Eurasian Prehistory, 15 (1–2): 25-46

TRANS-ADRIATIC CONTACTS AND THE TRANSITION

TO FARMING
Stašo Forenbaher

Institute for Anthropological Research, Ljudevita Gaja street 32, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia;
staso.forenbaher@inantro.hr

Abstract
This contribution discusses the evidence of trans-Adriatic contacts that was recovered from remote Adriatic islands, as well as the
origin of extraneous lithic raw materials from those islands and from other eastern Adriatic sites, while drawing on the currently
available radiocarbon-dated sequences and paleogeographic reconstructions. Since the Last Glacial Maximum, trans-Adriatic
connectivity passed through three major phases that are separated by two key transitional events: the rapid expansion of the

by land across the exposed Adriatic Plain, there is evidence of fairly regular contacts. During the second phase, contacts between
the opposing shores of a much expanded Adriatic Sea were minimal or nonexistent. After the arrival of farming, there is abundant
and varied evidence of regular trans-Adriatic contact. This suggests that the connectivity of the Adriatic Late Pleistocene and
Early Holocene hunter-gatherers was mostly land-based. The onset of full-time maritime connectivity coincided with the arrival
of farming.
Keywords: Adriatic, connectivity, Pleistocene, Holocene, navigation, early farming

INTRODUCTION Forenbaher and Perhoč, 2017; Vukosavljević

For many decades, the discussion of prehistoric
trans-Adriatic contacts and exchange relied
primarily on formal and stylistic similarities
from the opposite shores of the Adriatic Sea
(Bietti Sestieri, 1969; Čečuk, 1970; Marović,
1975; Batović, 1975; 1979; 1984; Petrić, 1980;
Moscoloni, 1991; Cataldo, 1996; Recchia, 2002;
Marijanović, 2004). Since more recently, the
evidence of maritime contacts has been actively
sought on remote islands, strategically located
halfway across the Adriatic (Bass, 1998; 2008;
Kaiser and Forenbaher, 1999; Forenbaher, 2009;
2018; Forenbaher and Kaiser, 2011), while
sourcing of extraneous lithic raw materials
obtained from those islands (Radić and Lugović,
2004; Radić, 2009), from the opposite Adriatic
shore (Perhoč, 2009; Vukosavljević et al., 2014;
and Perhoč, 2017; Perhoč, 2018) and from
beyond (Tykot, 2011; 2017a) provided further
crucial evidence. This contribution to the topic
of trans-Adriatic connections relies primarily
on those recently tapped sources of information,
while focusing on the great watershed event of
European prehistory, the transition to farming.
From the beginning of the seventh millennium
cal BC, farming spread along the Mediterranean
shores from western Asia to Europe, reaching
its westernmost point in the second half of the
sixth millennium cal BC (Broodbank, 2013).
The adoption of domesticated plants and animals
implied radical changes in economy and social
organization that underlay demographic growth,
environmental change, and increasing social
inequality. One may reasonably expect that trans-
Adriatic connectivity also would have changed
during that major transitional period. In order
26 Stašo Forenbaher

to grasp the scale and dynamics of that change,

one should begin with presenting and discussing
the evidence for trans-Adriatic contacts in times

Pleistocene and the early Holocene, or the Late

Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in traditional
archaeological terms.

TRANS-ADRIATIC CONTACTS BEFORE

THE TRANSITION TO FARMING

When discussing trans-Adriatic contacts during

the Late Upper Pleistocene, one must keep in
mind that the geography of the Late Upper
Pleistocene Adriatic Basin differed radically
from what it is today (Lambeck et al., 2004).
About 20.000 years ago, at the peak of the Last
Glacial Maximum, a wide plain lay between the
northeastern Apennines and the northwestern
ranges of Dinaric Mountains (Fig.1, top).
Paleoclimatic reconstructions suggest that the
plain was an open grassland crisscrossed by an
extended river Po and its tributaries, harboring
a relatively rich and diverse environment that
would have been attractive to the Late Upper
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Miracle and
O'Brian, 1998:43-45; Boschian and Fusco, 2007;
Miracle, 2007). The plain would have been
between 120 and 180 kilometers wide. Such
distances are well within the mobility range of
ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers,
who could have walked across it within several
days. General similarities among contemporary
lithic industries, faunal assemblages, and other
classes of archaeological evidence from the
opposite sides of the north Adriatic basin therefore
are unsurprising, but they tell us little about the
character and changing intensity of trans-Adriatic
interaction.
In central and southern Adriatic (roughly,
to the southeast of Šibenik-Pescara line), the
situation would have been different. The greatly
reduced Adriatic Sea still would have presented

