Stone Age in Greece

By the term Stone Age we refer to the very early dawn of human civilization in prehistoric times which has been traced mainly in the Northern part of Greece and this relatively long and vague timeline stretches starting 40.000 years ago till 2200 BC and precedes the Bronze Age and the creation of some of the earliest form of civilizations in the Aegean Sea, Crete and Peloponnese, the Cycladic, Minoan and the Mycenaean civilization respectively.



There are very few remnants and findings of the Stone Age in Greece. The Palaeolithic population of Greece appears to have been tiny and only few of these settlements have been found. Some of the 
most important Paleolithic sites that you can visit are the Cave of Petralona in Chalkidiki and the Theopetra Cave in Thessaly.




The Petralona Cave is formed about 300 m above sea level, bejeweled with stalagmites and stalactites created in Jurassic era (~150 million years). The Cave became known internationally when the famous fossilized skull of Petralona man or Archanthropus was found. The research proved that Petralona Archanthropus has an age of about 700.000 years ago, that is the oldest known Europeoid man. Thousands of fossils and other findings of the cave but also from open sites such as Chalkidiki, Amyntaio, Ikaria, Crete, Ptolemais and Chios are deposited in the Anthropological Museum, situated next to the cave.

Theopetra Cave is a famous archaeological site and quite unique in its kind as its deposits start at the Middle Paleolithic (50.000 BC) and last until the end of the Neolithic period (4.000 BC) without gaps, containing records of the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans and then the subsequent transition from hunter-gathering to farming. A wall which was built 23.000 years ago was discovered in 2010, making it the oldest known human-built structure so far.

The Neolithic Age begins in the 7th millennium BC and some of the most important settlements of this era were found mainly in Thessaly and Northern Greece. Sesklo and Dimini are the two best known Neolithic sites located in Thessaly and Dispilio is located in the region of Kastoria on the lakeside of Orestiada Lake.


Sesklo is located on a terrace terminating in the small coastal plain of Volos and was probably inhabited until 1500 BC, while the most beautiful finding has been excavated from Dimini, dated between 5300 and 4800 BC. It is a vase superb for its shape and its well arranged decoration and it is currently being exhibited in the vast Neolithic Collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Some of the most impressive findings and real pieces of artwork were found in the islands of Cyclades and especially in the uninhabited islet of Saliagos near Antiparos Island. The Aegean or Cycladic civilization is the most evolved one of the Neolithic Era preceding the Bronze Age and the birth of the major civilizations of Crete and Mycenae.

The Neolithic Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens is the most complete exhibition of pieces of Neolithic art and artifacts found in Greece, seeming strikingly modern putting together elegance and simplicity, more or less with the same way contemporaneous artists create art by mixing the abstract and the real.



 http://www.touristorama.com/en/stone-age-in-greece-02150




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