The volume is the first in a planned series of final publications about the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age site of Platia Magoula Zarkou (PMZ). The tell (magoula) is located on the northeastern edge of western Thessaly at a strategic pass between the Antiochasia Mountains and Central Hills that separate the eastern and western Thessalian plains of Karditsa and Larissa. The 5 m of Middle and Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sediment atop a knoll is an impressive stratigraphic accumulation rising nearly 6.7 m above the surrounding Karditsa plain. The excavations were conducted in six short campaigns between 1976 and 1990 by an international team directed by Kostas Gallis.
This substantial book consists of 729 pages, with three additional oversized fold-out loose plates. It contains two prefaces, ten chapters with many subchapters, abstracts of the chapters in English and Greek, abbreviations, lists of illustrations, two indices (geographic, subject), list of authors and their contact information, and an up-to-date bibliography. Nearly all the images are in color and high quality. Archival photographs of the excavation, including prominent scholars of Neolithic Greece at the start of their careers, reiterates the historic nature and collaborative spirit of the project.
In this volume, the history of the excavation, description of stratigraphy, architectural remains, their absolute dating, and the catalog of movable small finds are presented. Some of the material remains unpublished, such as the pottery (see below), while other small finds were previously published in theses or in brief reports. It would have been useful for the reader, particularly a non-specialist of Neolithic Greece, to have had a list in the text of these previous publications. The reader otherwise must compile their own list as they read both the text and footnotes. The engagement with these previous studies varies by chapter.
The Middle and Late Neolithic remains presented in this volume all come from one deep stratigraphic trench, Trench A, located in the northeastern part of the site at the top of the mound. The original dimensions were 4 x 7 m, and they were subsequently enlarged to 5 x 8 m, but from a depth of 6 m onward the trench was gradually reduced to the final dimensions of 2 x 2 m. The excavation stopped at sterile soil, which is now below the current water table. In the 5 m of depth of the Neolithic sediment, nine Building Phases (BPh), numbered from the bottom upward, and 19 subphases (BSPh) were identified based on architectural and pottery-style analysis. Six ceramic horizons and five lithic phases were also recognized. The fragmentary architectural remains consist of “thermal structures,” kilns, roofed areas, parts of houses, and exterior spaces with built features. The new radiocarbon dates obtained from animal bones place the site at 5900 to 5600 calBC.
More than two dozen contributing authors contributed to the volume.Chapter I presents the history of the excavations; Chapter II details the latest Quaternary evolution of the Peneiada Valley and results of the geophysical survey; Chapter III notes the stratigraphy and ditch remains; Chapter IV gives the absolute chronology; Chapter V describes flaked stone with wear trace and geochemical analysis, macrolithics (ground stone), spinning and weaving implements, and various clay and sherd tools; Chapter VI presents the figurines, house model, and ritual vessels; Chapter VII presents shell, bone, stone, and clay ornaments; Chapter VIII revisits archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological remains; Chapter IX discusses the physical and social landscape; Chapter X gives a summary and some conclusions of the previous chapters.
This volume is not organized as a conventional final site report, with plates, tables, and images located at the back of the book. All the tables, charts, graphs, drawings, and photographs are found within the chapters themselves except for the fold-out images tucked into the pocket inside the back cover. On the one hand, this is a welcome change when reading an individual chapter, but on the other hand, if an image is referred to in another chapter, one must flip through hundreds of pages to find it because page numbers are not listed in the list of illustrations in the back of the book. It also makes visualizing the totality of the various assemblages difficult. Only the chipped stone subchapter has some plate-like figures with more than one artifact presented together in a single image. Otherwise, each artifact is presented separately within the chapters, usually with its catalog information in the text. Depending on the format of the chapter, the catalog information is given both in the text and within tables in the text. These redundancies should have been omitted.
High quality color images abound in the volume. Traditional photographs and conventional drawings are included, and drawings and images produced from three-dimensional scans are also used. It would have been helpful to have an explanatory discussion of the advantages of illustrating some of the artifacts with 3D-generated methods, while others relied on traditional means. The artifact drawings could have been standardized to clearly indicate where sections were drawn, and all the sections should have been made in a consistent manner (filled or not) in order to avoid any confusion of meaning.
The editors and numerous authors present the main data of finds, excavation, and their interpretations with an interdisciplinary approach whenever possible. New scientific and geo-archaeological methods were utilized to address the formational complexity of PMZ’s physical landscape in conjunction with the settlement’s long history, permanence, and subsistence strategies. This exemplary integrative approach is comprehensive and necessary for a site that has been fundamental in contributing to the understanding of the Greek Neolithic.
It should be emphasized that this is a long-awaited volume because PMZ was pivotal in understanding the relative chronology and social aspects of Neolithic Greece, which are briefly summarized here as they pertain to any critique of this book, as many BMRC readers may not be familiar with the contributions of the site for understanding Neolithic Greece. In particular, the ceramic sequence and its dating, the exceptional house model, and the location of an external cemetery, including cremations, long established the significance of PMZ’s contribution to the understanding of the social life and beliefs of the people living in the settlement and their interactions as well as with the surrounding environment.