Fig. 1. Maps of the Adriatic at the time of the Last

Glacial Maximum (18,000 cal BC), at 14,000 cal BC,
and at 10,000 cal BC (after Lambeck et al., 2004:
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming
a major obstacle to communication between
the opposing shores, forcing would-be travelers
either to follow a circuitous route around its
northwestern end, or to take to the sea.
Evidence provided by lithic raw material
analyses
The important work on lithic raw material
sourcing, carried out over the last decade
(Perhoč, 2009; Perhoč and Altherr, 2011;
Vukosavljević et al., 2011; 2014; Forenbaher
and Perhoč, 2017; Vukosavljević and Perhoč,
2017; Perhoč and Ruka, 2017), bears directly
upon the issue on prehistoric trans-Adriatic
contacts. Hundreds of chert sources around and
across the Adriatic Basin were located, sampled
and analyzed petrographically in order to be
of archaeological sites. While this is still a work
in progress, clear trends already have emerged.
and Mesolithic sites for which raw material
analyses have been completed and published
will be discussed here. Preliminary analyses of
a few other roughly coeval eastern Adriatic sites
(Perhoč, pers. comm.) suggest that those two
sites may represent typical examples, but more
research is needed to corroborate that assumption.
cave located on what today is the island of Dugi
in northern Dalmatia (Fig.1). Its archaeological
deposits have been excavated to the depth of
Aside from a few post-Mesolithic artifacts from
the topmost level, they contained only Mesolithic
report, including petrographic analyses of lithic
raw materials, is available for roughly the upper
half of those deposits (Vukosavljević et al., 2014).
That part of the sequence has been divided in six
phases, for which four radiocarbon dates provide
coarse temporal control. The lower three phases
two and a half millennia of the Pleistocene and
have been attributed to Epigravettian based on
their lithic assemblages. The upper three phases
and a half millennia of the Holocene.
27
Lithic raw materials at Vlakno may be
provenience (Vukosavljević et al., 2014:54-55).
Cherts from the Upper Cretaceous limestone with
planktonic foraminifers are locally available and
most likely were collected from outcrops on the
island of Dugi itself. Cherts from the Eocene
limestone with foraminifers would have been
collected from sources located up to 50 km away,
but still within the eastern Adriatic coastline
claystone would have been collected from distant
sources that lie even farther away on the eastern
side of the Adriatic. The only raw materials that
likely are of western Adriatic origin are the reddish
cherts from Scaglia Rossa limestone. The nearest
autochthonous sources of those cherts are in the
Apennines, in the province of Marche, while their
widely distributed allochthonous outcrops reach
almost to the Adriatic coast.
While local cherts dominate overwhelmingly
throughout the Vlakno sequence, a clear
decreasing trend is observable in all categories
of non-local cherts (Table 1; Fig.2). Furthermore,
cherts of western Adriatic origin are relatively
well represented (11,5%) only in the earliest
Late Upper Paleolithic phase. After that, their
frequency drops drastically, and hovers around
1% in Mesolithic phases.
Diminishing use of all non-local chert sources
at Vlakno may be seen as a consequence of
reduced mobility, which is often regarded as a
general characteristic marking the times around
gradually increasing isolation of the area which
was transformed from a low range of hills rising
above the coastal plain to an island relatively
distant from the mainland (Vukosavljević et al.,
2014:56-57). Of special interest to our discussion,
however, is the particularly sharp drop of western
Adriatic cherts after around year 12,000 cal BC.
According to paleogeographic reconstructions
(Lambeck et al.,
Adriatic Sea around year 14,000 cal BC still had
not reached the Zadar-Ancona line, leaving open
the direct land route from Vlakno to the Apennines
(Fig.1, middle). Four thousand years later, around
year 10,000 cal BC the sea was closing on to
the southernmost tip of Istria, making the land
connection between the opposing sides of the
28 Stašo Forenbaher

Table 1. Vlakno: frequency of raw material categories by phase (based on data from Vukosavljević et al.,
2014:tables 9, 16, 23, 30, 37 and 44)

Phase Eastern Adriatic sources Western Indeterminate Total

Adriatic
sources
local regional distant
Meso III 398 2 3 5 152 560
Meso II 1591 15 7 23 440 2076
Meso I 1187 1 8 17 322 1535
LUP III 1294 9 19 30 383 1735
LUP II 554 32 11 21 165 783
LUP I 816 103 22 151 217 1309

(Vukosavljević and Perhoč, 2017). Kopačina’s

sequence has been divided in four phases, while
rough temporal control is provided by a couple
of radiocarbon dates. Those four phases probably
cover about three millennia, roughly between
14,000 and 11,000 cal BC. Based on their lithic
assemblages, they have been attributed to Late
Epigravettian.
Lithic raw materials at Kopačina may be

provenience (Vukosavljević and Perhoč, 2017:

Fig. 2. Vlakno: relative frequency of raw material
category by phase.
Adriatic much more roundabout (Fig.1, bottom).
The sharp drop in imported western Adriatic
cherts at Vlakno thus coincides with the marine
transgression that severed the direct land route
between the opposing edges of the Adriatic Plain.
The second site is Kopačina, another small
cave located on what today is the island of Brač
in middle Dalmatia (Fig.1). Its topmost levels
likewise yielded some post-Mesolithic artifacts,
while the rest of its three meters thick deposits
have been attributed to the Late Pleistocene
178-180). Cherts from the Upper Cretaceous
limestone are locally available and most likely
were collected from outcrops on the island of
Brač itself. Cherts from Middle and Lower
Eocene limestones, as well as the ‘black cherts’,
would have been collected from sources located
up to 50 km away, but still within the eastern
Adriatic coastline belt. Radiolarites most likely
would have been collected from distant sources
that lie even farther away on the eastern side of
the Adriatic.
Despite the fact that the analyzed sequences
of Vlakno and Kopačina are of a similar age
(Kopačina III and IV partially overlap LUP I and
LUP II of Vlakno), there are clear differences
in lithic raw material procurement strategies. At
Kopačina, artifacts made of raw materials from
medium-distance sources are just as common as
artifacts made of the local cherts (Table 2; Fig.3).
On the other hand, the frequency of rare cherts
from distant eastern Adriatic sources exhibits
a decreasing trend that resembles the trend at
Vlakno. Diminishing use of those sources may be
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming 29

Table 2. Kopačina: frequency of raw material categories by phase (based on data from Vukosavljević and Perhoč,
2017:table 5)

