THE FIGURINES FROM THE EARLY NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT OF MAVROPIGI (WESTERN GREEK MACEDONIA) AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE IN THE NEOLITHIZATION PROCESS OF GREECE

The rescue excavations at the Early Neolithic settlement of Mavropigi-Fyllotsaïri (Kozani prefecture, Western Macedonia) carried out in 2005-2006 by the Archaeological Museum of Aiani-30th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, revealed the presence of a fully farming community in northern Greece dating before the middle of the 7th millennium cal BC. Two preliminary reports have been already published in a previous issue of Eurasian Prehistory, presenting the settlement outline and its chronological framework (Karamitrou-Mentessidi and Efstratiou, 2015), and the chipped stone assemblage (Kaczanowska and Kozłowski, 2015). In this paper which can be considered as the third part of the preliminary report on the sites’ excavation, the author presents the results of the study of 187 figurines. They are mostly anthropomorphic and made of fired clay, though some are zoomorphic and a few were made on stone. They represent one of the largest collections ever found within a welldated Early Neolithic archaeological context in Greece. This paper provides a first full insight as regards various aspects of those findings and their implications.