“Recent investigations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age
settlement of Dikili Tash, Eastern Macedonia, Greece”
Pascal Darcque, Haïdo Koukouli-Chryssanthaki, Dimitra Malamidou, Zoï
Tsirtsoni
Dikili Tash is one of the prehistoric sites in Northern Greece with the longest history of investigations (more than 100 years from its first identification, 63 years from the start of systematic excavations, conducted in the frame of a Greek-French collaboration) and also the one with the longest sequence of occupation, from the mid-7 th to the end of 2 nd millennium BC (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age), in addition to Historical and Modern periods. The lecture will provide a synthetic presentation, including results from the current program started in 2019.
okay recording in progress start again Pascal dark ha kiaki Dimitra malamu and zo Chi are our first speakers who will be talking on recent investigations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement of dilash Eastern Macedonia Greece uh dilash is one of the prehistoric sites in northern Greece with the longest history of Investigations more than a 100 years from its first identification 63 years from the start of systematic exavation conducted in the frame of a Greek French collaboration and also the one with the longest sequence of occupation from the mid 7th to the end of second millennium BC which means early Neolithic to late Bronze Age in aan terms of course in addition to historical and modern periods this Le lecture will provide a synthetic presentation including results from the current program started in 200 and9 a few words about our speakers who are are all very well known but uh um from my side I would like to say a few words about them Pascal dark is a Meritus research director at the SS French national Center for scientific research he has excavated the diulit Malia and Basit in Syria late Bron age levels he has conducted also extensive work in southern Greece in the frame of his stud on meinian settlement patterns Hao kukuli kraki is a Meritus director of Antiquities in the Greek Ministry of culture she has conducted research at many important archaeological sites in eastern Macedonia prehistoric such as diil castri prah and Scala FAS as well a amphipolis Philippi Deitra malamu our third speaker is director of the eate of Antiquities in SES she has conducted excavations at many prehistoric settlements in eastern Macedonia such as diil koni Laria ofo and and ancient amphipolis she recently initiated two new research projects at tumba seron jointly with the British school at Athens andne jointly with the kend and finally so is researcher at the SS in France besides diil Tash she has conducted fieldwork in different parts of Bulgaria her current pre- shurts concern settlement and chronology of thean area between the sth and the second millennium BC uh thank you all for your patience and uh now who among the four zo thank you thank you Andreas and I I thank of course my uh three partners for uh entrusting me to speak on behalf of of the of the team and uh I thank you and zorita for inviting us to open the present cycle of uh conference of lectures uh I will start first uh with some informations about the geographical situation of the site for those who are not familiar with it and about the history of research so far so theil lies as you see here uh to the east of the important archaeological site of ancient Philippi in the Southeastern part of the drama Philippi plane in the Greek region of Eastern Macedonia between the two sides the kiles and Philippi stands today the modern town of kenes whose name recalls the very first town founded by the Greeks at this spot in 3 60 BC the toponym dilit which means upright Stone in Turkish dates from the ottoman period but is again connected with ancient philippin it refers indeed to a big funerary Monument uh that stood originally by the side of the Roman via ignatia at very close distance from the prehistoric Tale interestingly it is from here that started also the history of Investigations of the prehistoric tale indeed there existed here until the beginning of the 20th century uh uh adjacent to the Roman Monument a hone a sort of Guest House were stayed the first teams of French archaeologists who were Excavating at Philippi and it was one of them Lou Rodan who made the first soundings on the tail in 192021 and proved uh with his works that the tail was prehistoric mainly Neolithic as suggested a few years earlier by Welch and Blan based on Surface finds but the systematic excavations started 40 years later I show you here the successive research programs with the dates and the directors of each but I will not detail them just remind the first research program dearis and Je de in the 1960s 1970s in the 1980s and 1990s then the uh the four of us uh since 200 eight until 2013 and again a fourth uh program started at uh uh 2019 and is still in progress all these programs are conducted in the frame of a longlasting Greek French collaboration between the archaeological Society at Athens and the French school at Athens with further financial support in the recent years from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Institute for prehistory and other uh institutions and larger uh research programs ERC in ETC our successive teams count members and collaborators from several institutions Greek and French but also from other countries especially in uh recent years years in the present uh fourth program we made an important opening towards colleagues as institutions from Bulgaria allow me