The transition to farming and the 'revolution' of symbols in the Balkans. From ornament to entoptic and external symbolic storage

Abstract

In desimplifying the logic of colonisation and transition to farming we discuss huntergatherers' and farmer's symbolic structures in the Balkans and Carpathians. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of 'revolution of symbols', 'external symbolic storage' and 'signs of all time'. Our basic premises are (1) that ceramic technology and the principles of fragmentation and accumulationwere not the exclusive domains of farmers and, (2) that the hunter-gatherers' symbolic structures and the process of transition to farmingwere not exclusive and competitive but rather correlative in maintaining control and power within society and over the frameworks of external interactions and exchange networks., but strong parallels between the Near-Eastern and Greek Neolithic.