Pre-Pottery or Aceramic Neolithic served as a prelude to the Neolithic Period, and dates in Greece between 6800 and 6500 BC. During this period Man passed from the hunting, food-gathering and fishing stage to the productive stage of the economy as far as his food was concerned, which he ensured with the practice of farming and stock-rearing. The term Aceramic is derived from absence of baked clay pots on the few known sites of this period in Greece. Clay -as it could be handformed- occupied man at least from the Upper Palaeolithic and yielded exceptional specimens of fired vases (pottery, ceramic) during the Early Neolithic. Long experimentation in the field of pyrotechnology, with relatively successful results, should be considered as the intermediate stage, and the term Pre-Pottery should be adopted for the first phase of the Neolithic.

There are indications of habitation during Pre-Pottery Neolithic from Thessaly (Argissa), southern Greece (Dendra, Franchthi) and Crete (Knossos), not though from most of the Aegean and Ionian Islands. Settlements consisted of subterranean huts, dug partly in the ground, such as those surviving in Argissa in Thessaly, Dendra in Argolid and Knossos. The number of inhabitants in these first communities ranged between 50-100 individuals.

The economy was based on the cultivation of einkorn and emmer wheat, barley, lentils and peas. Animal husbandry consisted of the raising of sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and dogs. Man's diet was supplemented by the gathering of wild fruit, the hunting of wild animals and fishing. Blades and bladelets of flint and obsidian (volcanic glass) and pointed tools of animal bonesconstituted the tool industry of this period. Remarkable among the bone tools are hooked objects with holes, considered to be belt accessories.

Figurines of unfired and partially fired clay are only some of the examples of artistic creation as well as jewellery from clay, stone, bone and sea-shells.