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

ANNUAL OPEN MEETING OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL IN ATHENS

ANNUAL OPEN MEETING OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL IN ATHENS (23.02.2010)

Researches on the hill of Kefalas (Κεφαλάς) of Knossos revealed findings from the most ancient rural habitation in Greece and maybe in Europe, dated between 7000 and 6400 B.C. The finds were presented by the director of the British School in Athens, Professor Catherine Morgan during the annual open meeting of the School in the building of the Archaeological Society.

The discovery was made using high technology radars and working with Dutch scientists during research which had started in May 2009 aiming to map and visualise archaeological and geological remains in the Knossos region.

Professor Morgan also presented the finds from similar research conducted on the isle of Keros in the Cyclades and more precisely on the Dhaskalio settlement which flourished during the early Bronze Age (see Keros Cambridge Project), on Kavos of Kerkyra (Corfu), in Thessaly, on Kythera and Antikythera.

Professor Morgan also spoke of the archaeological research conducted on the island of Aigina, where, as she noted, the making of clay vessels flourished from the Bronze Age till the 1960’s because of the natural resources and the commercial potential of the island. Today only a single family continues this five millennia-old tradition.

The Professor of History of Art of the University of Londor, Robin Cormack was the guest of honour. Professor Cormack spoke on the influence of Byzantium on the culture of the British Empire (“Byzantium in the British Empire: the architects of the Byzantine Research Fund overseas”). As an example he used Walter Sykes George, who worked between 1906 and 1911 for the British School in Athens and participated in digs and the restoration of ancient and byzantine monuments in Greece.

Sykes was one of the designers of the city of New Delhi and was especially influenced by Byzantine Architecture and his whole experience in Greece.

Mr Cormack also spoke of Robert Weir Schultz and his colleague and co-worker Sidney Barnsley, who both came to Greece with a scholarship for Byzantine studies. Schultz, deeply influences by his studies in Greece built the Cathedral of Hartoum in Sudan following the plan of Ag. Demetrios in Thesalonike.


The Byzantine church of Hagios Demetrios in Thessalonike.


The Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum, now the Republican Palace Museum. The original plan included a belfry which was later demolished.



The Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum, now the Republican Palace Museum.


Source for the article: Kathimerini.gr

Sources for the images:
- Ag. Demetrios, Thessalonike from http://dreamthessaloniki.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
- Khartoum Cathedral (Republican Palace Museum):

a.http://bmtrainingprog.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/the-republican-palace-museum-khartoum-sudan-a-blog-post-by-nasir/
b.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Republican_Palace_Museum_%28Khartoum%29_002.jpg