fornace Cappuccini near Ravenna, as well as from many other central Italian, Impressed Ware sites of the Abruzzi and Marche regions (R ADI, 1995). 28 ¯

Fig. 8 - Impressed Ware of central and north-eastern Italy: graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme). Source: SKEATES, 1994a; R ADI, 1995.

7.8. THE STRUCTURAL REMAINS One of the main problems to face in the study of the Impressed Ware Culture is the rarity of habitation structures. One of the few exceptions is the Stentinello open-air settlement of the Piana di Curinga in Calabria. Here, in the interior of the Sant’Eufemia Gulf, G ulf, AMMERMAN  (1985) excavated a probable trapezoidal house, the only indicators of which consisted of thousands of daub pieces. The only hut-foundation structure so far excavated from an Apulian site is that of Ripa Tetta (C IPOLLONI SAMPÒ et al., 1999: 23). This consists of a rectangular structure with narrow foundation ditc hes and postholes. At Rendina, in Basilicata, CIPOLLONI SAMPÒ (1977-1982) excavated the remains of a rectangular house delimited by postholes, while M ANFREDINI (1972) reports the existence of rectangular habitation structures at Monte Aquilone, which consist in remains of dry walls. A long, semi-circular stonewall is known at Trasano (G UILAINE   and CREMONESI , 1987), and at the entrance of the Uzzo Cave in the Province of Trapani (Sicily) (C OSTANTINI et al., 1987). Here earliest Impressed Ware occupation is represented by a few potsherds of Cardium decorated. This is later followed by a local aspect of the Stentinello Culture (T USA , 1976-1977), defined as Kronio style by T INÉ (1971). Other houses are supposed to exist at Bribir (B RUSI}, 1994-1995) and Smil ~i} (BATOVI}, 1966), in the district of [ibenik (HR), and Crno vrilo near Zadar (HR) (M ARIJANOVI}, 2002). The dry-stone foundation of a house was discovered at Pokrovnik (M ÜLLER, 1988: 114), while masses of daub fragments might indicate the remains of hut-foundations at Vi `ula (Medulin), in south Istria (B A}I}, 1969). ¯ 29

