Recent archaeological research in the ‘lake district’ of the southwest Balkans (northern Greece, North Macedonia and Albania) has explored Europe’s earliest lakeshore pile-built settlements. Funded by a Synergy grant of the European Research Council, this research by the ‘EXPLO’ project (a collaboration of the universities of Thessaloniki, Bern and Oxford) has investigated lakeshore villages that were established in the 6th millennium BCE, more than 1000 years earlier than the well-known lakeshore settlements of the circum-Alpine region. The waterlogged archaeology of these wetland settlements in the southwest Balkans, featuring excellent organic preservation and high-resolution dendrochronology, reveals the rhythms and details of everyday life in the Neolithic, illuminating dimensions of this period in southeast Europe that had remained obscure until now due to limited organic preservation on dryland sites.
Professor Amy Bogaard is a Canadian archaeologist and Professor of Neolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology at the University of Oxford, specializing in early farming systems, archaeobotany, and their social implications, including resilience and inequality. A Fellow of the British Academy, her work spans Europe and western Asia and her research focus is early farming practice from farming origins to early cities. Amy will be sharing the results of her multi-country project centring on Lake Ohrid ‘Exploring the lakeshore Neolithic of southeast Europe’.
The talk is taking place at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16 Queen Square, Bath, BA1 2HN on Wednesday 13th January 2027, 7.30pm, with an admission charge of £5 for members, and £7 for the general public. Pay on the door.