 The cultural contacts of Neolithic communities, of a farming and stock-raising character, can be reconstructed only to a small extent. Based on the material remains which have come to light during excavations, contacts were made in economy and society and had a limited or extended range. 
Exchanges on an economic level concerned food, textiles, stone or wooden vessels, pottery, salt, raw materials (obsidian, flint, metals) etc. The distribution of food for example took place locally, that is either within the settlement itself or with neighbouring settlements, in order to meet a shortage of vital products (wheat, meat), due to floods, frosts, droughts, fires and other natural disasters affecting production unexpectedly. The discovery of stone tools of Melian obsidian almost all over Greece indicates that an extensive network of exchanges whose beginnings go back to the Mesolithic Period had been set up. The abundance of tools of obsidian, typical in settlements of the Late Neolithic, shows the extent to which the Neolithic economy was dependent on exchange. The distribution of metals (copper, silver, lead) from the mines of Lavrion and Siphnos must be associated with an extensive network for the distribution of obsidian during the Final Neolithic. |
Worth noting from the Early Neolithic is the exchange which took place with objects of social connotation, such as seals and jewellery. During the Late and Final Neolithic an increase in "social prestige" objects has been observed in the whole of the Aegean, namely rings and bracelets from sea-shell (Spondylus gaederopus) and ring idol figurines. Archaeological finds testify to the specialization of settlements in the manufacture of jewellery from Spondylus (e.g. Dimini) and their trading via both limited and extensive exchange networks. The discovery of jewellery or non-processed Spondylus, a sea-shell living only in the Eastern Mediterrenean, in Neolithic settlements of the Balkans and Central Europe is evidence of the existence of extensive cultural networks. In these networks the exchange of ideology and know-how (metallurgy) also occurred, manifested in the known ring idols of stone, clay, gold and silver from the Balkans (e.g. cemetery of Varna, Bulgaria), discovered in riverside sites and coastal caves of the Aegean (e.g. Alepotrtypa-Diros, Euripides Cave-Salamina) during the Late and the Final Neolithic. The growth in exchanges reflects the demographic (increase in the number of settlements, denser habitation of coastal zones) and social changes of the last phases of the Neolithic Period. |
Indicative of the relationships between Neolithic communities is the increase in painted pottery during the Middle and Late Neolithic. The production of certain classes, such as pottery with "scraped" ware (Middle-Late Neolithic) or "grey" ware (Late Neolithic) only in specific workshops of Thessaly and their dissemination all over the plain of Thessaly or even as far as southern Greece, shows the tendency of cultural customs to spread to other nearby regions. The whole range of cultural features of a region is described by traditional prehistoric research with the term "culture". Thus the Middle Neolithic in Thessaly is known as "Sesklo culture", while the Late Neolithic ии is defined as "Dimini culture", since in these settlements the distinctive features of the corresponding periods are documented. However, recent research has proved through the study of relationships and exchanges that these "cultures" were relatively fluid. |