During the prehistory of Southeastern Europe, Sesklo was a significant settlement of Neolithic Greece, before the advent of the Bronze Age and millennia before the Mycenaean period.

The Neolithic settlement of Sesklo covered an area of approximately 20 hectares during its peak period at c. 5000 BC and comprised about 500 to 800 houses with a population estimated potentially, to be as large as 5,000 people.

The lower levels of proto-Sesklo lack pottery, but the Sesklo people soon developed very fine-glazed earthenware that they decorated with geometric symbols in red or brown colors.

The very rare examples of pottery from levels XII and XI at Çatalhöyük closely resemble the shape of the very coarse earthenware of Early Neolithic I from Sesklo, but the paste is significantly different, having a partly-vegetable temper, and this pottery is contemporaneous, not a predecessor, of the better-made products in the Thessalian material.

These sculptures of women are present in all the Balkan cultures and most of the Danube civilization throughout many millennia, although they may not be considered exclusive to this area.

Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas even mentions recognition of a gorgon mask from the Sesklo culture,[5] an image that persisted throughout Ancient and Classical Greek arts.

On the whole, the artifactual data argues in favor of a largely independent indigenous development of the Greek Neolithic settlements.