Absract
　　　The issue of the beginning of agriculture in Greece has gained a renewed interest in recent years as a result of our better understanding of the populations of Holocene hunter-gatherers living in the Greek peninsula.According to new archaeological evidence from excavations and field surveys, populations of hunter-gatherers were active not only on coastal environments, such as Franchthi Cave, but also inland. The Opetra in Thessaly, Central Greece, represents up to now the most notable and most adequately studied example of an inland site. Although the new evidence is still under analysis, a complex pattern is gradually emerging that points towards a multiplicity of processes towards the adoption of agriculture.
　　　It is argued that older approaches, which accepted a straightforward demic diffusion based on Cavalli-Sforza's model and favoured the wholesale introduction of agriculture from the Near East, do not explain adequately the complexities involved.
　　　Instead, an explanation is sought which takes into account the indigenous populations that interact among themselves and with populations of farmers coming from further east. This development, which should be considered as a continuous process rather than an event, is traced on the available evidence and its possible stages are discussed.