7.9. SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY The best data come from the Apulian and central Italian Adriatic sites. In examining the faunal remains from seven Impressed Ware sites of Apulia, B ÖKÖNYI (1991: 32) points out the predominance of domestic species mainly sheep and goats, followed foll owed by cattle and pig. A rather different situation is known from the Marche Mar che in eastcentral Italy. The bone remains come from the two settlements of Maddalena di Muccia and Ripabianca di Monterado, which show quite a different location and chronology. The fauna from Maddalena di Muccia an open-air site located in the hilly countryside of the interior, is composed of pig (50%), red deer (25%), caprines (15%) and cattle (8%) (B ARKER, 1975: 133) (see Chapter 4,2.). At Ripabianca di Monterado, a village vill age rather close to the Adriatic coast, 40 m above the sea level, pig was much less important (19%), while caprines rise to 64%, cattle maintained a stable frequency and deer and other game species are almost irrelevant (see Chapter 4,3.). 8. THE DANILO AND HVAR CULTURES 8.1. PREFACE The reason why the Danilo and Hvar Cultures have been included in this research is that the first developed during the second half of the seventh sevent h millennium BP, BP, which means that it is contemporaneous to the north Italian Early Neolithic sites and to the Impressed Ware sites of the northwestern Adriatic coast. In Dalmatia, the Danilo Culture (KORO{EC, 1958; 1959; 1964), is referred to the Middle Neolithic, because its radiocarbon chronology follows that of the Early Neolithic Impressed Ware Culture. The Hvar Culture (N OVAK, 1955) is most probably derived from that of Danilo. This assumption is based on three factors: 1) the similarities between some ceramic forms, 2) the almost identical distribution of the sites, and 3) the subsequent absolute chronology of the two cultures (F ORENBAHER and KAISER, 2000). In northern Italy, where the first Neolithic communities make their appearance around (or slightly later than) the middle of the seventh millennium mi llennium BP, BP, the Vla{ka Group (BARFIELD, 1972) and the other Friuli Plain sites that yielded typical Danilo material, are attributed to the Early Neolithic (F ERRARI and PESSINA, 2000). Some of the most important Neolithic settlements of the Dalmatian coast are multistratified, as, for instance those of Smil ~i} and Danilo Bitinj. I have decided to analyse the ceramics from the three Neolithic habitation layers (Impressed Ware, Danilo and Hvar) to check the eventual continuity in the pottery production systems. These analyses have been particularly successful in the case of the site of Smil ~i}, where this continuity has been demonstrated for the first time (Chapter 3, 5.5.). 8.2. THE DANILO CULTURE The distribution of the Danilo and Hvar Culture covers the coastal area and the islands of Dalmatia. As mentioned above, a local, impoverished aspect of Danilo, called Vla {ka by L.H. BARFIELD (1972) is known from the caves of the Trieste and Slovene Karst. Characteristic Danilo ceramics, such as fragments of rhyta, and other “cult” objects, e.g. a clay phallus (B ATOVI}, 1968) and female figurines, have recently been brought to light from the open-air settlement of Sammardenchia di Pozzuolo near Udine in the Friuli Plain (F ERRARI and PESSINA, 1996). According to the Dalmatian authors, the origins of the Danilo Culture are to be sought in the Impressed Ware, as the results obtained from the study of the materials from Smil ~i} would suggest (B ATOVI}, 1975a). A radiocarbon date from a charcoal charc oal sample collected collecte d at a depth of 4.6 m in a “transitional Impressed-Danilo” layer of Gudnja Cave sequence, near Dubrovnik yielded the result of 6560±40 BP (GrN-10311) (CHAPMAN, 1988: 7). 8.2.1. The radiocarbon chronology Two radiocarbon dates have been obtained for the Danilo Culture from the cave site of Gudnja pe }ina, near Dubrovnik. They are 6415±40 BP (GrN-10312) and 6520±40 BP (GrN-10313) (C HAPMAN, 1988: 7), while another two were already available avail able from the open site of Pokrovnik: 6300±150 BP (Z-859) (C HAPMAN and MÜLLER, 1990: 130) and 6290±65 BP (HD-13262/12842) (M ÜLLER, 1988: 350) (fig. 9). These dates are similar to those obtained obtai ned from the Vla{ka hearths of Edera Cave in the Trieste Karst, where Danilo type, black burnished wares and fragments of one typical Kakanj rhyton (BIAGI and SPATARO, 2001), identical to those known along the Dalmatian coast and Bosnia (MONTAGNARI KOKELJ and CRISMANI, 1993), have been brought to light. These vessels, that CHAPMAN (1988: 13) has interpreted as “salt-pots”, are characterised charact erised by an open round or oval mouth, a large ring handle and two or four legs resembling animal or human figures (P ERI}, 1996). 30 ¯

