The Neolithic transition and Palaeoecology in the Balkans: A comment on Willis and Bennett

In examining the Neolithic transition in the Balkans, Willis and Bennett (1994) suggest that the spread of agriculture and the timing of forest clearance were not coincident and that the impact of agriculture upon the landscape did not follow a time-transgressive spread. On the basis of a close correlation between the timing of deforestation and present-day mean annual precipitation values in the Balkans, I suggest that the reduction of woodland is clearly time-transgressive along a humidity gradient and that climatic conditions were a major factor in determining the history of vegetation in the Balkans from the mid-Holocene.