Beneath the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the “Pearl of the Balkans”, scientists have uncovered what may be one of Europe’s earliest sedentary communities, and are trying to solve the mystery of why it sheltered behind a fortress of defensive spikes.
Archaeologists think that a stretch of Albanian shoreline of the lake was once home to a settlement with stilt houses 8,000 years ago. This is the oldest lakeside village discovered in Europe.
The site is dated between 6000 BCE and 5800 BCE by radiocarbon dating.
Albert Hafner is a professor of Archaeology at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
“To our knowledge it is the oldest in Europe,” he said to AFP.
According to the expert on European Neolithic lake dwellings, the most ancient of such villages date back to around 5000 BCE and were found in the Italian Alps.
Hafner, along with his team of Swiss archaeologists and Albanians, have been excavating at Lin in the Albanian part of Lake Ohrid. This lake straddles North Macedonia’s mountainous border and Albania.
Between 200 and 500 people lived in the settlement, which was built on stilts or above the surface of Lake Michigan.
Fortress of spikes
Slowly, it is revealing some astounding secrets.
During a recent dive, archaeologists uncovered evidence suggesting the settlement was fortified with thousands of spiked planks used as defensive barricades.
”To protect themselves in this way, they had to cut down a forest,” said Hafner.
But why did the villagers need to build such extensive fortifications to defend themselves? Archaeologists still search for the answer to this elusive question.
Researchers estimate that roughly 100,000 spikes were driven into the bottom of the lake off Lin, with Hafner calling the discovery “a real treasure trove for research”.
Lake Ohrid, which has existed more than one million years, is among the oldest in the world.
With the help of professional divers, archaeologists are scouring the bottom of the Lake for fossilised wood fragments and valuable pieces of Oak.
“Like a Swiss clock”
Analysis of the tree rings helps the team reconstruct the daily life of the area’s inhabitants – providing “valuable insights into the climatic and environmental conditions” from the period, said Albanian archaeologist Adrian Anastasi.
Hafner stated that “oak is like Swiss watches, they are very precise and work like calendars.”
Anastasi added that the team of Albanian scientists, led by Anastasi who is the leader of the research team, are doing very careful and meticulous work to better understand the prehistoric site.
The dense vegetation on the site can make the work slow and tedious.
Anastasi said, “Building a village on stilts is a very complex, difficult task. It’s important to know why they made this decision.”
Scientists say that for the moment, it’s possible to assume the village was dependent on agriculture and domesticated animals as a source of food.
Ilir Gjepali is an Albanian professor of archaeology who has been working on the site.
The site will need to be explored and studied for another two decades before any final conclusions can be made.
According to Anastasi, each excavation trip yields valuable information, enabling the team to piece together a picture of life along Lake Ohrid’s shores thousands of years ago – from the architecture of the dwellings to the structure of their community.
Hafner said that these sites are important prehistoric sites of interest to not only the southwest Europe region, but also to the entire region.