The radiocarbon chronology of the Danilo Culture is partly contemporaneous with that of the Impressed Ware Culture of both sides of the Adriatic. This fact has posed some problems in the te rminology employed by the Croatian and Italian prehistorians. According to the first, the term Early N eolithic is always referred to the Impressed Ware Culture, while the Danilo Culture represents the Middle Neolithic of the Dalmatian Coast (and that of Hvar the end of the Middle Neolithic). The Italian archaeologists, on the contrary, have always considered the Impressed Ware as representative of the Early Neolithic as well as that Vla {ka Group simply because they both flourished during the seventh millennium BP. BP. The start of the Middle Neolithic, in northern Italy is marked by the appearance of the Square-mouthed Pottery Culture, around the beginning of the sixth millennium BP (BAGOLINI  and BIAGI, 1990). 8.2.2. The pottery The Danilo Culture sites from which we have the highest amount of data, are those of Danilo Bitinj (KORO{EC, 1956; 1958; 1964), Smil ~i} (B ATOVI }, 1966), Jami na Sredi ( ^E~UK, 1982) and Vela {pilja on the Lo{inj (^E~UK, 1982) and Kor ~ula Islands (^E~UK, 1978), [karin Samograd (MÜLLER, 1988a), Bribir (K ORO{EC and KORO{EC, 1974; 1980), Zelena pe }ina (BENAC, 1957a), Crvena Stijena (B ENAC and BRODAR, 1958), and Gudnja pe}ina (BATOVI}, 1970). According to CHAPMAN  (1988: 11) “ the Danilo ceramic assemblage comprises four main fabric groups; bichrome painted wares, dark burnished wares with or without incised decoration, a red or buff monochrome subdi vided by K ORO{EC (1956) ware, and coarse wares in varying colours ”. The pottery assemblage has been subdivided into two main classes: the ordinary, decorated or undecorated, and the painted,  figulina pottery. The commonest ceramic shapes of the first class consist of different varieties of carinated and hemispherical bowls, pedestalled vessels and vases with restricted mouth. Cylindrical pedestals are also typical as are the rhyta and the phallus “cult” objects. The decorative patterns are mainly dynamic with incised and grooved recurrent spirals, meanders and linear geometric motifs (BENAC and MARIJANOVI}, 1993; BREGANT, 1968). Following KORO{EC (1956: 299) the ordinary pottery had been manufactured with local clay. The second class is represented by red, or brown and red, painted  figulina wares, whose. internal surface is sometimes painted. This class of pottery includes shapes that are not represented among the ordinary forms. They are jars, deep cylindrical cups, large carinated, hemispherical bowls decorated with linear geometric patterns of recurrent triangles, zigzags, squares and net motifs. K ORO{EC  (1956: 304) suggested a non-local provenance of the clay employed in the production of these ceramics (Chapter 5,5.). 8.2.3. The chipped stone assemblages The flint industry from the Danilo Culture sites is poorly known. Only one paper has been devoted to the typological analysis of the chipped stone assemblages of Danilo, Smil ~i} and [karin Samograd (MARTINELLI, 1990). They are represented by a few characteristic characteri stic types such as flat retouched instruments, instrument s, a few geometrics and a relatively high number of sickle blades. The presence of obsidian bladelets is of great importance, although their source of provenance is still undefined. 8.3. THE HVAR CULTURE At some of the multistratified Dalmatian sites, the Danilo and Hvar Culture layers lie above those of the Impressed Ware (B ATOVI}, pers. comm. 1999). This is clearly documented at Smil ~i} (BATOVI}, 1966), Danilo Bitinj (KORO{EC, 1958), Bribir (K ORO{EC and KORO{EC, 1974), and Vrbica (B ATOVI}, pers. comm. 1998), as observed by ^E~UK and DRECHSLER-BI~I} (1984). Here, the Danilo and Hvar Cultures present a distribution and a pottery assemblage which are very similar simila r to each other. As reported by many authors authors (B ATOVI}, 1975a: 156; 1984: 27; B AGOLINI , 1984: 135; BENAC and MARIJANOVI}, 1993), the general impression is that the second is the natural continuation of the first (B ATOVI }, 1975a: 155), as some of the pottery shapes and decorations would indicate (BREGANT, 1968). This is also the case for the Gudnja Cave in the Pelje {ac Peninsula, near Dubrovnik (B ATOVI}, 1970), where the three periods of Neolithic occupation are attested. Even though the distribution of these two cultures is restricted to the Dalmatian coast and its related regions, typical potsherds have been collected from a few Apulian (Tavoliere) sites (CIPOLLONI , pers. comm. 1999). The absolute chronology of the Hvar Culture attributes this aspect to the first half of the sixth millennium BP thanks to a new set of radiocarbon dates obtained from the cave of Grap ~eva spilja (FORENBACHER and KAISER, 2000) (fig. 9). ¯ 31

Fig. 9 - Danilo and Hvar Cultures: graph of the radiocarbon dates calibrated using OxCal (version 2.18 calibration programme) (after BIAGI and S PATARO, 2002: 172).

