Status: 01.09.2023, 12:13 p.m.
By: Martina Lippl
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In Lake Ohrid in Albania, archaeologists have come across the remains of a prehistoric village. The finds are a small sensation for science.
Bremen – In Europe's oldest lake – Lake Ohrid – a team of researchers discovered well-preserved tree trunks from an old pile-dwelling settlement. It quickly becomes clear that the underwater sites are a stroke of luck for prehistoric archaeology. Now it turns out that the woods date from 5800 to 5900 BC - so they are almost 8000 years old. This makes it the oldest known village in Europe.
| Lake Ohrid | borders Albania and North Macedonia |
|---|---|
| Lake Ohrid is the oldest lake in Europe | it has existed for 1.36 million years |
Researchers discover Europe's oldest village – possibly 8,000 years old
Locals had found the pile dwellings in Lake Ohrid. In the past two years, the team led by archaeologist Albert Hafner from the University of Bern has dug up hundreds of tree trunks and determined their age, reports SRF. Now it turns out that the pile dwellings are around 2000 years older than the oldest pile dwellings in Switzerland.
Lake Ohrid is the oldest lake in Europe. At its bottom, secrets from our cultural history are hidden. © Martin Siepmann/imago
"This makes this site important not only for this region, but for the whole of Southeastern Europe," says Albert Hafner on SRF. Hafner is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Bern and a member of the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research. The researcher had been called in by the Albanian Institute of Archaeology in Tirana to determine the age of the wooden piles.
Secrets in Europe's oldest lake: underwater excavation situation in Ploča Michovgrad, Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia (2018–2019). © Marco Hostettler
Pile dwellings in Lake Ohrid reveal secret – Europe's first farmers lived here
According to Hafner, the discovery dates back to a time when the first people from Anatolia (today's Turkey) brought agriculture to Europe. More than 8000 years ago, early cattle breeders and arable farmers from Anatolia first reached the Aegean region, especially northern Greece, then via southern Italy and the Balkans to Central Europe, according to an older press release (2021) from the University of Bern on the excavations on the shores of Lake Ohrid.
The age of the 8000-year-old tree trunks is now to be determined very precisely. "These are radiocarbon dates. They are inaccurate. We want to use dendrochronology, i.e. with the help of the tree rings, to determine the age to the decade or even to the year," says Albert Hafner.
In the Balkans, the newly arrived farmers were confronted with comparatively cool and humid climatic conditions, which forced them to adapt their agricultural practices accordingly. "The interactions between this revolutionary innovation and the environment are largely unknown," Hafner emphasizes in 2021.
The aim of the research at Lake Ohrid is now to find out when and how agriculture and livestock farming arose in the region. It is also of interest how they got to Switzerland from southern Europe.
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