Archaeologists claim that on the Albanian side of Lake Ohrid they found evidence of the oldest human settlement on a European lake, supposedly up to eight thousand years old.
A group of scientists from Switzerland and Albania spend three hours under water every day painstakingly removing the wooden pillars that supported the houses, reports Reuters.
Archaeologists there also find bones of domestic and wild animals, copper objects and ceramics with detailed carvings.
Albert Hafner from the University of Bern said that similar settlements have been found in the Alpine and Mediterranean regions, but that the settlement in the Albanian Lin is half a millennium older because it dates back to the period between six and eight thousand years ago.
“The organic material is well preserved because it is under water, and this allows us to find out what these people ate, what they planted,” Hafner said.
Several studies show that Lake Ohrid, located between Albania and North Macedonia, is the oldest lake in Europe, more than a million years old.
The age of the findings is determined by radioisotope dating and dendrochronology, which counts the years of trees. More than a thousand wood samples were collected from the site.
It is believed that the settlement, where several hundred people lived, covers about six hectares, and that now, after six years of work, only about one percent of the total material has been excavated.
