Archaeologists in the Balkans have discovered the remains of an 8,000-year-old village built over an ancient lake - the oldest known village in Europe.
The lake, located on the border between Albania and North Macedonia, contains hundreds of wooden piles that archaeologists believe were the foundations of the village. While scientists cannot accurately determine the original size of the settlement, however, their discovery of a defensive palisade of tens of thousands of wooden poles, located under water, indicates that the village was quite large.
Albert Hafner, an archaeologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who led the excavation, said divers recently took wood samples from submerged tree trunks and wooden poles near the Albanian village of Lin on the western shore of Lake Ohrid.
The results of the research will be known in a few months. But Hafner said the submerged shafts are probably the same age as the wooden foundations found on the shore, which his team dated to around 5800-5900 BC.
Source: livescience.com
