ABSTRACT
As recently as a generation back it would have been impossible to write a general survey of the Neolithic period in Greece such as Theocharis 1973. Now, however, thanks to the remarkable finds at the Franchthi cave in the Argolis, all the stages of the Revolution can be traced in Greece from its immediate Mesolithic origins to the Final or Epi-Neolithic threshold of our more immediate concern, the Bronze Age. To specify, this cave has yielded a continuous stratigraphic sequence from the Late Palaeolithic to the advanced Neolithic. Greece, however, may prove to have yet greater surprises in store. For although Neanderthal skulls and Mousterian tools had signalled the presence of man here, including the Peloponnese, from as early as the Middle Palaeolithic period, it was reported in 1976 that human bones found embedded in a stalagmite in Chalkidiki had been dated some 700,000 years before the present. If corroborated (which is, however, unlikely), this find would upset prevailing theories about the geography of the evolution of man.
