This book provides a periodization and chronology, as well as a synthesis, of the cultural development of the Balkans in the Fourth and Third Millennia BC, based mainly on recent research. The conclusions are based on the systematization of recent data on stratigraphy, ceramic styles, carbon dates and the archaeomagnetic record, as well as on settlement patterns, palaeobotanical and osteological evidence, metallurgy, ideology and burial rites. The stratigraphic sequence and typological data are of primary importance, and the ceramic evidence, including clay figurines, is analyzed as a chronological record of culture sequence, as well as of culture interactions. The goal of the investigation of the settlement patterns is functional analysis, with the aim of recognizing models of different micro-regional settlement structures within the context of the evolution, devolution and changes of the settlement systems in the Balkans during the Fourth and Third Millennia BC.