Phase Eastern Adriatic sources Indeterminate Total

local regional distant

Kopačina IV 463 555 40 457 1515
Kopačina III 1094 1357 164 1002 3617
Kopačina II 813 886 134 546 2379
Kopačina I 118 109 20 101 348

seen as a consequence of reduced long-distance

mobility, but probably it is not related to the
rising sea level, since Brač remained a part of
the mainland for the duration of the Kopačina
sequence (Vukosavljević and Perhoč, 2017:180).
Of potential importance for our discussion
are a few artifacts made of cherts from Eocene
detritic limestone with benthic and planktonic
foraminifers that probably originated from
Gargano Peninsula, as well as a few other pieces
made of reddish cherts from Scaglia Rossa
limestone that closely resemble those from
Marche. Their total number is very small, and all
have been recovered from redeposited contexts
(Vukosavljević and Perhoč, 2017:182). Since
Kopačina did contain some post-Mesolithic Fig. 3. Kopačina: relative frequency of raw material
material, and considering that the middle category by phase
Dalmatian post-Mesolithic assemblages are
dominated by western Adriatic cherts, especially
those from Gargano (Forenbaher and Perhoč, point to trans-Adriatic contacts during the Late
Pleistocene and Early Holocene (Vukosavljević
be considered as conclusive evidence for Late and Perhoč, 2017:182), although the contexts
Upper Paleolithic trans-Adriatic contacts.
Finally, one should mention Vela, a large are not as secure as one would wish them to be.
cave located on the island of Korčula in southern To summarize, while there are good reasons to
Dalmatia (Fig.1) with very deep deposits that expect contacts during the Last Glacial Maximum
reach back to the Last Glacial Maximum and between northwestern Balkan and northeastern
continue until the end of prehistory (Čečuk Apennine Peninsula, the concrete evidence is
and Radić, 2005). While the analyses of lithic still lacking. This is not surprising, since the
assemblages from the Late Upper Paleolithic and area that likely would have been most attractive
Mesolithic levels of Vela are still in progress, to the Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers
their preliminary results roughly correspond to currently lies at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea,
those from Vlakno and Kopačina (Perhoč, pers. hampering investigation of the potentially
comm.). They testify of heavy reliance on local crucial archaeological sites on the Adriatic Plain.
cherts, followed by cherts from other, more The earliest such evidence, consisting of lithic
distant eastern Adriatic sources. A small number artifacts from eastern Adriatic sites that were
made of western Adriatic cherts, was recovered
30 Stašo Forenbaher
from Epigravettian contexts dated to around
12,500 cal BC. It may point either to fairly regular
interaction among different hunter-gatherer bands
based along the edges of the Adriatic Plain, or to
direct access by bands based within that plain to
the sources on both sides of the Adriatic Basin.
Subsequent changes in raw material composition
of lithic assemblages suggest that this mobility
and/or interaction dwindled as the sea expanded
towards the northwest, separating the opposing
shores of the Adriatic Sea.
Circumstances were different farther to the
southeast, where a much reduced Adriatic Sea
separated the western Balkan from southern
Italy throughout the Late Pleistocene. Contacts
between those areas would have involved either
long detours by land, or maritime crossings.
Despite the tantalizing hints from Kopačina and
Vela, for now we still lack conclusive evidence of
trans-Adriatic connections in central and southern
Adriatic that would predate the arrival of farming.
In conclusion, the currently available
information about lithic raw material procurement
practices suggests that hunter-gatherer mobility
and connectivity in the Adriatic Basin was
maintained by walking across dry land, rather
than by navigation. Next, we shall discuss other
possible evidence of Adriatic hunter-gatherer
maritime mobility, or lack thereof.
Evidence of hunter-gatherer maritime mobility
Islands are obvious places to look for evidence
of maritime mobility. Most of the Adriatic islands
were part of the mainland at the time of the Last
Glacial Maximum, and only became detached
during the Early Holocene (Forenbaher, 2002:362-
365). They still lie close to the mainland, separated
from it by channels just a few kilometers wide
that can be crossed without advanced maritime
technology or extensive navigational knowledge.
The Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic
remains recovered from those islands therefore
do not imply that the people who left them behind
possessed major seafaring capabilities.
Of more interest for our discussion are less
than a dozen relatively small and remote islands
that became islands early on and were harder to
reach. The timing of their separation from the
since the changes of topography are determined
by multiple factors that include eustasy, isostasy
and tectonics. Together, these components
result in a complex spatial and temporal pattern
of relative sea-level change within a region
(Lambeck et al., 2004:1567). Each island’s
coastline was further affected by local erosion and
colluviation. Nevertheless, based on bathymetric
data (Državni hidrografski institut, 1994) and
the well-documented dynamics of the global sea
level change after the Last Glacial Maximum
(Lambeck et al.,
may be proposed for separation of each island
from the mainland.
Only Jabuka, Palagruža and Sušac (Fig.4) may
have remained insular during the Last Glacial
Maximum lowstand. As the sea level began to
rise, Pianosa would have been detached from the
mainland around year 13,500 cal BC, Tremiti,
Vis, Biševo and Svetac around 12,000 cal BC,
and Lastovo around 10,500 cal BC. Any younger
traces of Late Upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic
hunter-gatherers on those islands would imply
maritime crossings, but currently such evidence is
absent. In fact, none of those islands yielded any
evidence of human presence that would predate
the arrival of farming (Gaffney and Kirigin,
2006; Della Casa et al., 2009; Forenbaher, 2009;
Komšo, 2016).
Columbella
rustica shell from Palagruža has been proposed
While personal ornaments made of Columbella
shells were commonly used by Late Upper
Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in the
wider region (Komšo and Vukosavljević, 2011;
Vujević and Bodružić, 2013; Cristiani et al.,
2014; Vukosavljević and Karavanić, 2015), they
also have been recovered from later prehistoric
contexts in Dalmatia (Kukoč, 2012:182-183,
(Perlès, 2016). A single pierced Columbella
rustica therefore cannot be regarded as conclusive
proof of Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene visits
to that remote island.
Archaeological evidence of marine food re-
sources exploitation represents another potential
source of information about maritime mobility. It
should be noted, however, that while the neces-
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming 31