8.3.1. The pottery The pottery shapes and decorations of the Hvar Culture are sometimes similar to those of the Danilo Culture (figs. 35-37, 39, 40, 57-59, and 65-68) (B ATOVI}, 1978; BENAC and MARIJANOVI}, 1993: 138). The shapes include hemispheric and carinated bowls, dishes, pedestal bowls and flasks, whil e also rhyta are rather common. The most distinctive decorative patterns are the spiral motifs, very often obtained with the combgrooving technique. The painted wares are also common, characterised by bands of reddish paint on a black burnished slip as well as on light buff figulina pottery. Apart from Grap G rap~eva Spilja, other important cave sites are those of Vela {pilja and Jakova špilja on the Kor ~ula Island (^E~UK, 1978). Typical fragments of Hvar hemispheric bowls are commonly found in the assemblages from the old excavations carried out in Trieste Karst caves such as Jama na Dolech and Teresiana (B ARFIELD, 1999). The relationships between the Danilo and Hvar Cultures and the contemporary traditions of the Italian coast of the Adriatic have been discussed by BATOVI } (1975a: 156). This author considers Danilo contemporary with Ripoli and Scaloria Bassa, and Hvar to Serra d’Alto and Diana. These parallels are based not only on the pottery characteristics, but also on the presence of imported vessels from southern Italy, and of scratched ware fragments and typical Serra d’Alto  fig  figulin ulinaa vessels at Obre, in Bosnia (B ENAC , 1975: 212). The figulina vessels are also very common to the Danilo D anilo and Hvar Cultures. Even though their the ir production centres have never been identified, B ATOVI } (1975a: 155) suggests that they were not located in central Italy because their decorative patterns (mainly dynamic and spiral-meander) are typically Dalmatian and do not belong to the Ripoli and the south Italian painted ware traditions. 32 ¯

9. DISCUSSION Several models have been developed to explain the way the Neolithisation of the area took place around the beginning of the seventh millennium BP. At those sites where excavations have been carried out in a scientific way by recovering bioarchaeological materials, a Neolithic “complete package” is attested with appearance of the Impressed Ware Culture settlements. Following the models proposed by different researchers, this culture spread north-westwards following either a “demic diffusion” (A MMERMAN  and CAVALLI-SFORZA, 1971), or a “colonisation”, mainly applicable to the west Mediterranean (Z ILHÃO, 1997), or through an “availability model” subdivided into three distict phases: availability, substitution and consolidation (L EWTHWAITE, 1986: 96). Even though it is widely accepted that “navigation7 , ceramics and cereal cultivation do not  (necessarily)  (necessarily) existenc e of an Impressed Ware Ware Culture in coincide” (LEWTHWAITE, 1981: 293) and that there is no proof of the existence a polythetic sense, as proposed by C LARKE (1978), it is to be stressed that most of the premises of the “availability model” are still to be proved. The first point deals with the limited number (or the absence) of Late Mesolithic sites even in those areas where research has been carried out for many years, such as western Liguria (B IAGI, 1987) or central eastern Italy (BARKER, 1995) or the province of Zadar (C HAPMAN et al., 1996). The second relates to the importance given to the Mesolithic domestication of the “ mouton” at a number of French Early Neolithic, sites (L EWTHWAITE, 1987a), an idea that has later been deprived of any archaeozoological, scientific basis (R OWLEY-CONWY, 1995). In the Adriatic basin, which is characterised by highly differentiated environmental, microclimatic and geographic regions, the situation is very problematic. An example of the difficulties that have been encountered is that of Edera Cave, in the Trieste Karst, a region characterised by a continental climate, 3 km from the Adriatic Sea. At present we known that three different cultures were present in the area around the middle of  the seventh millennium BP. They are: the Castelnovian Late Mesolithic, and the Impressed Ware and Danilo Neolithic Cultures. The scientific analysis of the ceramics from the Early Holocene sequence of this cave (S PATARO, 2001) has helped understand the interaction between these three cultural aspects. In 1981 J. L EWTHWAITE suggested that 1) long-distance exchange of highly uniform wares, such as the Wares, if proved on a scientific scienti fic basis, might suggest an inter-group int er-group prestige network, and Cardium Impressed Wares, that 2) strong similarities between the Cardium Impressed Wares along the two coasts of the Adriatic would support hypotheses for a connected trade network, which w hich would provide a mechanism for the acculturation a cculturation of  local Mesolithic populations. As we have seen, there is little evidence of Late Mesolithic populations in the Adriatic region and the results obtained from the scientific analyses of the Cardium Impressed Wares do not seem to support the theoretical premises put forward some twenty years ago.