to remind here that the archaeological mission of the kilit received in 2020 one of the greatest academic distinctions that exist in France accompanied by a substantial Grant the Simone Chino deluka Foundation great price of archaeology and we are of course all very proud and very happy because this allowed us to do a lot of things on the field but also beyond the results of the first program are today almost uh fully published in the three monographs that you see in the upper row and are also released two volumes from the operations conducted after 1986 you see them in the bottom row one which contains mainly the work of Laur lez about the landscape and evolution of settlement in the drama Philippi plane during the holos scene in general and one which presents all the context strateg graphy chronology and evolution of the site as this was known at the end of the third program we are now preparing the volumes with Sy themematic studies and of course there exist many many other published papers you can find information about all these in uh those data websites theil website and the site of the French Ministry of culture in these addresses let’s talk now about the site uh you see here the general topographical plan with the different excavated areas uh the colors that you see correspond to the successive programs red dots are cord drils carried out in two uh series one in 1993 uh in the frame of the second research program and the other in 20110 and 2012 during the third program thanks to this works we know that the site has been occupied more or less continuously over a period for more than 50 5,000 years from the second half of the seventh millennium BC to the end of the second millennium BC that is in according to the uh aan terminology the beginning of the Neolithic period until the end of the late Bon age we have also more or less substantial remains from the historical and modern times from 4th Century BC to 19th century ad thus in total we are talking about a sequence of almost 8,500 years you see on this slide a shematic section of the side of the tail with the deposits of the uh successive periods as they are recorded in the different uh excavated sectors and the drills uh and also a diagram with a modeled chronological sequence as this has been deduced from the processing of the available uh radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates until now we have investigated with excavation only levels that are stretching back to 5,000 400 BC the lowest levels corresponding to the earlier 1,000 years of habitation are known only through course and their excavation is actually the main objective of the current program in the next uh 30 or 35 or 40 minutes uh we will present in chronological order our main knowledge about the successive OCC ation phases and discuss the relations with uh phenomena in the broader aan and balcan area uh insisting of course on the most uh recent data we will start with the earliest phase with the beginning which as we said uh are are known only through cuse the existence of such early layers so uh the term uh early and middle Neolithic that we’re using here describes the period from the mid 7th to the mid sixth millennium BC so it is used according to the Greek the agan terminology the existence of such uh early layers was established in 2010 by combining analysis of sediments and archaeological material and confirmed by a series of high Precision c14 dates the first settlers seem to install themselves to the north and east part of the future T probably in order to be as close as possible to the water source that Springs there what is important is that we have not only one or two very early episodes of occupations of occupation separated by gaps but a very tight almost continuous succession of occupations which ATT test of the SES successful development practically from the beginning indeed although we do have evidence in the sedimentary record of some change in the local environment namely a rise of the water level in the pond formed around the source you see it here in the core C3 which is possibly connected with a rapid climate change event of 8,200 calbp that is 6,200 calbc and which provokes a temporary shrinkage of the settlement seen here in core C10 the site is again expanded immediately after that and practically over the entire surface of the future tail this is the Orange Line uh in the in the graphic uh in the plan here before moving to the next period we would like to say a little more about the historical significance of these discoveries the first reason is that they really filled a gap in our knowledge about the netization of Northern gree and the balcans until 2010 there was no known sight indeed prior to 5,500 CBC in the entire region of Eastern Macedonia and the idea existed that the area could have remained uninhabited while all the neighboring areas were already settled since several centuries the aan th and thess possibly since the mid sth Millennium and the southern Bulgaria since the end of 7th or the beginning of 6th millennium BC but the earliest dates from the kilage all from primary depositional context Pro to be roughly contemporaneous to those of aan and Tes showing that the area was involved in the same overall population movements from Anatolia to Europe the second reason is the connection of these movements with the rapid climate change event of 8.2 uh Thousand Years BP H it was it has been suggested indeed that netization of the aan and the balans was a more or less direct consequence of the harsh environmental conditions created in Anatolia during this major climatic