Fig. 4. Map showing location of sites and regions mentioned in text

and maritime travel partially overlap, their social
context and motivation for their practice are very
different. Fishing therefore does not necessarily
lead to development of seafaring, nor vice versa
(Rainsford et al., 2014:317-319).
and sea mammals that may have washed up on
the shore (Čečuk and Radić, 2005:53). Since
mackerel schools sometimes move near to the
shore, where they can be netted from small boats,
neither of these seems to indicate systematic

Vela Cave (Korčula), where Mesolithic levels

sporadic acquisition of raw materials from remote
heavily dominated by mackerel bones (Rainsford islands. A stone artifact of an unknown purpose,
et al., 2014:315, 318). The same site yielded a cobble shaped by grinding and polishing was
32 Stašo Forenbaher
recovered by controlled excavation from a
level attributed to late Mesolithic and dated by
radiocarbon to around year 7,000 cal BC (Radić
and Lugović, 2004; Radić, 2009). It was made of
gabbro, an intrusive igneous rock. Igneous rocks
are rare in the Adriatic, with gabbro outcropping
only at Jabuka, Brusnik, and the western side of
the island of Vis (Juračić et al., 2004:83).
Petrographic analysis of the artifact from
Vela indicated its close similarity with gabbro
from Brusnik, while the closest match was
with a gabbro cobble collected from a beach on
Palagruža (Radić and Lugović, 2004), an islet
composed entirely of sedimentary rocks (Korbar
et al., 2009). Most likely, that particular gabbro
cobble was brought to Palagruža from Brusnik
as ballast in more recent times (Korbar, 2013;
Forenbaher, 2018:113-114). Regardless, the
artifact from Vela was made of a raw material
that would have been accessible only by open-sea
navigation. Around year 7,000 cal BC, with the
sea level approximately 30 m lower than today
(Lambeck et al.,
Vela to Brusnik would have required several
sea crossings longer than 10 km, while reaching
Palagruža would have involved even longer sea
crossings.
Fifty kilometers of open sea (the approximate
minimum width of the Adriatic during the Last
Glacial Maximum) would not have presented an
insurmountable obstacle to hunter-gatherers who
inhabited the Mediterranean shores during the
Pleistocene to Holocene transition. Settlement of
Cyprus in the eleventh millennium cal BC, and
Melian obsidian from the roughly coeval levels of
Franchthi Cave on Peloponnesus, testify of their
seafaring capabilities (Broodbank, 2006:208-
209; 2013:148, 152-154). In the Adriatic,
little doubt remains that the Holocene hunter-
gatherers have mastered the basic seafaring
skills, but the direct evidence of their long-
distance maritime journeys remains extremely
scarce. The combined archaeological evidence
suggests that, throughout the Late Pleistocene
and the Early Holocene, mobility and interaction
among hunter-gatherer bands depended primarily
on land routes, which became more roundabout
or were severed as the Adriatic Sea expanded
towards the north-west.
THE SPREAD OF FARMING
IN THE ADRIATIC
It is now beyond question that the main early
domesticates were introduced into Mediterranean
Europe from western Asia (Zohary and Hopf,
2000; Rowley-Conwy, 2003; Zeder, 2008). Since
it is unlikely that they would have moved into
the region without human involvement, one must
consider some form of human population transfer
during the foraging-to-farming transition. A
growing body of genetic evidence supports this
assumption (Richards et al., 2002; Mathieson et
al., 2018).
The transition to farming in Europe has been
explained by a variety of models, ranging from
those that rely primarily on migrating farmers
(e.g., Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984) to
those that highlight the contribution of Mesolithic
foragers (e.g., Tringham, 2000; Zvelebil, 2002).
At the regional (Adriatic) level, most of the
explanations that have been put forward take
into account primarily the immigrants, while
acknowledging a greater or lesser contribution by
autochthonous populations (Müller, 1994; Bass,
2004; Forenbaher and Miracle, 2005; 2014).
An exception is Budja’s (1999) model, which
rejects migration and envisions an autochthonous
population taking up a limited number of
innovations. One of the reasons for emphasizing
the role of incoming farmers is the scarcity
of information on the autochthonous foragers
(Komšo, 2008; 2016). Nonetheless, it is clear that
the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition should not be
considered in simple dichotomous terms such as
acculturation versus colonization.
The arrival of the earliest domesticates in
the Adriatic is accompanied by technological
