ABSTRACT
Starting from 4000 BC fundamental changes in Balkan life are evident. Settlement, burial and material culture all were very different from the preceding two and a half millennia. In this chapter, the main changes are outlined and the principal explanations for these changes are discussed.1 In brief, major changes are evident in the ways people marked out places in the landscape for settlement, in the shift in the forms and decorations of ceramics and the tasks for which these vessels were employed. There was, however, some continuity from the previous period, expressed particularly in lithics, but also in the nature of the economy.
