-In this paper we explore the impact of Rapid Climate Change (RCC) on prehistoric communities in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Early and Middle Holocene. Our focus is on the so . Building on these synchronisms, the GISP2 agemodel supplies the following precise time-intervals for archaeological

The Neolithisation process is one of the major issues under debate in Aegean archaeology, since the description of the basal layers of Thessalian tell-settlements some fifty years ago. The pottery, figurines or stamps seemed to be of Anatolian origin, and were presumably brought to the region by colonists. The direct linking of the so-called ‘Neolithic Package’ with groups of people leaving Central Anatolia after the collapse of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B resulted in the colonisation model of the Aegean. This view is not supported by results obtained from natural sciences such as archaeobotany, radiocarbon analyses, and neutron activation on obsidian. When theories of social networks are brought into the discussion, the picture that emerges becomes much more differentiated and complex.

ABSTRACT. With the introduction of the radiocarbon method in 1949 and the calibration curve constantly improving since 1965, but especially due to the development of the more accurate accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating some 30 yr ago, the application of the 14 C method in prehistory revolutionized traditional chronological frameworks. Theories and models are adjusted to new 14 C sequences, and such sequences even lead to the creation of new theories and models. In our contribution, we refer to 2 major issues that are still heavily debated, although their first absolute dating occurred some decades ago: 1) the transition from the Mesolithic to the Early Neolithic in the eastern and western Aegean. Very high 14 C data for the beginning of the Neolithic in Greece around 7000 BC fueled debates around the Preceramic period in Thessaly (ArgissaMagoula, Sesklo) and the Early Neolithic in Macedonia (Nea Nikomedeia). A reinterpretation of these data shows that the Neolithic in Greece did not start prior to 6400/6300 BC; 2) the beginning and the end of the Chalcolithic period in SE Europe. Shifting from relative chronologies dating the Chalcolithic to the 3rd millennium BC to an absolute chronology assigning the Kodžadermen-Gumelni˛a-Karanovo VI cultural complex to the 5th millennium BC, the exact beginning and the end of the period are still under research. New data from Varna (Bulgaria) and Pietrele (Romania) suggest that start and end of the SE European Chalcolithic have to be dated deeper into the 5th millennium BC.

The c. 9m high tell-settlement of Pietrele-Magura Gorgana, situated close to the Danube river, is one of the westernmost sites of the Kod∫adermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI cultural complex that spread over the whole Westpontic region during the 5th millennium BC. Until recently tells were equated with the site when, in fact, they represent only the outstanding part of a far more complex settlement system as we now know from Pietrele thanks to geomagnetic prospections and subsequent excavations. People living on the tell, together with the inhabitants from the flat area around it, formed a vast community that must have had a strong impact on its habitat and, vice-versa, was strongly affected by the immediate surroundings. During the settlement period a lake covered huge parts of the floodplain. It provided not only a considerable part of the diet, but ensured, through the direct access to the main river, continuous and extensive over-regional exchange.

-Thessaly in Central Greece is famous for settlement mounds (magoules) that were already partly formed in the Early