A hybrid cultural world. The turn of the 7th to the 6th millennium BC in the central Balkans

Southeast Europe is the key region for studying the spread of the Neolithic economy and way of life into Europe due to its proximity to areas of the eastern Mediterranean with the earliest well-established and long-lasting Neolithic settlements in Eurasia. Models that see the migration or diffusion of farming populations from Anatolia into southeast Europe have persisted in archaeological and popular narratives, even though more nuanced scenarios that see a more active role for indigenous forager populations in southeast Europe have also been suggested (e.g. Borić 2002; Tringham 2000; Whittle et al. 2002). The understanding of processes lumped under the largely inadequate label of “Neolithization” in southeast Europe is still hampered by the lack of evidence for a more substantial Mesolithic forager presence across the region as a whole. There are only a few areas where available evidence documents the presence of the latest phase of the Mesolithic prior to the arrival of the so-called Neolithic package. These processes of subsequent change included wholesale or piecemeal adoption of ceramics, domesticates, ground stone tools and macro-blade technology, to name the most prominent features in the archaeological record.