event and which pushed people to move evidence from the kilit is among those who contributed to revise this scenario the fact that the settlers were maintained at this spot despite the change in environmental conditions shows the remarkable capacity of adaptation and resilience of the inhabitants I return now to the overall sequence and move to the next occupation period which as I said is the first investigated through proper excavation and one of the best known in the settlement it is the period called late Neolithic one in the aan terminology corresponding to the middle and late NE lithic in East balcans the phases karanovo 34 and late NE lithic in West balcans phases V A and B deposits of uh this period have been excavated so far mainly on the Southern Slope of the T in sectors B1 and B2 the purple one uh of the first program and one and five of the second program the best documented contexts are those brought to light in sector five The House of the bucranium named after this real Bulls skull which is modeled with Clay one of the very few such objects known in the balcons which was found fallen on the floor of a building uh the destruction of this building was accompanied by fire which preserved not only the bucranium but also many other elements of the super structure from wood and Clay uh building facilties artifacts among which several well preserved vessels and charred Botanical remains you see here the c14 and teal dates uh who place the destruction in the Years Around 4,900 BC that is towards the end of the late Neolithic one period another context another building is the so-called platform house built immediate medely above the previous one and the cour the courtyard with the storage beans uh excavated a few meters to the east storage beans which contained several liters of charred cereals I show you here some of the characteristic Pottery types of this period most of these types are broadly known from other sides in northern Greece or uh the aan and the balcans in general like for example the black burnished and black topped but some were identified or understood let’s say for the first time thanks to the well preserved examples from dilit for example the type of carinated jug or the globular jar with the dark painted decoration on light ground or the tripod cooking pot and the cooking dish the next occupation period is the late Neolithic to corresponding to the period that is usually termed holic or copper AG in the balcons The Phases karanov 56 and Vin CD uh in Greece some authors make a distinction between a late Neolithic two stage and the final Neolithic stage but at kilage we use the term late Neolithic 2 for the entire period until the years around 4,300 4,200 this is undoubtedly the best uh known phase in the settlement its remains have been excavated on the South and East slope as well as in the center of the mount uh and also in the new Sector 9 uh the new sector that we opened in 2019 in the frame of the new program on the North Slope of the T the beginning and early stages of the period are known from sectors uh B2 and five uh in the North in excuse me in the South slope I show them again here uh yes and you can see here uh material from the level uh 5 East one which dates in the Years around 5,00 4,500 BC uh the super structure of this uh building has not been preserved but it provided large quantities of artifacts among which tools ornaments figurines again other clay artifacts ceramic vessels with this characteristic inze decoration with the quite infill and red paint after firing but the main uh decorated potery classes for this period and which are uh at the direct continuity of those of L NE liip one are this black on red and brown on cream painted poy both painted with manganese paint and the graphite painted decoration the former is a typical aan Trend whereas the latter is widely distributed in the entire Eastern balcons as far as the duu investigations with both excavation and core drills in sector two at the southern foot of the tail showed us that something important happens around 4,5 00 BC we have here indeed at this date the first Inu occupation layer which is evidence of an expansion of the settlement in an area which until then was literally a extra moros outside the walls the stones that you see on this slide come from a stone enclosure which stood a did initially a little high high on the slope and are brought here by erosion at a later stage that we will see in a while I’ll show you here a detail of the stone bed and uh the sketch showing the original estimated position of the enclosure uh and uh I remind that similar features are uh known also from other qual settlements in both both Greece and Bulgaria the best excavated assemblages for the late NE lithic 2 period are however the houses in sector six dating from the mature stages the mature stage of this period their construction might have started around 4,400 whereas their destruction again accompanied by fire is securely dated in the Years Around 4,300 4,250 CBC uh let me remind that uh part of this group of houses which are actually four and not five and not four as previously assumed were already seen during the first excavations by the m haris in 1967 but the discovery of the full group and the thorough excavation of the two easternmost buildings the houses three and four uh took place during the second program in the 1990s and the westernmost building house one uh was fully investigated during the third program after 2008 and here we will focus only on house one which provided the greatest quantity and even quality of fins as it was