Franchthi Cave

A prehistoric cave site on the Bay of Argos in the Peloponnese of Greece with dates to c 22,000-10,300 BP. An Epipalaeolithic occupation (c 10,000 BC) was succeeded after an interval by a Mesolithic (c 7500-6000 BC) with dozens of burials and some possible cremations. Excavations at the Franchthi Cave showed that boats already sailed to the island of Melos north of Crete for obsidian by about 13,000-11,000 BC and that the cultivation of hybrid grains, the domestication of animals, and organized community tuna hunts had already begun, marking the transition from hunting and gathering. A little later, the first pottery appeared. Late Upper Palaeolithic artifacts included small backed blades and geometric microliths.

A cave in the Argolid, southern Greece, with a long stratigraphy covering the period which saw the transition from hunting and gathering to farming as the basis of life. A late Palaeolithic occupation of the 10th millennium be was followed by an 8th-millennium be Mesolithic deposit, when obsidian from Melos was already being imported. The economy was based on the hunting of forest animals — red deer, wild pig and a few wild cattle — fishing and the collection of wild plant foods (nuts such as almonds and pistachios, as well as leguminous plants such as vetch and even wild barley). An abrupt transition shortly after 6000 be saw the introduction of domesticated sheep and goat, and a little later cultivated barley and the first pottery appeared.