innovations, the most conspicuous of which is
pottery. A long-established archaeological tra-
dition equates the appearance of farming with
the appearance of Impressed Ware. The evi-
dence on which that equation is based has been
discussed it in detail elsewhere (Forenbaher
and Miracle, 2006:485-91). That evidence sug-
gests that one can safely use the appearance of
Impressed Ware (or other pottery wares at the
northwestern end of the Adriatic) as a proxy for
the appearance of herding, and possibly also of
cereal cultivation.
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming
Most of the Impressed Ware sites are
located on Adriatic islands, along the coasts,
or within a narrow strip of hinterland. Their
distribution suggests that, like elsewhere in the
Mediterranean, the sea was the main avenue
along which immigrants, domesticates, sedentary
lifestyles, and other innovations were dispersed
(Broodbank, 2006:214; Forenbaher and Kaiser,
Adriatic farming villages were founded at the
very end of the seventh millennium BC in
southern Italy (Skeates 2003:169), where the large
Tavoliere Plain provided an unusually favorable
natural setting for early agriculture. Initial
leapfrogging of the less attractive southeastern
end of the Italian Peninsula may be seen as an
expected consequence of maritime colonization
(Zvelebil and Lillie, 2000:62).
Around 6,000 BC, domesticates and other
innovations spread across much of the Adriatic
(Forenbaher and Miracle, 2014:238). That initial
farming period would have been marked by
mobility and exploration, since any migration
must have been preceded by information
gathering about destinations of potential interest
(Anthony, 1990:899-901; 1997:23-24; Rockman,
2003). The incoming farmers in search of new
land may have negotiated with autochthonous
hunter-gatherers while bringing only selective
elements of the new subsistence strategy. At
some point in time, almost the entire Adriatic
may have become an agricultural frontier zone
(sensu Zvelebil and Lillie, 2000:64-67) within
which new domesticates, technologies, practices,
and knowledge were embraced selectively by the
autochthonous communities before their eventual
full transition to farming. Various scenarios
probably played out simultaneously.
At the beginning of the sixth millennium BC,
villages were founded on the eastern Adriatic coast
(Legge and Moore, 2011; McClure and Podrug,
2016). They appeared in northern Dalmatia,
a region that, after Tavoliere, is best suited for
agriculture. From there, the next area towards the
northwest with substantial agricultural potential
is Istria. Farming villages were founded in
southern Istria a couple of centuries after those in
33
Dalmatia. Another century later, after Impressed
Ware had been replaced by Danilo-style pottery
around 5,600 BC (Forenbaher and Miracle, 2006),
farming spread across the Friuli Plain to the Alpine
foothills (Ferrari and Pessina, 1999).
Archaeozoological and archaeobotanical
studies suggest a fairly common scenario
for those early farming communities. Faunal
assemblages are dominated by ovicaprids, with
milk-meat husbandry (Miracle and Pugsley,
2006; Legge and Moore, 2011; Radović, 2011),
which is further supported by residue analyses
of ceramic vessels (Debono Spiteri et al., 2016;
McClure et al., 2018). Cattle and pigs are
present but relatively infrequent, while hunting
to the diet. Domesticated plants dominate the
archaeobotanical record, with an emphasis on
wheat and barley (Pessina and Rottoli, 2007:
McClure and Podrug, 2016; Reed and College,
2016). It remains to be seen whether these early
farmers practiced a fully sedentary lifestyle,
as the relatively substantial remains of some of
the northern Dalmatian villages may suggest
(Batović, 1961; Chapman et al., 1996; Brusić,
2008; Marijanović, 2009; Legge and Moore,
2011; McClure and Podrug, 2016). Presence of
herders on high coastal mountain ranges suggests
that at least a part of the population practiced
seasonal mobility (Forenbaher, 2011).
TRANS-ADRIATIC INTERACTION
DURING AND AFTER TRANSITION
TO FARMING
Like elsewhere in the Mediterranean (Broodbank,
2013), maritime travel takes off in the Adriatic at
the time of transition to farming. From that time
onwards, the evidence of trans-Adriatic contacts
becomes abundant and diverse.
One may begin with pottery, a time-honored
category of archaeological evidence that has
been intensely studied for many decades. The
characteristically decorated Impressed Ware
(Fig.5) is almost universally regarded as the
signature style of the Adriatic Early Neolithic
(Batović, 1979; Müller, 1994; Fugazzola Delpino
et al., 2002). While the Impressed Ware style is
34 Stašo Forenbaher

