Chipped lithic artefacts from Paradimi and Krovili (Thrace, northern Greece). Remarks from the 2020 surface investigations

The number of Neolithic settlements in Aegean Thrace identified so far amounts to 27. All are located in the plain enclosed by the range of the Rhodope Mountains to the north and by the sea to the south. Most of them are known only from surface findings (Kallintzi & Papadopoulos 2010 and 2015). Exceptions to this are several sites, which were partially investigated with trial trenches or small-scale excavations like Diomideia (Kallintzi & Papadopoulos 2010 and 2015), Lafrouda (Rhomiopoulou 1965), Paradimi (Bakalakis & Sakellariou 1981) and Paradisos (Hellstrom 1987), or with borehole cores like Lafrouda (Ammerman et al. 2008; Efstratiou 2016) and Krovili (Ammerman et al. 2008) (fig. 1). None of them has provided enough data for the study of settlement size, intrasite organization and the duration of their occupation, apart from Makri which has been excavated almost in its whole extent, revealing rich data for the organization of the settlement in the later habitation phases dating to the Late Neolithic (Efstratiou & Kallintzi 1994; Efstratiou et al. 1998; Efstratiou & Urem-Kotsou 2006).