Argissa is situated on the banks of the river Peneios, approximately 4,5
kilometres to the west of Larisa. The site was inhabited during the Neolithic
and Bronze Ages, leaving behind cultural remains several metres thick.
During excavations (1956) a layer 30-45 centimetres thick, at a depth
of 8 metres, dating from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, was located and is
one of the few examples of this transitional period.
The houses of the first farmers and stock-rearers of Argissa were
oval subterranean huts, dug partly in the ground. Post holes indicate
that they were huts with walls made of posts. Floors were paved with
clay or pebbles and had hearths.
Blades of flint and bladelets of obsidian, tools of polished stone,
bone tools, charred grains of cereals and pulses, and numerous animal
bones constitute the mobiliary finds. A systematic study of the finds
was necessary in order to reveal aspects of the economy, in a period
when man passed to the controlled production of his food. A study of
the stone tools has shown that obsidian reached Argissa in the form
of cores, from which blades were cut off with the pression method. This
method does not follow the tradition of the Mesolithic stone industry,
which applied percussion techniques for the manufacture of blades and
bladelets and must have originated from elsewhere, supporting the
view that the Neolithic way of
production was not gradually developed in Greece, but was
imported from Asia Minor.
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