Fig. 5. Characteristically decorated Impressed Ware potsherds: 1-4 early Impressed Ware; 5-7 later Impressed
Ware; 8, 9 ‘Guadone style’ sherds (1, 2 Palagruža; 3, 5, 6, 9 Nakovana; 4 Žukovica; 7, 8 Vela)

quite homogeneous across the region, it is not
uniform. Variability ranges from the uniqueness
of each vessel to the family resemblance of widely
separated assemblages (Robb, 2007:181). Isolated
potsherds from the opposite sides of the Adriatic
can be indistinguishable, even though chemical
and petrographic characterization has indicated
that they were produced and consumed locally
(Spataro, 2002). Shapes and sizes of individual
impressions and the ways they are combined into
motifs and designs are often identical. Certain
with microrocker design known as ‘Guadone
style’ (Tinè, 2002:139-144; Radić, 2012:183-
185), appear simultaneously in places that are
wide apart. This pan-Adriatic stylistic unity
cannot be explained away as unrelated accidental
continuing contacts among the potters from the
opposing Adriatic shores.
The earliest Impressed Ware vessels do not
look like products of experimenting beginners.
Rather, they suggest that an already perfected
pottery technology arrived from the southern
use a few centuries earlier (Perlès, 2001:99, 210-
20). There is no indication, however, that a well-
with the pottery technology. Until recently, a
group of potsherds from Sidari, an open-air site
located just south of the Strait of Otranto on
the island of Corfu, was considered the earliest
on a single radiocarbon date (Sordinas, 1967;
1969), was brought into doubt by reinvestigation
dated layer was created by a series of erosional
and depositional events. A new radiocarbon date
from an undisturbed Impressed Ware context
(Berger et al., 2014) is roughly contemporary
with the earliest dates from the farming villages
of southern Italy. The concentration of early
Impressed Ware sites in the Tavoliere Plain points
to that region as the most likely place of its origin.
Impressed Ware pottery could have spread
from southern Italy to the eastern Adriatic
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming
shore by the way of Otranto, western Albania
and southern Montenegro, but the supporting
evidence is absent. Radiocarbon dates from
southeastern end of Italy are younger than those
from the Tavoliere (Skeates, 2003), and not a
single radiocarbon date is available from the few
Impressed Ware sites located in the coastal zone
between northern Greece and southern Dalmatia
(Marković, 1985; Bunguri, 2014; Allen and
Gjipali, 2014:108). Another route would have
led from Gargano via the mid-Adriatic ‘island
bridge’ (Bass, 1998; Forenbaher, 2009; Kaiser
and Forenbaher, 2016) to the islands of middle
and southern Dalmatia. The earliest radiocarbon
dates, which are slightly earlier in Apulia than in
Dalmatia, are in agreement with that proposition.
This brings us to the archaeological record
of the few small and remote Adriatic islands. We
have seen that none of those islands have yielded
conclusive evidence of Late Upper Paleolithic or
Mesolithic visitors. This changes abruptly around
year 6,000 cal BC, when many of them are
visited or colonized by early farmers (Bass, 1998;
Kaiser and Forenbaher, 2002:103; Forenbaher,
2009). The evidence from three key islands
of the mid-Adriatic island bridge is especially
suggestive. The relatively fertile miniature
archipelago of Tremiti (Fusco, 1965; Cornaggia
Castiglioni, 1968; Fumo, 1980), the marginally
inhabitable Sušac (Bass, 1998:168-171), and
the islet of Palagruža, which is too small and
remote for settlement (Forenbaher and Kaiser,
2011; Forenbaher, 2018), yielded Early Neolithic
Impressed Ware pottery and thousands of lithic
artifacts. The evidence is abundant and covers
longer periods on Tremiti and Sušac, the islands
that, aside from being stepping stones for trans-
Adriatic travel, provide a limited possibility of
settlement. It is much scarcer and covers a shorter
period on Palagruža, a strategically located islet
with severely limited resources. This corresponds
well with the situation where travel is undertaken
primarily in search of places to settle.
The duration of Neolithic ‘settlement’
of the three most remote Adriatic islands
correlates with the abundance of their terrestrial
resources (Forenbaher, 2018:111). On the tiny
Palagruža, these would have been depleted
almost immediately, on the much larger Sušac
they would have lasted somewhat longer, while
35
the loess-covered Tremiti offered relatively
good opportunities for continuous agricultural
and Tremiti include evidence of herding (sheep
and goat bones), agriculture (blades with sickle
gloss, broken ground stone axes), exploitation
of marine resources (mollusk shells, bones of
activities, building of drystone structures (Sušac),
and burial of the deceased (Tremiti), suggesting
permanent or semi-permanent settlement.
The recently completed petrographic analyses
of the lithic artifacts from Palagruža and Sušac
have shown that most of them were not made
of the locally available cherts (Kaiser and
Forenbaher, 1999:316; Perhoč and Altherr, 2011),
but almost exclusively of Gargano cherts (Perhoč,
2018). Furthermore, the current analyses of more
than two dozen Dalmatian Neolithic assemblages,
including substantial ones from well-known
sites such as Danilo (Korošec, 1958; Moore et
al., 2007a), Smilčić (Batović, 1961), Pokrovnik
(Moore et al., 2007b; Brusić, 2008), Crno Vrilo
(Marijanović, 2009), Velištak (Podrug, 2010),
and Rašinovac (McClure and Podrug et al., 2016),
