ABSTRACT
The exploitation of plants for food production as part of an emerging Neolithic way of life at the onset of the Holocene in the Aegean is subject to multiple definitions. This chapter presents a brief review of the ideas put forward in relation to the appearance of agriculture in the Aegean, with an emphasis on the available archaeobotanical data and the ways they have been interpreted by various researchers. The archaeological record informs that, at the onset of the Holocene on mainland Greece and in the Aegean islands, human settlement existed both in caves and open sites on the coast, and also inland. On the basis of the available evidence, the transition from Mesolithic plant exploitation to Neolithic agriculture can only be studied at Franchthi. An understanding of the range of crops represented at each site from the beginning of the Neolithic together with a better knowledge of the Mesolithic background could throw some light on the processes of change.
