The characteristic feature of the first and earliest period is the now familiar red on white style of pottery. It is found in abundance throughout the whole North Greek area, being common in all the early settlements in the plains of Thessaly, Malis, Phocis, and Northern Boeotia. Its southern limit is the pass by Orchomenos, a good natural frontier, when Kopais was yet undrained and the neighbouring hills still covered with woods. Its northern boundary is also a natural one, being the mountain ridge that divides Thessaly from Macedonia. In the west the serrated range of Pindus would seem an ideal boundary, but as yet no trace of early habitation has been found in the western half of the Spercheus valley, nor in the Thessalian plains west of an imaginary line drawn north and south through the modern town of Kardhitsa. This cessation of habitation on the west side of the plains may mark the extent of a primeval forest belt. Fresh discoveries may extend this western boundary, and new settlements may be found close under Pindus itself, but for the present the forest belt theory seems to explain the phenomena, and there is moreover ample evidence that classical Thessaly, and even Thessaly of the early nineteenth century was far more thickly wooded than it is to-day.

The red on white painted pottery is most plentiful in the early strata, where in some cases it exceeds in quantity the plain wares that are found with it: at a very early date also, almost at its first appearance, it reaches its highest development, both in decoration and technique.