The Neolithic Peloponnese

Across the Peloponnese Early and Middle Neolithic sites have proved remarkably elusive but an expansion in settlement is reported in the Late and/or Final Neolithic periods by the Pylos Regional Archaeological

Project, the Asea Valley Survey, the Berbati-Limnes Archaeological Survey and the Southern Argolid Exploration Project, although not in the case of the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project where there were fewer Late/Final Neolithic sites (Table 1.2). Nucleated Middle Neolithic settlements, like Kouphovouno, include Asea (Forsen 1996), Asea Valley site S16 (Forsen et al. 1996: 85), Ayioryitika (Petrakis 1992: 341), Lerna (Johnson 1996a: 276-77), Berbati-Limnes site FS400 (Johnson 1996b: 44-57), Tsoungiza (Wright et al. 1990: 624-25), and Corinth (Alram-Stern 1996: 222-29). Franchthi may have had a similar role (Alram-Stern 1996: 244-61) but it is difficult to estimate the original size of the site because of the rise in sea-level (Johnson 1996a: 280).

Johnson (1996a) has claimed that it was the need for a reliable water supply which determined site location in the north-east Peloponnese in the Early and Middle Neolithic periods. Early farmers, who were dependent on the use of the hoe until the introduction of the ard in the Final Neolithic or Early Helladic period, favoured 'well-watered alluvial soils of high potential for arable agriculture' which 'have a strictly limited distribution in southern Greece' (Johnson 1996a: 282-83). Van Andel and Runnels (1987: 70-73) have also stressed the importance of spring-fed agriculture at this time. If these communities were in fact environmentally circumscribed or constrained because of their reliance on restricted water resources and consequently could not split into smaller units, this would surely have led to the institution of some form of centralized organization to regulate access to resources.

It is not in fact necessary to invoke environmental circumscription as an explanation for the Early and Middle Neolithic settlement pattern in the Peloponnese. Perles (1999b) has analyzed the distribution of EN2 sites in eastern Thessaly and finds that 'no positive relationship can be established between settlement choice or settlement density and natural features'. She concludes that the 'main factor in settlement foundation was socioeconomic' (Perles 1999b: 53). However, Thessaly is rather different in that the settlements are typically just 1-4 km apart (Halstead 1995: 13-14)—Perles (1999b: 46) reckons that the mean distance is 2.3 km. At least in the Early Neolithic period, villages may have periodically split up when the population reached a critical level (Perles 1999b: 53-54), although there were no doubt integrative mechanisms to control this tendency towards fission (Halstead 1999: 89).

The size of the communities in the Peloponnese presumably ensured their demographic viability and generated a pool of labour and surplus agricultural resources

Table 1.2 Neolithic and Early Helladic sites in the Peloponnese identified by surface survey. Some of the figures are approximate.

' four sites have pottery which may be Late Neolithic or Middle Helladic

Table 1.3 Laconia Survey: Early Helladic Sites (bold indicates that Early Helladic is the sole or main period of use). R3012, U300L U3005 and U3006 are 'out-ofarea' sites.

Have operated in tandem with social compacts which provided a further safeguard against the risk of crop failure and consequently the threat of starvation (Talalay 1987; 167-69).

Crete apparently presents us with an even more extreme example of nucleation. It seems that Knossos was the only major Neolithic settlement (although doubts were expressed about this by Peter Tomkins at the Round Table) and possibly covered more than 5 ha in the LN period (Evans 1994: 19 but Whitelaw 1992: 226-27 is not so sure). There has of course been some debate about what this implies (Broodbank 1992; Whitelaw 1992; Manning 1999). Nevertheless, it is assumed that Knossos had exceeded the size threshold for a simple family-based community.

A higher level of social organization, marked by institutionalized inequality, will have been almost inevitable once the population of these settlements exceeded 500 (Halstead 1995:13-14; Manning 1999:470-71). It is of course notoriously difficult to estimate population size but, in a typically rigorous analysis of the evidence from the prehistoric Aegean, Whitelaw (this volume) proposes a figure of 200-225 per hectare, so we may need to revise our perception of Middle Neolithic society as relatively egalitarian.

Which could be mobilized in the event of a crisis. Nucleated settlement would clearly have had major benefits but would also have created a complex web of affiliations and alliances which may have been exploited by some households. The distribution of Urfirnis pottery indicates that, as expected, there were also supra-regional contacts (Cullen 1985; Perles 1999a; 20-21) and consequently access to raw materials such as obsidian and exotic flints. The various exchange networks (Perles 1992; 148-55) will