Dispilio, Lake Orestias (Kastoria, Greece): new insights into the chronology and architecture of a Neolithic wetland habitation.

Kotsakis, Kostas; Giagkoulis, Tryfon; Maczkowski, Andrej; Francuz, John; Hafner, Albert (16 March 2023). Dispilio, Lake Orestias (Kastoria, Greece): new insights into the chronology and architecture of a Neolithic wetland habitation. (Unpublished). In: KIEL CONFERENCE. Scales of Social, Environmental & Cultural Change in Past Societies. Kiel University. 13.-18.03.2023.

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Western Macedonia bears exceptional geophysical characteristics concerning aquatic resources compared to other parts of the Greek mainland. Consequently, several prehistoric communities exploited the region’s valuable wetlands to carry out various productive activities and develop their distinctive socio-cultural characteristics. Except for the rescue excavation of some habitations in Amindeon Basin, the Neolithic Dispilio in Lake Kastoria is the only wetland settlement in Greece that is systematically investigated since the 1990s’ by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Until recently, the outcome of this long-lasting project was a series of 14C dates that established the general chronological framework of the habitation (mid-6th to the late-3rd mil BCE), together with several preliminary studies of the rich archaeological materials unearthed. The participation since 2019 of AUTH in the ERC-funded Project ‘EXPLOring the dynamics and causes of prehistoric land use change in the cradle of European farming’ provides the framework for developing a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary approach to crucial research objectives, aiming for an overall perception of Dispilio characteristics. The paper presents the reconstruction of the habitation sequence, as well as concrete excavation contexts comprising large amounts of artefacts, bioarchaeological remains and building materials. The spatial distribution and the attributes of these concentrations, detected mainly in the habitation’s waterlogged archaeological layers offer indications about built and open spaces within an excavated area of approximately 500m2. The key factor for understanding Dispilio’s diachronic architectural development is the dendrochronological analysis of the settlement’s pile field, a pioneering work for Greek archaeology. More than 800 samples of posts have been analyzed by the experts’ team at Bern University resulting in oak and juniper dendro mean curves that build the chronology of the waterlogged layers from the 57th to the 53rd centuries BC. These results have led to hypotheses regarding the diachronic development of Dispilio architecture and spatial organization by correlating the dated posts with stratified material concentrations. Moreover, aspects of the dynamic relationship between the local Neolithic community with the surrounding lake environment are discussed, reflected in the exploitation of raw materials and the diachronic development of building techniques.

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