point to an abrupt and decisive shift from eastern
Adriatic to western Adriatic lithic raw materials
(Perhoč, pers. comm.). Raw materials for most of
the lithic artifacts from those sites were imported
from Gargano. An extreme example is Nakovana
site with a sequence that begins with the Early
Neolithic and ends with the arrival of the Romans.
Gargano cherts were used at Nakovana to the
exclusion of the locally available cherts from the
beginning until the time when lithic artifacts went
out of use (Forenbaher and Perhoč, 2017). It is
now clear that the lithic raw material procurement
strategies changed dramatically throughout the
region with the arrival of farming, and that those
new strategies depended on regular trans-Adriatic
travel.
Of particular interest is the reliance on Gargano
cherts from the very beginning of the Neolithic.
This may suggest that the farmers were recent ar-
rivals, not yet possessing the necessary locational
knowledge (Rockman, 2003:4-5, 19). Put simply,
their tools. Instead, they brought it with them
from the sources with which they were familiar,
36 Stašo Forenbaher
from the outcrops located in the area from which
they came. The earliest Adriatic farming villages
were located in the Tavoliere, in the close neigh-
borhood of Gargano (Skeates, 2003:169, 184).
The Tavoliere Neolithic villagers probably were
responsible for the excavation and exploitation
of the Gargano chert mines (Tarantini, 2011:102-
103). The domination of Gargano cherts in the
earliest Dalmatian farming contexts therefore sup-
ports the hypothesis that migration played an im-
portant role in the spread of farming from Apulia
to Dalmatia (Forenbaher and Miracle, 2014).
On the other hand, the persistent dominant
use of Gargano cherts cannot be explained by a
lack of knowledge of local sources, because such
locational knowledge can be gained quickly and
easily (Rockman, 2003:4-5). It might be explained
in part by their extraordinary technical quality,
which is of decisive importance in production of
prismatic blades (Fig.6), a new and likely foreign
technology (Guilbeau, 2011:96-97) that appeared
in the Adriatic together with farming. To the best
of our knowledge, cherts of comparable quality
are not available anywhere between Gargano and
the Carpathian basin.
Over the next four millennia, prismatic blades
and blade segments were widely used as sickle
elements (Mazucco et al., 2018), but little is
known about the geographic location and social
context of their production. Cores from which
such blades are detached tend to be shaped at or
near the chert source, in order to avoid transport
material, while blades may be struck from cores
later and at a different location. There is some
evidence of the latter in southern Italy, where
the lithic assemblage from the Neolithic village
of Masseria Candelaro contained substantial
amounts of blade extraction debris, but very little
evidence of initial core shaping (Tarantini, 2011:
104). In contrast, characteristic waste produced
during blade extraction, such as exhausted
or mangled cores, overshot blades, and core
rejuvenation elements, are exceptionally rare at
Dalmatian sites (Forenbaher, 2006:107; 2018:71-
73; Korona, 2009:150; Forenbaher and Perhoč,
2017:200), and the waste from initial shaping
of such cores is even less common. It seems,
therefore, that most of the prismatic blades
The Gargano Peninsula is one of the few
well-studied lithic raw material procurement
areas in the central Mediterranean (Tarantini and
Galiberti, 2011). Dozens of prehistoric mines
have been recorded in its chert-bearing rock
formations, most of which are located in the
Scaglia, Maiolica, and Peschici formations near
the peninsula’s northeastern coast. Over the last
few decades, Defensola and several other mining
sites have been explored extensively. A series of
27 radiocarbon dates from those sites suggests
that chert mining began soon after 6,000 BC and
continued over the next four millennia, until the
Early Bronze Age (Muntoni and Tarantini, 2011).
Relying on the complexity and sophistication
of the mining technology, Tarantini (2011:99-
102) proposed that this activity was carried
out intermittently by part-time specialists or
specialized communities that controlled access
to the mines. In the decentralized world of
autonomous farming villages, ‘specialization’ in
production may have been essentially an aspect
of personal identity (Robb and Farr, 2005:39)
rather than a formal division of labor.
an important center of production that provided
prismatic blades to much of southern Italy
(Guilbeau, 2010:41-116). Dalmatia apparently
belonged to the same production region, but
comprehensive analyses of at least a few more
large assemblages will have to be completed
before that hypothesis can be corroborated.
Again, some degree of craft specialization may
be presumed (Guilbeau, 2012), but the crucial
parameters needed for its assessment, such as
concentration, scale, intensity, and social context
of production, as well indirect indicators such as
and error rates (Costin, 1991; Forenbaher, 1999:
11-19) remain largely unknown.
The extraordinary quality of Gargano
cherts, however, does not explain why the
simple expedient tools were rarely made from
the serviceable local cherts. On the contrary,
at many Dalmatian sites, ad hoc production of
relied on Gargano cherts. At this point, one
should remember that satisfying utilitarian needs
is just one reason for the existence of trade
and exchange. The practical value of objects
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming 37

