In Dispilio, in northern Greece, a lake community was found. I've read it dates to 5,250 b.c., and that they found writing samples similar to the Greek alphabet. Does that mean the Greek alphabet doesn't have its roots in the Phoenician alphabet?
   Stella, 11, Athens, Greece

Dr. dig responds:

Crete and Greece had a wide range of writing systems that pre-date the alphabet. These include `pictograms, hieroglyphs, Linear A (a syllabic script not yet deciphered) and Linear B (a syllabic script deciphered by Michael Ventris). True alphabetic writing starts to appear in Greece in the mid 8th century b.c., and language experts believe that this Greek alphabetic script is a version of the north Semitic alphabet learned from the Phoenicians. It has been suggested that a wooden tablet, believed to come from the Greek Neolithic lakeside village of Dispilio, shows evidence of alphabetic writing dating much earlier than this. But, as of yet, no Macedonian prehistorian has agreed in print that this is indeed the case.