Sesklo

a hill in Greece containing the remains of a multilay-ered ancient settlement dating from the prepottery Neolithic to the middle of the Bronze Age; located west of the city of Volos. Sesklo was excavated by the Greek archaeologists C. Tsountas (in 1901 and 1902) and D. Theocharis (beginning in 1956).

The cultural layer at Sesklo measured 3–6 m thick. The most notable finds date from the middle of the Neolithic and consequently the culture was called the Neolithic Sesklo culture (end of the sixth and the first half of the fifth millennium B.C.). Distributed primarily in Thessaly and parts of western Macedonia, the Neolithic Sesklo culture was characterized by rectangular houses with interior buttresses and by megaron-type houses with antas, erected in regular rows. The pottery was painted, often with red geometric designs on a white background and more rarely with white designs on a red background. Also among the finds were male and female clay figurines, clay balls for slings, stone adzes, and stone and clay pintaderas. The population of Sesklo practiced land cultivation and livestock raising.