Possible first Late Neolithic graves found at Toumba Serron in northern Greece
Two graves beside a huge earthen wall in northern Greece may be the first burials ever linked to the Late Neolithic in this part of the country. Archaeologists found them at Toumba Serron, a prehistoric settlement mound near Serres, and the find could change how researchers picture how people lived and died there roughly 7,000 years ago. The burials still have no firm date, so the team treats the link to the Late Neolithic as a strong possibility rather than a settled fact.
Where Toumba Serron sits and who is digging it
Toumba Serron is a tell, a mound built up from layers of old settlements, in Central Macedonia, close to the village of Toumba and the town of Serres. A survey began there in October 2021. Excavations followed from 2022 to 2024 under the British School at Athens, led by Dimitra Malamidou of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres, James Taylor of the University of York and Nicolas Zorzin of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
The team first walked the slopes and counted pottery, then flew a drone over about 17 hectares and mapped roughly 7 hectares with magnetometry. The magnetic readings suggest burned buildings, ovens and hearths. Every diagnostic surface find points to the Late Neolithic. The team then opened eight trenches over three seasons.
The graves and the great enclosure wall
The two burials sit in a possible ditch linked to a long enclosure wall that circled the settlement. Current results give the wall a width of about 2.7 meters and a length of about 900 meters, and it most likely dates to the earlier part of the Late Neolithic. One trench across the wall measured a width of about 3.5 meters, so the figures differ and the project has not yet explained why. The wall seems to have stayed in use through the earlier phase and may have been abandoned as the later phase began.
The project page says the burials are still undated. It adds that if they turn out to belong to the Late Neolithic, they would be unprecedented in this part of Greece, because no burials from that period are known in the region. That wording matters. The team has not yet declared these the first graves of their era.
Houses, a possible kiln and signs of fire
The dig also exposed several buildings. An earlier structure about 2.9 meters wide had mudbrick walls and postholes and may have burned down. In 2024 the team uncovered an oval house, about 4.3 by 2.95 meters, built from packed mud in a technique called pisé. It dates to the later Late Neolithic phase. Nearby lay a possible kiln, about 1.6 by 1.0 meters, along with a waste deposit. Complete houses from both phases of the Late Neolithic are rare, so these buildings give researchers a clearer view of village life.
What people ate, and some surprises
Preliminary study of the animal bones shows that sheep and goats made up about 60 percent of the remains. Pigs came next at roughly 23 percent, followed by cattle at about 18 percent. The age at which the sheep and goats died suggests that villagers kept them for milk. The bones also include many foetal and newborn animals, and the team reports an unusually high amount of dog consumption. Their working idea, which they still have to test, is that environmental stress during the earlier phase pushed people to eat more unusual foods.
Stone tools tell a similar story of reach. Most are flint, brought from the Nigrita mountains about 30 kilometers to the southwest and from the Rhodope range to the north. Some blades show wear from cutting cereals and weeds. The team has found no obsidian so far.
Why it matters and what comes next
Burials give archaeologists something houses and pots cannot: direct evidence of the people themselves. If lab work confirms the graves are Late Neolithic, researchers could study diet, health and family ties in a region where no such evidence exists. They could also ask why the dead lay beside the enclosure wall.
Several questions remain open. Radiocarbon dates for the burials, a clear explanation for the two wall widths, and full publication of the animal bone results should show how strong the case becomes. Until then, the safest reading is that Toumba Serron has produced a promising find, not a rewrite of Neolithic history.
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