ANATOLICA XXIV, 1998 THE ACERAMIC NEOLITHIC PERIOD IN WESTERN TURKEY AND IN THE AEGEAN M. Ozdogan, I. Gatsov PART L: IN RETROSPECT - A NEW LOOK TO AN OLD PROBLEM. The beginning of early Neolithic cultures in Southeastern Europe is one of the most debated issues of Balkan prehistory. Within the framework of these discussions, there was, and to a degree still is, a considerable controversy on whether or not the early pottery Neolithic cultures of the Aegean were preceded by a pre-pottery phase. The discussions on this problem, initiated after excavations in Thessaly (Milojéic 1960, 1973) has continued up to present without reaching a satisfactory resolution. It is now almost three decades that all available evidence on this issue has been extensively scrutinized, covering all possible aspects, and employed to justify a number of controversial ideas and hypothesis. As there is very little -if any — new evidence available from the Aegean, here we shall restrain from reiterating the archaeological material that has been over and over discussed in a number of synoptic articles'. However, we still consider it as useful to make a brief survey of some of the prevailing trends, so as to paint an alternative picture, regardless of whether or not a pre-pottery stage had ever occurred in Southeastern Europe. Finally, in the view of these discussions, the evidence that is now emerging from Western Anatolia will be presented. Ever since the roots of European Neolithic cultures were first questioned, the discussions have always taken a pace oriented to the Near East. However, before 1956, when Milojéic announced the recovery of an “aceramic” phase at the base of Argissa Magula, the discussions were more on theoretical grounds, not depending on any concrete evidence. Thus, Milojéic’s claims were enough to stir considerable excitement; but when a few years later Theocharis backed this information by stating that pre-pottery layers also existed at other sites such as Gediki, Soufli etc. (Theocharis 1958), the debate took a new course, It would be just to say that from that time on the discussions were focused either in proving or disproving the impact of the East on the beginning of Greek Neolithic cultures, thus overlooking the local dynamic of cultural development. This should not be considered as surprising as it was during the same years that in the Near East the significance of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period was being reconciled. In early 1950's, the work in the Near East, mainly by Kenyon and Braidwood had not only revealed the presence of a pre-pottery horizon as a sub-stratum of the Neolithic development, but had also manifested that it was a significant stage by itself. Even though this was a major advancement in understanding the process of neolithization in the Near East, it had in concept far reaching consequences. Thus, it was not a coincidence that the controversy on the presence of a pre-pottery phase in the Aegean began simultaneously with the developments that took place in the Near ' See especially Weinberg 1965, Nandris 1970, Esin 1981, Dennell 1983, Theocharis 1983, Tellenbach 1984, Demoule and Perles 1989, Bloedow 1993, Perlés 1989, Perlés 1993, Runnels 1995,210 M. OZDOGAN, 1. GATSOV East. To scholars who already had taken a “diffusionist” stand, as originally set by Childe, the presence of a pre-pottery phase in Greece was seen as a further evidence to prove the impact of the Near East. However, rather paradoxically, the newly emerging i-diffusionists”, who were rejecting the impact of the Near East on the European cultures, took this as the evidence of an “autonomous” development taking place in South- eastern Europe. It was thus postulated that the Aegean Neolithic had developed on the same lines with the Near East but being independent from it. No matter how controversial these two views may seem to be, the idea that a pre-ceramic phase in the Aegean was cheerfully met and extensively used to rationalize opposing points of views. Weinberg (1965) was one of the first to make comparisons with the Near East. After presenting an extensive description of the aceramic assemblages of Greece, he suggested a parallel development between the two regions, thus stating “the earliest village farming communities in Greece is enough to associate the Aegean manifestation with that known more fully from Jarmo, Jericho, Khirokithia and other Near Eastern sites. ...Yet architecturally the Near Eastern sites are far more sophisticated than are those of Greece; ... the Thessalian villages, which seem clearly to be provincial by comparison...... It is more likely that the inhabitants of Greece received from Anatolia or farther east the benefits of a revo- lution already accomplished, in this case chiefly a knowledge of agriculture and the raising of domesticated... If, as seems likely, the Aegean received its settlers of the Aceramic Neolithic period from the Near East, then this was perhaps the first of a long series of westward movements into the Aegean..” Here, it is of interest to note that Theocharis (1973), while fully supporting the presence of a pre-pottery stage in Greece and in the Aegean, saw its origin somewhere in the East, however without stating Anatolia as the possible coign. In the years to follow, when the pace of the autochthonous development model for European cultures was in its peak level and it was considered as embarrassing even to mention diffusion or the impact of the Near East on Europe, the presence of a pre-pottery stage in Greece and in many parts of Southeastern Europe was taken as a bona fide without much questioning the material evidence’, It is also a fact that the discovery of Lepenski Vir and the presence of a meso- lithic horizon at Franchti Cave have, to a large extent, provoked this approach. In the early years of this discussion, Nandris was one of the few to reject the implementation of the Near Eastern model to the Aegean. He even openly questioned the presence of such a stage in Greek sites; thus he wrote (Nandris 1970:193, 196) : “it is now clear that the Greek PPN is by no means aceramic, but other factors affect how we look at it.”, “..it is misleading to label the ‘PPN’ of Greece, with a label which would seem to imply that it has the same connotation as the “PPN’ of the more focal areas of the Near East, and that it would amount to a re-enaction of the gradual stages of evolutionary development which had already been gone through several millennia earlier. * See for example Dennell 1983 oF Tellenbach 1984.ANATOLICA XXIV, 1998 2u1 Nevertheless, at present the dispute on the presence of a pre-pottery stage in Greece seems to be over; a consensus has been reached that there was no pre-ceramic sub-stratum in the Neolithic sequence either in Greece or elsewhere in the Balkans’ Likewise, the subject of dispute has now shifted to other issues such as whether the begin- ning of Neolithic economies in Greece was due to an endemic movement or to cultural interaction, including acculturation. It would be unjust to say that the discussions that lasted for three decades on the neolithization process of the Aegean and Greece have been fruitless. On the contrary, they have been extremely useful in clarifying certain aspects of this critical episode. As most of the facts that became apparent for the Aegean are also applicable to the Western parts of Turkey, they are worth summarizing here: 1) During the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, Anatolia, Greece and the Aegean are very thinly populated. Following the Classical Aurignacian Period, most of Turkey and Greece seems to be either void of habitation or, the occupation is very sparse. In both of these regions the evidence of any occupation is extremely rare and seems mainly to be confined to the littoral areas of the Mediterranean in the south, In all other areas, surface finds datable to the later stages of the Upper Paleolithic or to the Mesolithic period are either very rare and, wherever they exist, consist of scatters of unspecific lithic material. It is also evident that the paucity of Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites is not due to the lack of research, as even in the most extensively surveyed areas of both Greece (Demoule and Perlés 1993:364) and Turkey (Gzdofan 1998), the traces of these periods are lacking. At the present state of research it seems that the density of occupation during the final stages of the Paleolithic has shifted either to the northern or to the southern parts, i.e. to the coastal areas of the Mediterranean and to the Northern Balkans, thus leaving most of Greece and Turkey void of habitation. The lack of sites is even more evident during the Mesolithic and/or Epi- Paleolithic Period. In comparison to Anatolia, the areas covered by surface surveys are much more extensive in Greece; however, even there only a minimal number of Mesolithic sites are known*. Likewise in Turkey, excluding the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, the only firm evidence of Mesolithic occupation is from the littoral areas of the Black Sea and from the Sea of Marmara (Gatsov and Ozdogan 1994). The sites of this area, also known as the “Agach” group are dated to the very late stage of the Mesolithic Period, being not earlier than the 8th Millennium B.C. The paucity of occupation seems to be related to environmental changes, more specifically to the pertaining arid-step conditions and to the lack of big game. This was best expressed as: “It is significant that there is no Mesolithic on top of the Upper Paleolithic se- quences of Epirus or under the Neolithic sequences of Thessaly. Early Holocene ° Sce for example Demoule and Perlés 1993, Gallis 1996, Papathanassopoulos 1996, Runnels 1996. “The numbers given for firmly attested Mesolithic sites in Greece varies from four (Gallis 1996:32) or six (Demoule and Perlés 1993 : 364) to 12 (Runnels 1995 :706),