Ceramaic Production and Social Differentiation

The Dalmatian Neolithic and the Western Mediterranean

Abstract

In recent models of the origins of the Neolithic in the Mediterranean Basin, authors have stressed the importance of decorated ceramics as prestige items exchanged between foragers and farmers-the surviving material token of interactions by which domesticated resources spread westwards from Greece and Anatolia. In this article, an attempt is made to transcend this narrow, exchange-dominated viewpoint by a consideration of the uses to which pottery can be put in addition to social signalling. Two critical stages of pottery production are identified-initial introduction and later differentiation-and the social and behavioural correlates for these stages are discussed. The main data sets for this discussion are the Neolothic pottery sequences for northern Greece, the western Balkans and Italy. The first radiocarbon dates for the east Adriatic neolithic (Gudnja Pecina, near Dubrovnik) provide a chronological framework for the Dalmatian Neolithic sequence, which is considered in more detail.