Prehistoric Thessaly: Mobile and sedentary communities south of Mount Olympus

根据目前的研究，欧洲最古老的定居农业人口大约在公元前6500年建立在奥林匹斯山附近，特别是在它的南部的塞萨利亚平原。在那里，第一批连续居住的遗址随着时间的推移逐渐形成了一米高的土丘。在这个地区，在仅仅几个世纪的时间里，被称为“新石器时代”的不可逆转的过程，以及它所有的经济、社会、文化和宗教后果，甚至在新石器时代的生活方式在公元前6000年左右传播到巴尔干半岛，随后从那里传播到中欧之前就已经结束了。这些知识主要是基于20世纪50年代至70年代在色萨利进行的调查和解释。从那时起，在这个地区没有进行过系统的研究，它设想了从移动到久坐的社区的转变，尽管从那里开始，整个东南欧出现了一种新的革命性生活方式的主要冲动。尽管如此，在过去的几十年里，拉里萨的古物Ephorate从测深、救援挖掘和地面收集中收集了大量的新材料，这些材料导致了对印刷年代考虑的新见解。这些新藏品和上个世纪的旧藏品将在一个联合项目中进行分析，该项目将采用现代研究方法，应用最先进的放射性碳分析。该项目的一个目标是详细分析发现的背景和遗址的自然环境。到目前为止，只有magoules被广泛研究，只有平原上可见的地点被记录和绘制，导致对史前时期人口动态的扭曲看法。虽然自1990年代以来在希腊许多地区进行了若干系统的地面侦察方案，但在色萨利没有进行这种实地工作。因此，设想与拉丽莎的Ephorate合作，在奥林匹斯山以南的塞撒利亚平原东北边缘进行勘探。可预见的是历时性研究，应该包括全新世时期，重点是中石器时代和新石器时代。其目的是获得从移动狩猎-采集-捕鱼社区向定居农业文化过渡的基本见解，并分析史前时期的人口动态。预期的是新的和重要的见解，既涉及经济方面，也涉及史前土地利用的不同策略。这项工作的结果可以作为未来研究方案的基础，这些方案将专门对单个地点/地点进行详细调查。

According to the present state of research, the oldest sedentary farming populations in Europe were established around 6500 BC in the vicinity of Mount Olympus, especially south of it in the Thessalian Plain. There, the first continuously inhabited sites developed to form through time meter-high mounds. In this area in the course of only a few centuries, the irreversible process known as ¿Neolithisation¿, with all its economic, social, cultural and also religious consequences, had concluded even before the Neolithic way of life spread into the Balkans around 6000 calBC, and subsequently from there into Central Europe. This knowledge is largely based on investigations and interpretations carried out in Thessaly during the 1950ies to 1970ies. Since that time no systematic research has been conducted in this region, which envisages the transition from mobile to sedentary communities, even though from there emanated major impulses for a new and revolutionary lifestyle in the whole of Southeast Europe. Nevertheless, in the last decades the Ephorate for Antiquities in Larissa has gathered a great amount of new material from soundings, rescue excavations and surface collections, material that leads to new insights concerning typo-chronological considerations. Both these new collections as well as older ones from the last century will be analysed in a joint project with modern research methods, applying foremost radiocarbon analysis. Detailed analysis of finds in their context and of sites in their natural environmental setting will also be a target of the project. Until now only magoules were extensively researched and only sites that are visible in the plain have been recorded and mapped, leading to a distorted view concerning the dynamics of population in prehistoric times. Whereas several systematic surface reconnaissance programmes have been carried out in many landscapes in Greece since the 1990ies, such field work was not undertaken in Thessaly. Therefore, envisaged in collaboration with the Ephorate in Larissa are prospections on the northeastern fringes of the Thessalian Plain, south of Mount Olympus. Foreseen are diachronic studies that should encompass the periods of the Holocene with emphasis on the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. The aim is to obtain fundamental insight into the transition from mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher communities to sedentary farming cultures and to analyse the population dynamics in prehistoric times. Anticipated are new and important insights concerning both economical aspects as well as different strategies applied in the land use in prehistory. The results of this work can serve as a basis for future research programmes that will be dedicated to detailed investigation of single places/sites.