Lecture by Constantinos Kotsakis: Timeless Museum of Larissa
As part of the series of events organized this month by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Larissa with the support of the Association of Friends of the Timeless Museum, the Emeritus Professor of Prehistoric Archeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Mr. Konstantinos Kotsakis will speak at the Timeless Museum of Larissa on Thursday, November 23 at 7 pm, on:
"A solar storm solves the riddle of the wooden stakes of Dispilion. The Neolithic lake settlement of Dispilion of Kastoria and the new research".
The lakeside settlement of Dispilio is the only systematically researched settlement of this particular type in Greece and is among the least ancient in Europe. It has been inhabited since 5800 BC. (Middle Neolithic) until 4800 BC. (Later Neolithic I), period to which the lecture refers, as well as subsequent periods but with sporadic remains, up to at least the Iron Age. The excavations began in 1993 by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki professor G.X. Khourmouziadis and continued until 2013, the year he passed away.
The main feature of the settlement is the hundreds of wooden stilts of Neolithic houses, preserved in excellent condition immersed in the mud of the lake. Very advanced methods made it possible to date the stakes with exceptional precision, a fact unique to SE Europe.
In the lecture, there is a brief review of the old excavations and the new period of research after 2013 is presented. In 2018, Dispelio joined the large EXPLO program of the European Union Research Council. EXPLO's interdisciplinary research is still ongoing but has already fundamentally changed our understanding of the settlement.
