The Carbon-14 Chronology of the Early and Middle Neolithic of Southern Italy

Abstract

Investigations into the ceramic typology of the southern Italian neolithic have helped little in the understanding of neolithic origins there. In this paper the evidence of the radiocarbon chronology is used to demonstrate the antiquity of the southern Italian neolithic. There are now sufficient sixth millennium bc dates to suggest that the appearance there of a neolithic with mixed impressed and red-painted wares was contemporary with the earliest neolithic of both Greece and the West Mediterranean, while the penetration of those traits further north into Italy seems to have been delayed.