Archaeological Research in Southern Balkans Lakes. New Discoveries and Preliminary Results

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN SOUTHERN BALKAN LAKES: NEW DISCOVERIES AND PRELIMINARY RESULTS Ariane Ballmer1,2, Albert Hafner1,2, Amy Bogaard3, Kostas Kotsakis4, Willy Tinner5,2 1 University of Bern, Institute of Archaeological Sciences 2 Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research OCCR 3 University of Oxford, School of Archaeology 4 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of History and Archaeology 5 University of Bern, Institute of Plant Sciences Corresponding author's e-mail: ariane.ballmer@iaw.unibe.ch In the years 2018–20, a series of archaeological, archaeobotanical and palaeoecological field investigations have been carried out in and around lake shore settlements of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in the border triangle between Greece, and the Rep. of North Macedonia and Albania. The research is carried out in the framework of the interdisciplinary project 'Exploring the dynamics and causes of prehistoric land use change in the cradle of European farming' (EXPLO) (http://www.exploproject.eu/), awarded by the European Research Commission with a Synergy Grant. The project is headed by international specialists from the Universities of Bern, Oxford and Thessaloniki. The paper will present the project's very first results and most importantly point out the considerable potential of the Southern Balkans lakes region for the archaeology of prehistoric wetland dwellings, the study of early and middle Holocene climatic conditions and human-environment interactions, as well as the lakes' value in regards to highresolution chronologies, in particular dendrochronology. Keywords Southern Balkans, Wetland archaeology, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Paleoecology, Dendrochronolog