sealed under a thi destruction layer you see for example this uh two-headed clay object which was found in situ on the floor of an noen and uh another small clay Bull’s Head uh cque uh which was uh detached from a wall These are nice finds um the house contained more than 50 complete or almost complete ceramic vessels which represent all the know categories for this period black and red and graphite painted of course uh you see here some specimens but also Brown cream in sized with red cream CR and of course many undecorated vessels of particular interest is this group of small bowls that you see here which contained a set of materials and tools of Potter of a Potter uh used exactly for those decorated categories that are present in the house you see a um this bone tool which was stained with manganese the paint used for the black and red paint uh one of the small bowls which contained red ocher the same material used for the red crust in insided vessels and another uh Bowl which contain which keeps residues from graphite paint the same used for graphite uh decoration vessels and we have also uh a handful of graphite cones uh also in the same room in the same house were also found two groups of ornaments one to the South which contained mostly beads from clay as well as some beads from Stone and copper and uh another one a little further to the north Which con which contained uh a dozen of uh spilus rings and more than 100 some 130 small plugs from B’s task from B’s teeth you see a detail again here the spilus Rings have of course a very wide geographical distribution but the small plags from B’s teeth seem to have parallels only in Bulgaria and South Romania especially in cemeteries but also some settlements like these nice groups uh recently found at sush the particularity of the finds from the kilit house one is that we have here a complete Shen operat uh the complete uh sequence of making with raw material have finished and finished uh pieces in the same group were also more than 1,100 beads from stone and a few golden sheets most of which were rolled around beads the best Parallels for these objects are again found in Bulgaria and South Romania where they exist even in much bigger quantities especially in cemeteries like Vara or durankulak uh to mention or deia and since we speak about gold let me remind that among the vessels from house one there is one brown on cream painted Bowl which is stained with gold paint this looks like an accident but we know that gold paint was also used excuse me was also used deliberately for the decoration of pottery at dilit as a substitute of graphite paint we know this thanks to a small fragment discovered in sector 2 this kind of substitution is attested so far by complete vessels uh in one grave in Verna the house provided also extraordinary quantities of charred Botanical remains whose processing and Analysis is conducted by our colleague Tanya valotti and your students at the University of the saloni you see here a jar which was found full of wild peers and the graph showing also the other species represented other kinds of foods and uh Staples and this is a fragment from another uh vessel another bit jar which was found Associated to a concentration of charred grapes and peeps ATT testing uh grape processing and more specifically wine making something that has been confirmed by residual analysis which showed also that this uh was uh red wine actually uh it was made from Red uh grape this is so far the earliest evidence of wine making in thean in Europe and one of the earliest in the world before moving to the next chronological period uh would like to refer to some recent finds from the new Sector 9 on the norn slope which belong to the same phase as confirmed also by the c48 two successive houses were excavated between 2021 and 202 three one whose distraction is accompanied by fire uh 9A house 9A that you see here and the other not and which provided pottery and other finds that are practically identical to that of houses of the houses of sector six but also show similarities with other contexts uh from the same uh more or less per period and the same is true this is house 9 B uh with uh some of its material and the same is true for the exterior space to the east of house 9B a space which appears to be uh uh a slightly raised platform built on wooden posts in continuity with the house itself something that we had not seen until now at the kilit among the deposits excavated in 2023 we even collected a a handful of gold ornaments similar to those of house one these are again gold sheets gold plates but some of them were found imbricated by two or three how house 9B is unique however for another reason a it we found in 2022 directly on the floor the skeleton of a baby actually a Fus of uh uh only 25 weeks old this is an extremely rare find for the new lithic of Greece and the balcans and please note that this is the first human skeleton in the kilage in general incredible after so many years of Investigation we will move now to the next period uh the final Neolithic period in the kilit we were like enough to find uh settlement remains of this period perod after 4,200 BC which is generally very poorly known phase it has been un simulated to a lost uh Millennium uh and it is poorly uh very poorly known not only in eastern Macedonia but also in most of Greece and the southern balcans in Bulgaria it is described with the term final holic or transitional period whereas in Greece it is included in the final Neolithic or hypolithic uh we use the term final Neolithic adage but I remind that we start its use