The initial aim of the PMZ systematic excavation was to confirm the stratigraphic observations and pottery sequence as suggested by the cremation cemetery of Souphli Magoula, which was also excavated by Gallis. The excavation at PMZ aimed to (and did) confirm the correct chronological position of black-burnished pottery of the so-called “Larissa Culture,” which had been disputed for decades. The pottery is slated for publication in the second volume of the series, however, and the reader is left in great anticipation for the presentation of the material and for clarification on the semantics of the terms “Ceramic Horizon” and “Ceramic Phase,” which are used interchangeably among chapters in the first volume. Only in the concluding chapter on p. 614 is the nature of the pottery briefly characterized. This information would have been more useful at the start of the book, as the Horizon/Phase name are referred to both in the text as well as in charts and tables throughout the text.
For the chronological aspect of PMZ’s significance, Chapter IV discusses the ten new radiocarbon samples from (unspecified) animal bone. Gaussian Monte Carlo Wiggle Matching and the CalPal Version 2017.1 program were used instead of OxCal 20, a notably different approach for Neolithic Greece. The radiocarbon dates and their interpretation are revisited in the concluding Chapter IX. The transition from the Middle Neolithic to Late Neolithic is placed in Ceramic Horizon 5, BSPh VIIa, at 5520/5550 calBC (p. 617). There are no absolute dates from that building phase, however. Generally, the key transition levels (BPh VII–IX) were highly disturbed (p. 620), and it was acknowledged that rate of accumulation and the age-depth model used might not agree with the reality of the stratigraphy due to the relocation of sediment and other factors (p. 196). The date ranges, 5890–5480 calBC, in the chronology chart on p. 86 (without a table number) and Table X.3, 5900–5472 calBC, also differ from the text (p. 195) where it is asserted that: “In a nutshell, the Neolithic tell at PMZ (depth: 500 cm) is continuously occupied from 5900 to 5600 calBC.”
A substantial chapter is dedicated to the full publication of an open ceramic house model with a new interpretation from ritual, gender, and social perspectives. The house model includes nine figurines and three miniature objects (one movable, two fixed), and since its discovery, [1] it has been one of the most prominent finds of the Thessalian Neolithic period. Each figurine is reproduced several times as a digitally produced image created with a structured-light 3D scanner, as rendered using a non-photorealistic (NPR) shader, as 3D ortho-photographs, and as 3D modeled drawings partly indicating the colors. Traditional photographs (sometimes too dark) and drawings are also used for some of the other figurines.
The team’s efforts in studying, documenting, and interpreting legacy excavation data are to be commended. The two chapters on the environment bookend the core chapters on the stratigraphy, dating, and small finds, which is important as the finds are discussed in all aspects of their manufacturing processes, use, reuse, and discard in relation to their location of raw source extraction and their subsequent social transformation. The new geophysical and environmental studies revealed the existence of a ditch around the site at its founding as is now recognized at many Neolithic sites in Greece. The hydraulic inversion of the Peneiada Valley, the geodynamic rearrangement of Thessaly, and the creation of lacustrine environments during the Neolithic were clearly demonstrated. These factors are taken into account in relation to raw material sources, morphologies, and styles as well as exchange networks, and they are well synthesized with the legacy data.
There are a few instances of oversights in copyediting, which generally could have been a bit more rigorous. Footnotes 606–608 (p. 405) were unfortunately omitted. Map 1 has 156 sites shown, but the caption only lists up to 151. The person (first, third, and plural) in which the chapter was written varies without explanation in chapters for which there is only one author. The formatting of the bibliographic entry for Alram-Stern and Dousougli-Zachos 2015a is inconsistent compared to others. The copyright symbol and information about some images (e.g., p. 60, fig. II.1.12 a, b) should be located in the captions instead of within the image.
It is remarkable that such an invaluable volume is available as an open-access PDF; however, due to the high quality of the physical publication (with sewn binding) and its length, it is worth investing in the book rather than relying solely on the digital file.[2] The three fold-out plates of the stratigraphy of Trench A (all four sides), its north side with projection of the small finds, and the Harris matrix are all very useful to have while reading the volume.
The publications of excavated Greek Neolithic sites rarely contain so much crucial evidence in such a thorough manner. This volume is an invaluable contribution to the scholarship of Neolithic Greece and a model for integrating new studies and older excavation material.
Notes
[1] Gallis, K. 1985. “A Late Neolithic Foundation Offering from Thessaly,” Antiquity 59, 20–24.
[2] The free PDF version does not include the three separate fold-out plates, which are a rarity in recent publications, and are a welcome inclusion necessary when reading the text for such a site with deep stratigraphy. Second, the digital image quality is not of the same quality as other open-access volumes in the OREA series, but this currently available file could easily be replaced with one saved with better PDF settings.