Provadia: The oldest town in Europe?

Type the words "oldest town in Europe" into a search engine and you will be flooded with hundreds of exited posts about how the "oldest town in Europe was recently discovered in Bulgaria, near the town of Provadia...dated between the middle and late Chalcolithic age from 4,700 to 4,200 BC".

Provadia site. A two-room structure.

Very nice! Cool!

But why the sensationalism? "Oldest town in Europe"?

I think not...From memory, and though this is far from my area of expertise, the names "Dimini" and "Sesklo" came uncalled for to my mind.

Both these sites are in Central Greece. Both are towns. And it would appear that both are older than the new Bulgarian site.

Dimini appears to be dated c. 5000 BC. Meaning that it is 300-800 years older than the Provadia site.

Dimini. In the center the "megaron" structure is visble.

Dimini. A reconstruction.

Sesklo is even older, dated tp 6850 BC with a +/- 660 year margin of error...This site was actually abandoned around 4400 BC, i.e. around the time that the Provadia site is dated...

Reconstruction of Sesklo 

Knossos might also be worth a mention in this context, given that the first settlement there dates to about 7000 BC, while I am sure that the Starčevo - (Körös) - Criş Culture, in the Central Balkans, dated from the 7th to 5th millennia possesses a couple of sites that could be qualified as towns...

And those examples are just the first that came to mind! Meaning quite a number of settlements that are older that the Provasia site. Unless the difference is in the term "town" and the Bulgarian team means that according to some unspecified criteria, all the other sites don't qualify as 'towns', while the new site does... [Note: Sesklo may have grown to 800 households, while the Provadia site is said to have been home to about 350 people...]

So once again, why the sensationalism? Would it not have been sufficient just to say "we made an important find: it appears to be an organised settlement, similar to others found in the region (Varna culture)"? That would have been the scientific way to go...

But then again without superlatives, how can you grab the headlines?! Not to mention the national(ist) satisfaction of saying "we have the oldest/biggest/greatest find"!

See also:
Provadia:

• To Vima, 01.11.2012 
• AFP, 31.10.2012

Dimini - Iolkos: Mycenean Settlement in need of Protection (T)

The impressive site of Dimini - Iolkos in the Magnesia Prefecture is a Mycenaean settlement with a palace complex. Works of restoration and supporting were commenced financed by the 2nd and continued with the 3rd Community Support Packet, and should have already led to a visitable archaeological site.

Unfortunately basic problems remain such as the temporary roofing - a naylon covering and buckets filling up with rain-water - which impede visitors. In is last meeting the Central Archaeological Council gave its accord for the construction of permanent roofing over the Megara A and B in the Mycenaean settlement.

The excavation in the Mycenaean settlement of Dimini, at the edge of the Pagasitic gulf, started o*in 1977 and in 30 years of research - under the dr Vasiliki Adrymi, archaeologist and director of the Archaeological Institute of Thessalian studies and former director the 13th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquuities - came to light the ruins of a large Mycenaean settlement, the only one of such size and organisation know in the whole of Thessaly. It was founded at the end of the 15th century B.C. in the plain to the East of the well known neolithic settlement of Dimini, and flourished in the 14th and 13th Centuries B.C. It is composed of a central architectural ensemble with two large buildings (Megaro A and B), which combine living quarters, storage areas where traces of agricultural products were discovered as were products of commerce, workshops for ivory and areas of religious uses.

The Mycenaean settlement of Dimini is identified (because of its morphology, finds and in combination with the settlements at Pefkakia and Kastro of Volos, but also with the 4 great Tholos tombs in the region and the newly-found on at the locality called Kazanaki) with the mythical centre of the famous Iolkos. This is where - according to myth - the Argonauts set out following their leader Jason, to find the Golden Fleece in Kolchis, in the gold-rich shores of the Black Sea.

Source: Kathimerini, 07.04.2010
Adaptation - Translation: ArchaeologyMatters