[2] Nea Nikomideia is the largest excavated Early Neolithic settlement in area, and consists of a mound of 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) height (composed of both natural soil and also debris of habitation).
The excavations were significant in determining the early European way of life especially in farming and potential links and influences between the Balkans, the Aegean and the Near East, given Macedonia's strategic location as the "gateway to Europe".
[6] Rodden also estimates that the site was abandoned towards the end of the Early Neolithic, possibly due to floods, fire or attacks by neighbouring tribes.
The roofs, supported on wooden columns, were of the hip type, also covered with clay and hay placed over thatch made of reeds and branches.
Some of these are blades made of flint, stone adzes, pestles, pounders, querns, palettes, grinders, spindle whorls made of clay to spin wool, 400 worked pebbles, black and green serpentines and marbles, all indicative of use in wood crafting, animal skinning, grinding to prepare pigments for decorative pottery; there was about a thousand chipped stone items, mainly consisting of blades, flint flakes, chert and quartz.
"Sling bullets, particularly with a fairly standardized ovoid or biconical shape with pouted ends and average length of 5–6 centimetres (2.0–2.4 in) were found both baked and unbaked.
They are common in Early and Middle Neolithic Greece, southeast Europe, and Near East, and have been found variously interpreted for use as fighting or hunting weapons, shepherd implements, equipment used to determine oven temperature or transfer heat to food and possibly to rooms, counters, gaming pieces and even loom weights.
About 140,000 material pieces were also unearthed from the small excavated area, which included 1,115 vessels indicative of pottery as a major activity with an estimated annual production rate of 25-90 pots.
Three green stone frog figurines and anthropomorphic vessels were also part of the findings [5] Media related to Nea Nikomedeia at Wikimedia Commons