 Seashore navigation was, undoubtedly, the most important way of long-distance communication in the Adriatic and in the entire Mediterranean. It allows to «constater la supériorité de la navigation sur d’autres modes de désplacement, même avec des techniques peu évoluées. Pour aller de l‘ Epire dans les Pouilles, ou Golfe de Genes en Camargue, il est facile de mettre en balance le tour de l’Adriatique à pied ou la traversée du sud des Navigation must have been very important in  Alpes avec un trajet tr ajet maritime que pouvrat rendre très facile un ve nt favorable » (R OUDIL, 1990: 389). Navigation the Adriatic during the Neolithic. In effect, the crossing of this basin must have been facilitate facilitatedd by the presence of small islands located midway between Apulia and the Dalmatian Dalmatian coast (BASS, 1998). 7

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CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY 1. PREFACE The question of local ceramic production versus transport on a regional scale is central in this research. Thus, it is worth mentioning that according to the studies of A RNOLD (1985: 50), based on ethnological data, the clay and the temper utilised in ceramics are to be sought within a radius of some 5 km from the production point, while a vessel found farther than 10 km means that it has been transported for some reasons that do not depend strictly on its manufacture. In their efforts to interpret the economic and social foundations of past societies, scientists and archaeologists, since the late 1950s, have increasingly recognized the need to understand the production process itself. “Production forms a central and universal focus for the study of world traditions. It not only incorporates technology- that is how the object objec t was made, including each step in the building buildi ng or fabrication process, the raw-materials- but includes supply and demand, the organisation of the workforce and the relationships between the producers and other groups in society. It is affected by natural factors such as climate and  topography as well as artificial ones such as the proximity of roads and cities ” (FREESTONE and GAIMSTER, 1997: 11). The state of fragmentation of prehistoric pottery (C HAPMAN , 2000), especially from Neolithic contexts, is high and potsherds of the same vessels are often distributed all over the site (B ARTHÉS, 1994). In a few cases potsherds have been re-conjoined, lying at dozens of metres of distance from each other, indicating trampling or post-depositional movements that took place pla ce after the site had been abandoned (G RYGIEL, 1986). In the case of the Impressed Ware sites of the Adriatic coast, the fragmentary condition of the vessels is generally very high. This fact follows the available ethno-archaeological data, which indicate that broken pottery is discarded in different ways, and that potsherds are never dispersed equally on a site (L ONGACRE, 1981). Thus, and due to the lack of large-scale excavations, the available body of sherd fragments is neither complete, nor necessarily representative of the whole surviving material. This has to be kept in mind when sampling for analyses, and interpreting the data. Further problems that are connected with the methodology of this research regard the following: a) the excavations excavations of Early Neolithic Neolithic sites of the study study area that that have yielded yielded very very little evidence evidence of kilns (Chapter 5, 1.). Given the scarcity of kiln refuse, in most cases, it is extremely difficult to define the production area for any type of pottery; b) the very homogene homogeneous ous geology geology of the eastern eastern coast coast of the Adriatic (from (from Istria, Istria, in the north, north, to Albania Albania,, in the south). It consists almost exclusively of limestone and karstic formations. Thus, the chance to define the exact provenance of specific ceramics is often problematic; c) the fact that that many prehisto prehistoric ric archaeologis archaeologists, ts, in most most of the north-ea north-eastern stern Mediterran Mediterranean ean countries, countries, have have not yet shown much interest in broad-scale scientific analyses. The only exception is that of Tuscany where such analyses have mainly been bee n centred on vessels attributed to the Bronze and Iron Ages (M ARTINI et al., 1995). Thus, little comparative data are available. According to BLAKELY and BENNETT (1989: 8) direct observations about ceramics within the archaeological record can be subdivided into several categories: findspot (stratigraphy), morphology - among which are represented decorative styles (H AALAND, 1978) and typology - and fabric (including firing condition and formation process). Regarding the first, one single archaeological layer characterises character ises most of the Impressed Ware Ware sites; the second, the morphology of the vessels, is often difficult to reconstruct because of their fragmentary status. For these reasons, the research concentrates on the analysis of the ceramic fabric. The study of the production of pottery from different sites should shed some light on the variability of the raw mat erial sources, the affirmation of local traditions, according to specific areas of diffusion, and the similarities/dissimilarities ¯ 35

among the various pottery production techniques. Furthermore, it might help understand the relationships between different communities inhabiting the same territory. 2. SAMPLING Thanks to the kind co-operation of many Croatian and Italian colleagues, I had direct access to many Neolithic collections stored in various Institutions. The potsherds have been collected from sites of known relevance. In one case, that of Danilo Bitinj, the site is eponymous of the Middle Neolithic “Danilo” Culture. In another, I have selected a site whose stratigraphy covers different Neolithic occupation phases. This is the case of Smil ~i}, that is one of the few open-air sites of the Dalmatian coasts where Early, Middle and Late Middle Neolithic horizons are in stratigraphic sequence. I have preferentially chosen sites whose contexts are undisturbed or where excavations have been carried out recently, or whose excavation reports have been published in detail. When possible, typical potsherds were chosen according to stratigraphic parameters (also in the case of the Impressed Ware Ware Culture sites that, as mentioned above, are characterised by one single occupation 7 layer) . Twenty to thirty potsherds from each site were selected for thin section analysis. This is the average amount of material generally considered necessary to obtain reliable results (L AZZARINI , pers. comm. 1998). One or two soil samples suitable for pot making were taken for thin section and XRD analyses at a distance of some 0.5 - 1 km from the Neolithic site. Most of the sampled clay deposits consist of Pleistocene terra rossa soils (calcic luvisol, R. MACPHAIL, pers. comm. 2001). They are typical of limestone, karstic environments. In thin section, terra rossa  shows a dark red colour, very pure red clay, iron-rich and does not contain inclusions, with an exception of, sometimes, very rare quartz grains (fig. 69f). Regarding the pottery, care was taken in sampling, “ to ensure that the full range of stylistic features was represented ” following macroscopic examination (surface treatments, finishing, fracture and compaction of  the fabric, and nature of inclusions) (B ARNETT, 1991: 177). The ceramic groups were defined on the basis of potsherd typology and style and of recurrent fabric characters, such as thickness, colour, surface treatment (including impressed, incised or painted patterns, plastic decoration, burnishing, slip and/or mineral pigments) (P LOG, 1980). Shapes have only occasionally been included in the sampling parameters because of the high fragmentation of the potsherds. Thus, all the classes macroscopically defined were sampled 8. 3. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH SHEPARD  (1956) and M ATSON  (1969) were the first to develop new types of scientific approaches and techniques, while chemical analyses, including X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) and neutron activation (NAA) were introduced around the middle of the eighteenth century (R ICE, 1987; MAGGETTI, 1990). These methods were first applied to the study of pottery from Near Eastern sites. Their scope was to define the ceramic manufacture centres in order to understand the trade/exchange activities, the economy of the individual sites and their social network. Thanks to their results important import ant aspects of the social relationships were revealed re vealed for the first time (RILEY, 1975; 1976; 1981). From an analytical point of view, the minero-petrographic characterisation of fabrics will allow 1) the definition of different pottery groups to be compared with the vessels typology (which is the method of classification more commonly employed by the archaeologists) and, 2) the interpretation of the probable raw material sources. In this connection “ petrology can often provide a quick means of defining origin, comparability with similar material of known provenance and the technology involved ” (WILLIAMS, 1983: 301). In the case of the Impressed Wares, however, the strong macroscopic similarities and the state of fragmentation of  the vessels do not help subdivide different pottery groups and define the provenance of the fabric.  For the tables of provenance, see Appendix 1. i mpossible to know if the sample sampl e selected from the collection colle ction is proportional to any existing reality in prehistoric times ” (R ICE, 1987: 315).  “ It is impossible

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4. FABRIC A sherd is characterised by the “fabric”. It concerns conc erns “the arrangement, size, shape, frequency and composition of components of the ceramic material” (WHITBREAD, 1995: 368). The fabric of a sherd can be composed of matrix and temper . “Matrix” is the material that constitutes “a more or less continuous phase and encloses coarse material, concretions, etc....and generally it refers to material