now we don’t use it for the preceding centuries the troubles observed around 4,200 BC have been again connected by many authors with the effects of a rapid climate change event that could have pushed the inhabitants of the Plains and valleys to move towards higher altitudes or different environments and adopt a more mobile way of living the discovery of remains from this period kilage which is so far the only tail settlement in the area with such evidence invites us to reconsider the scenario or at least Nuance the importance of the impact remains of this period were found in primary position in the Northwest part of sector six and in a secondary position in sector two at the southern feet of the tail we have also material uh of those years uh in uh Sector 9 the new Sector 9 but no distinct layer has been identified so far the most informative is the layer excav ated in sector six which was uh overlay immediately uh the uh destruction layer of house one uh it consists of a floor from which start two deep plaster pits the floor and the pits were filled with a homogeneous fill made of building debris Pottery fragments a few more or less complete vessels as well as bones animal and human which seem to belong to different distraction episodes as confirmed also by the dispersal of c14 dates the field was a unique event but the ingredients were uh probably for different from different distraction episodes and immediately after that uh we have on this spot an abandonment layer which is formed and which corresponds to the centuries until the reoccupation of the site in the early Bronze Age one period you see here uh the pets once emptied and some of the vessels uh retrieved from inside most of the pottery of this assemblage uses old techniques and materials typically here the graphite but in new combinations but we have also some true Novelties which give the vessels uh a hibrid character this capup in particular is clearly in the continuity of previous black and red cups but has raised handles upraised handles which are uh to our knowledge the the first such handles ever attested in the balcans and thean some 700 years uh at least before the Baden like ebaa one Scoops so maybe some of the features that are thought to arrive here at the beginning of the Bronze Age as a result of the arrival of new people or contacts were in fact present in the area seven several centuries earlier in sector two we have the same overall uh history the same overall events uh but uh in Reverse position because here all the layers excavated after the late Neolithic 2 are cial deposits which are brought here by erosion of the upper parts of the tail and one of these first first such cial uh deposits which was dated in the Years Around 4,200 4,000 BC uh brings down the first wave of stones which came from the collapsed new lithic enclosure that we mentioned previously uh the first uh Stone bed will be separated from the next one here you see we you see them both I’m sorry excuse me the first one and the second one um they are separated by a layer of Abandonment which corresponds again to the centuries until the reoccupation of the site in the early brones one period uh around 3 3,300 BC interestingly we we found a similar uh kovia and a uh similar Stone beds uh during the 2021 and 2022 campaigns in the new Sector 9 which means that such Stone enclosures existed on all sides of the tail we have at least three episodes separated by kovia without stones but the study of the ceramic material is still in progress and we don’t have yet any c14 dates allowing their more precise dating this is how we reach the Bron Ag and the next occupation period which is the uh Bronze Age one period starting as I said before between 3,300 3,000 uh and 2 uh 1,900 BC layers in primary position mainly pits have been excavated in the center of the TA in sector A2 and on the Southern Slope of the mount on sector uh six above the houses uh of the lake neic to and in a secondary position also in sector two at the Thousand fet probably part of the stone beds that we just saw in Sector 9 date also to this phase I will not insist further on the mobile finds which confirm altogether what we know already from other neighboring sites such as such as cagri in drama plane or Eero and karanovo in Bulgaria I just want to remind that we are in a phase which is earlier than Troy one it’s earlier than the period labeled early Bronze Age one in Anatolia we will move directly to the next phase Bronze Age Two or uh two and three in Bulgarian terminology that is the years between uh 2900 2,300 BC or more probably between 2,900 and 2,500 BC remains of this period were until recently known a kilit only from the excavations of the first program in the center and on the Eastern feet but now we have also some features in Sector 9 to the north these are pits one of which that you see here has been alternating used for cooking and for refuse you see some of the material collected in it its neighbor seems to have been used only for refused although uh maybe it was originally prepared for storage as suggested by the stone dressing scene on one of its sides and the same is possible is possibly true uh for the two other pits which were later filled with stones from later episodes of uh kovia layers the excavations of 2019 and 2021 in sector 7 at the top of the tail allowed us to document or actually confirm what Jee had already suspected Ed that between this phase of advanced early Bronze Age and the next phase known by excavations which is the last the late Bon age there is a new gap which is actually larger than the Gap