A Rhodope settlement possibly founded in 6,300 BC, prehistoric settlements surrounded by ditches, which were abandoned and repopulated following centuries, are the key findings of the MapFarm research project “Mapping early farmers in Thrace”, to be presented during the conference.
“We wanted to study the Neolithic period, i.e. the beginning of the production of land cultivation and animal husbandry and the social organization of the early agricultural communities in Thrace. What was of great importance in this program was to reveal new data because this period in Thrace has not been particularly researched. For this purpose, we selected ten settlements, for which the colleagues in the local Ephorates of Antiquities had information that they were inhabited during the Neolithic period that interested us. Some of them had been researched very limitedly in the past and others had never been researched,” Dusanka Urem-Kotsou, a professor at the Department of History and Ethnology at the Democritus University of Thrace, told the Athenian/Macedonian News Agency.
In the project – which received funding of 200,000 euros from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.I.D.E.K.), five different research groups from different parts of Greece participated, which used the basic methods of distance research (in .s. non-destructive investigations, which do not include excavation), to answer the question “when did such life begin in Thrace?”. These include archaeological surface research, geophysical surveys (Mediterranean Research Institute), paleogeography research of the paleoenvironment, geological coring (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and radio dating (Laboratory of Archaeometry E.K.E.F.E. “Demokritos”).
“With these combined methods, it was actually revealed that one of the settlements, specifically Paradimi, was most likely founded in 6,300 BC.” emphasizes Mrs. Urem. This data, in fact, prompted the initiation of a new program before the end of MapFarm, to further investigate these important new elements. Thus, while the project lasted approximately 3.5 years and was completed last year, at the same time an excavation was started under the direction of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope and co-directed by the Department of History and Ethnology of the ITH, to investigate the exact foundation of the settlement, based on the indications of radio dating that speak of 6,300 BC. In fact, the excavation attracted a large number of foreign students (Poland, Germany, Croatia, France, Cyprus), as well as students from Greek universities.
The second important element that emerged from the research was brought to light by the geophysical explorations, which have the ability to reveal the architectural remains below the surface of the ground, by “scanning” the subsoil with special methods. “It had unexpectedly very good results, because we found something that was not known: That most of the settlements we included in the survey were surrounded by one or more moats. Essentially, that is, the residents wanted to surround the settlement with a ditch, in order to delimit it in some way,” adds the professor. As he explains, such a thing constituted a large public project, which was particularly difficult for that time when there were no suitable tools for their construction. “At least four settlements are clearly surrounded by one or more moats. In Paradimi, for example, there is at least one internal and one external trench, while in Krovyli Rodopi, the trench is up to 10 meters wide,” he concludes.
The third major piece of evidence revealed by the research is based on the radio dating of samples extracted by geologists from settlement cores. “So what it looks like is that there is a gap in habitation. Somewhere towards the end of the latest Neolithic era, around the fifth millennium, the settlements are abandoned for a few centuries and almost all are repopulated in the Early Bronze Age, i.e. 3,500 to 3,300 BC. and are abandoned once more in this period not to be inhabited once more in prehistoric years. In general, this is a phenomenon that seems to exist in some areas in Northern Greece, only in Thrace, it is now confirmed with this research,” says Ms. Urem, stating that she is proud of the small stone that is added with these elements to the overall research for her region Thrace and its distant past.
Source: RES
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