During the Early Neolithic the first admirable specimens of pottery art appeared in Greece. Vases of well fired clay, with fine sides, in globular shapes, with curved bases, flat or ring, open and shallow (bowls) or deep (skyphoi), but also closed with a narrow or wide neck (pithoid) constituted the basic pottery shapes of the period. Earlier vases had no handles, as was the case with their counterparts of wood and leather. With the passing of time handles were indicated with bosses added to the exterior sides of the vases and very often bore holes through which a rope was passed so that the vase could be hung.

Based on pottery found in Thessaly (Sesklo, Otzaki), the archaeologist V. Milojcic distinguished three successive phases of the Early Neolithic: Early Pottery (Fruekeramikum), Protosesklo and Presesklo. During the Early Pottery phase monochrome vases, mainly dark, from brown and grey clay and usually burnished, predominated. The exterior and interior surface of the vases was burnished with leather, pebble or bone and was carried out in order to insulate them. A similar technology was applied in this period elsewhere in neighbouring cultures of the Balkans (e.g. Protostarcevo).


In the Protosesklo phase, along with monochrome vases, we find vases with painted decoration (white colour on red burnished background and vice versa) for the first time. The main decorative motifs were triangles and leaves drawn as if hanging from the rim of the vases. At the same time vases were unevenly fired, creating a variegated surface or a black top (blacktopped) and a light coloured base. During this phase relief decoration in the form of small bosses was frequent, while according to recent research incised decoration is encountered for the first time.

The Prosesklo phase was characterized by the production of vases with incised decoration, especially of skyphoi with thick sides. This design was achieved in various ways: with nails (nail impressions), with pinchings of two fingers and deeper nail impressions (barbotin), with feathers or small animal bones (circular impressions), with a slender reed or a bone pointed tool (dots, hollows, triangular impressions) or with a sea-shell cardium (cardium decoration). Impresso and cardium ware are encountered in this period in other regions of the southern Balkans (Albania, northern Thrace). Coarsely incised vases co-existed, during the Prosesklo phase, with finely made vases of pure clay but also with painted vases. Incised decoration continued also during the Middle Neolithic and often it was combined on the same vase with painted decoration. Painted ware developed technically and in exquisite variations during the Middle Neolithic.