Agia Marina and Peristereònas: Two New Epipalaeolithic Sites on the Island of Lemnos (Greece)

The surveys carried out along the coasts of the Island of Lemnos (Greece) have led to the discovery of new Late Epipalaeolithic sites at Agia Marina and Peristereònas. Peristereònas yielded a knapped stone assemblage which is strictly comparable with that from Ouriakos, a site located along the south-eastern coast of the same island, while the artefacts from Agia Marina are more problematic to interpret, because they are probably to be attributed to a slightly different chronological period. However, the most characteristic artefacts recovered from the sites are represented by microlithic geometrics obtained by abrupt, bipolar or direct retouch, end scrapers, and different types of exhausted cores and technical pieces, which help us reconstruct the operative chain employed for the manufacture of the armatures. The scope of the paper is to contribute to the interpretation of the characteristics of the Late Epipalaeolithic assemblages discovered in the island, and to frame them into the general picture of the end of the Pleistocene period in this part of the Aegean. The artefacts from the sites show some unique characteristics, which do not find parallels in the knapped stone assemblages of the same period so far recovered along the coasts of the Aegean Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant