Perforated and modified shell artefacts in Neolithic northern Greece: Evidence for continuations and transformations in economy and society

This paper discusses the perforated and modified shell artefacts from four sites in central Macedonia, northern Greece (Revenia-Korinos, Paliambela-Kolindros, Makriyalos-Pieria, Methone-Pieria) that cover the Neolithic period (6700/6500–3300/3100 BCE). This is one of the richest shell artefact assemblages in Neolithic Greece, thus offering an exceptional opportunity to investigate their production and use for three and half millennia in one region. Following a biographical approach, the analysis draws attention to the different stages in the life-history of shell artefacts to address issues of raw materials procurement, technologies employed, use(s), and discard at different scales of analysis. The aim of this study is to offer new insights into the role of shell artefacts in crafts, economy and society in these farming communities, and a more nuanced understanding of how these media were used to create, preserve, and transform individual and group identities across time and space. The results show a predominant and consistent selection of common cockles to produce perforated objects throughout the Neolithic period. Given that cockles were also the favourite molluscan foodstuff in the area, a close connection between molluscan food consumption and production/use of perforated shells emerges. Moreover, the uniformity in decoration suggests the existence of shared fashions that become local traditions through time. During the Late Neolithic (5400–4500 BCE), however, a new approach appears. It is characterised by the production and use, perhaps also the distribution over large distances, of modified shell artefacts, as well as the expansion in the variety of types of perforated shells. The diversity of shell raw materials and types of artefacts contrasts with the uniformity of perforated cockle shells, thus showing the transformation of ornamental practices to combine traditional and new elements through which people may have constructed, expressed and negotiated their social, economic and cultural identities in the local and the regional level.