Fig. 6. Prismatic blades and blade segments made of Gargano cherts, recovered from Palagruža
38 Stašo Forenbaher
exchanged over great distances is not always
obvious. For instance, bladelets made of Liparian
obsidian (Fig.7) that appear in low frequencies
in many eastern Adriatic Middle Neolithic sites
(Tykot, 2011; 2017a) travelled at least 500 km
(or 800 km, if they arrived by sea). They had a
very short use-life, limited by the brittleness of
their unusually sharp edges, which dulled much
more quickly than the tough edges of chert
blades. Rather than being valued as practical
implements, obsidian bladelets may have been
appreciated primarily as symbols of the journey,
the knowledge, skill, and risk that had been
undertaken (Farr, 2006:89, 96).
This brings us to another, equally important
role of exchange, which is the creation and
maintenance of social relationships that rely on
exchange mechanisms (Mauss, 2002 [1925]:91-
Fig. 7. Obsidian bladelets and bladelet segments made
of Liparian obsidian, recovered from Palagruža
96). In many traditional forms of exchange, the
object itself was less important than the social
relationships that it created or symbolized. In
such circumstances, the main promoter of trade
was the need for social communication (Robb and
Farr, 2005:24; Farr, 2006:96). Perhaps the true
value and purpose of the persistent trans-Adriatic
exchange of Gargano cherts was to maintain
social networks that linked the small farming
communities scattered around the Adriatic shores
and islands. Its importance is proclaimed by the
fact that it continued over a very long period,
despite major changes in prehistoric societies,
which in the meantime were transformed from
autonomous, unranked villages to a mosaic of
competing polities led by rival elites.
TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL
UNDERPINNINGS OF MARITIME
CONNECTIVITY
Finds from the most remote Adriatic islands testify
that the navigational technology, knowledge
and skills of the early sixth millennium cal BC
allowed fairly rapid movement of people, goods
and ideas across substantial stretches of open sea.
One might say that the success of farmers and
shepherds in the Adriatic was contingent on the
prior success of navigators and mariners (Kaiser
and Forenbaher, 2016:157, 160), although we
know next to nothing about their boats (Farr,
2006:90-91). Judging by the toolkits of the time,
they may have used small reed-built or frame-
dugout canoes. The only boat from that period
that was recovered in central Mediterranean is
an oak dugout, ten meters long and just over one
meter wide, found at La Marmotta near Rome
(Broodbank, 2013:154, 214). Presumably, those
vessels were propelled by human muscles (by
paddles), since there is no evidence for sailing
anywhere in the Mediterranean before the late
fourth millennium BC (Broodbank, 2000:342-
343). In addition to paddlers, they could have
carried a few hundred kilograms of cargo at best
(Broodbank, 2000:102, table 3). A replica of the
dugout from La Marmotta with a crew of eleven
paddlers covered about 25 kilometers per day
during its experimental navigation.
 Trans-Adriatic contacts and the transition to farming
Who were the early Adriatic seafarers? Were
the incoming farmers introducing the navigational
knowledge, skills and technology together with
the other elements of the ‘Neolithic package’?
Or, did the autochthonous hunter-gatherers
already possess all of those prerequisites, plus
the knowledge of local geography and weather
conditions?
As we have seen, the evidence in support of
regularly plied the coastal waters in pursuit of
mackerel, but they rarely ventured upon long-
distance maritime journeys. A certain extent
of individual and small-group mobility would
have existed among hunter-gatherers and
among farmers as a part of the normal social
process (Robb and Miracle, 2007:106-107),
but their motives for travel would have been
different. Mobility of Holocene hunter-gatherer
bands would have been seasonal, cyclical, and
logistically organized, whereas groups of farmers
would have traveled with the aim of permanent
resettlement (Broodbank and Strasser, 1991:239-
242; Broodbank, 2006:217). Everything we know
about the early Adriatic farmers suggests that they
lived in small communities, usually consisting
of several dozen people (Robb, 2007:40-42).
The economic resources and organizational
capabilities of such communities would have
allowed them to build and muster a miniature
animals and pots full of seeds, and, relying on
the knowledge acquired during reconnaissance,
launch into the adventure of farming colonization.
In contrast to the lightly equipped hunter-
gatherers who could have achieved maritime
mobility fairly easily, farmers faced much greater
risks, since they had to transport domestic animals
and enough grain to last them until the next
harvest (Broodbank and Strasser, 1991:239-242).
Their potentially dangerous journeys required
skillful boat handling in various conditions and
over extended periods, and sound knowledge
of winds, currents, and marine and land-based
landmarks (Broodbank, 2006:210, 216). In
addition to this knowledge, which was essential
for orientation and for following the course
during navigation, preparatory knowledge had to
be obtained about desirable destinations, about
when to go and how to go, and what, and possibly
39
who, to take. Knowledge of the communities
living along the way and communication with
those communities in order to secure drinking
water, food and shelter must have been of crucial
importance for the successful completion of a
long sea journey. Travelling season was limited
by weather conditions and probably also by the
freedom to leave one’s home, since the extended
absences of seafarers had to be reconciled with
the schedule of farming activities (Robb and Farr,
2005:26, 27; Farr, 2006:93-96).
To which extent might Mesolithic seafaring
have assisted the spread of farming into the
Adriatic? Due to the scarcity of evidence for
Mesolithic long-distance maritime travel and
interaction networks, it would be hard to argue
that diffusion through such networks led to the
acculturation of hunter-gatherers. While one
should expect some autochthonous contribution
to the local navigational knowledge, the
maritime mode of dispersion indicates that the
arrival of farming and the upswing of seafaring
were simultaneous and combined (Broodbank,
2006:215, 217).
CONCLUSION
Since the Last Glacial Maximum, trans-Adriatic
connectivity passed through three major phases
that are separated by two key transitional events:
the rapid expansion of the Adriatic Sea, and the
transition to farming.
Bølling-Allerød warm period (c. 12,000 cal BC),
at which time the Adriatic Sea began to expand
rapidly northwestwards. During that phase, the
opposite sides of the Adriatic Basin would have
been connected by land across the exposed
Adriatic Plain. Raw material composition of the
earliest analyzed lithic assemblages suggests
fairly regular contacts during the late part of that
phase. The evidence is still unavailable for earlier
times, but that should change as the current
petrographic research is brought to fruition.
The second phase lasted roughly from the
Bølling-Allerød warm period (c. 12,000 cal BC)
until the arrival of farming (c. 6,000 cal BC),
covering the end of the Late Upper Paleolithic
and the entire Mesolithic. The available evidence
40 Stašo Forenbaher
by lithic raw material composition, is slight and
often unreliable. At best, it hints at minimal
contacts between the opposing shores of a much
expanded Adriatic Sea.
The third phase begins with the arrival
of farming (c. 6,000 cal BC). From that time
onwards, there is abundant and varied evidence
of regular trans-Adriatic contact. Aside from the
Impressed Ware pottery and the Gargano cherts,
which represent the mainstay of Dalmatian
Neolithic and Copper Age lithic industries, the
small quantities of Liparian obsidian that appear
in many eastern Adriatic Neolithic sites also
would have arrived across the Adriatic. A variety
pottery styles
that span the Adriatic testify of further interaction
networks. While pottery styles diverge, and
obsidian imports cease soon after year 5,000 BC,
Gargano cherts continue to arrive at least until the
end of the third millennium BC.
In conclusion, the connectivity of the Adriatic
Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-
gatherers seems to have been mostly land-based.
There is only sporadic evidence of their venturing
across the open sea. In this region, like elsewhere
in the Mediterranean, the onset of full-time
maritime connectivity coincided with the arrival
of farming. During the millennia that followed,
both means and motives for trans-Adriatic
maritime travel changed, as paddle-propelled
boats gave way to sailing ships, while the aims
shifted from colonization to maintenance of social
networks to elite legitimization and, eventually,
to integration of early historic empires. Intensity
of contact surely was not always the same, but
there is evidence for it is from all post-Mesolithic
periods, up to and continuing into the modern age.
Acknowledgments
Research for this paper was supported in part by
the Ministry of Science and Education, Republic
of Croatia, project #196-1962766-2740, ‘Culture
Change and Dynamics of Archaeological
Populations in the Eastern Adriatic’.
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