Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 42, 1976, pp. 241-262 The Plain of Western Macedonia and the Neolithic Site of Nea Nikomedeia By JOHN BiNTLiFF 1 Summary. The Plain of Macedon, North Greece, has seen remarkable changes in its physical geography during the Holocene. The significance of these changes for prehistoric and historic settlement is evaluated, with particular reference to the Neolithic site of Nea Nikomedeia. This reinterpretation contrasts dramatically with previous studies of the Plain's development and with the prehistoric environment postulated by the excavators of Nikomedeia. From ancient Pella, Philip and Alexander the Great ruled the Macedonian Kingdom. The approxi- mate location of Pella was known by the late eighteenth century A.D. on the southern rim of a very extensive area of Miocene marls and sands, not far from the west bank of the Axios river. Then it lay near the northern shore of the Giannitsa lake, on the hilly rim of the Macedonia alluvial plain. From field observations around the presumed site of Pella, and from careful scrutiny of Classical references, geographers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries A.D. claimed that the alluvial plain was a very recent creation, and as late as the fifth century B.C. a good part of it formed an extension of the Thermaic Gulf, with Pella a port at its head. Pella is now separate from the sea by 30 km of alluvial plain. (Cousinery 1831 ; Ilitscheff 1899; Cvijic 1908). The most significant publica- tion came in 1908 with Adolf Struck's Makedonische Fahrten (vol. 2). He summarized the field evidence, and historical records, for dramatic landscape changes in the Macedonian Plain, with reconstructions of the Plain at various growth stages (fig. 8). After the Classical period alluviation was rapid in the Gulf, the present coastline being almost reached, in places, by Late Roman times. In 1937 E. Oberhummer criticised these maps for exaggerated extension of the Gulf and con- tradictions with details in ancient sources. Nonetheless, we find Struck's illustrations in Casson's Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria (1926), and when Petsas discusses excavations at Pella (1960), and Rodden (1964), Shackleton (1970) and Bottema (1974) present their studies of the prehistoric Plain, Struck is the guideline to the geographical development of the area (fig. 6). The Site of Nea Nikomedeia The tell-mound was excavated by a joint Cambridge/Harvard team in 1961-3 (Rodden, et. al., 1962; Rodden, 1964, 1965). The site is a low mound in the western alluvial plain, 8 km north-east of Verroia (fig. i). Occupation began in the Early Neolithic, with two phases which are in places separated by humus, suggesting possible abandonment. There is a Late Neolithic reoccupation, when a ditch was dug around part, if not all of the settlement rise. After the remarkably early Ci4 dates for the earliest occupation, averaging 6218 ± 150 be., a more reliable series of dates would place the first Early Neolithic occupation about 5500-5300 be. (Bottema 1974, 147). The fauna from the site showed many bovines, and pigs, though caprovines predominated. Floral remains evidenced cultivated emmer, einkorn, barley, lentils, peas and vetch—while acorns and 1 Address: Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 241