previously reported for the fourth Millennium I show you here the exact location where this small abandonment layer was brought to light and the Associated late uh EBA material according to the available c14 dates which are partly unpublished this Gap this Gap lasts almost 1,000 years at this spot at least and covers the end of the early Bronze Age and the entire middle Bronze Age from the middle of the third to the middle of the second millennium BC it should be reminded that this period is missing in the whole of east of Eastern Macedonia uh the mainland at least and in a large part of Bulgaria and without much surprise we would say it is again connected with the effects of a rapid climate change event whose Peak is placed at uh approximately 2,200 BC the fact however that the aband of diil at least this uh area on the top uh of the tail happens uh 300 years earlier before the peak of the climate uh event suggest that this scenario to uh should be reconsidered this is the gap whatever the reason the next phase for which we have substantial building remains at the kilage is the lake B sage and we have excavated layers of this period uh essentially in sector 7 8 to 7 in the top of the tail except for a very small layer seen to the South uh at the wall Northern wall of sector two and whose interpretation is still a little puzzling in sector A2 back in 19 7475 Jee had excavated the remains of one abidal building in which he recognized two successive floors when we resumed excavations in this area in 2008 in order to investigate the continuation of this building and the general layout of the settlement uh of those years we realized that there were more late MOS layers above it actually a small sequence of at least uh five building episodes and excavated them before interrupting again the worlds therefore the investigation of the layer to which belonged presumably the abidal building seen by Jee has only been possible during the current program in 2019 and 2021 first we excavated the rests of a neighboring building which does not preserve any of its outer walls but only parts of its plastered floor with some rare vessels on it and the remains uh of of a chart vegetal material possibly a sort of mat in the next campaign we brought to light the remains of another abidal building which we named Building B contemporaneous with the building uh C the one uh previously mentioned and coinciding in fact with what junde had interpreted as the lower floor of his building uh we show you here some details from the inner and outer side of uh its walls of the wall of this building Bill uh which are which are built with the usual technique of row clay bricks uh on the stone foundation this is the usual technique for this period in Eastern and Central Macedonia the building was found empty unfortunately with the exception of these few beads and I show you here again the plan when where you see this uh the different elements assigned by Jee to the first the earlier state of his building but which belong certainly or probably to the newly found Building B this hols this part of the wall and also this uh uh quite unusual clay feature that they had interpreted as an alar and which we interpret now as the decorated base of a central post which is not preserved of course anymore and therefore we propose to keep the name uh building a for uh uh what they had considered as the second state of his building and which is in fact a different building slightly ler later in date uh more narrow with the ABS turn to the South and with narrower walls built with a uh bricks of different shape than Building B I will jump to the youngest of the late Bron AG layers excavated in this sector uh uh which is a field which contained among other fragments other finds this fragment of meinian skos and a bronze knife both uh with parallels uh in the uh lat elic 3C period if any occupation existed after that it is now lost as the whole area has undergone extensive clearing and leveling during the early Roman period we end this uh long story with a snapshot on the historical and modern remains which is also a reminder that the kilit from the 4th Century BC onwards is a suburb of Philippi strongly connected with its Destiny and this until the early 20th century ad and the almost simultaneous as I said archaeological discovery of both before leaving you we would like to say a few words about do I have three minutes still we would like to say a few words about our projects for the forthcoming years concerning fieldworth the main objective is as we said at the beginning the investigation of the earlier Neolithic levels in Sector 9 Sector 9 which has been installed precisely around the core C3 with the full new lithic sequence but of course as we go down we will continue to uh find find new layers and contexts of from the already known periods late Neolithic 2 and late NE lithic one and we expect uh their investigation to shed new light on aspects that we do did not know yet like this was already done with unburned house 9B with and all the new information it uh it provided concerning Publications we work presently for the completion of the Thematic studies of the second and third program but we have already advanced in the preparation of uh part of the results of the fourth uh program especially publication for of sector 7 the Bron AG remains in the meanwhile uh we publish extensive report report uh annual report uh in the baet journal which is uh an Open Access uh online journal and finally we hope that very soon our Dream to open the site to the public will become reality last October we submitted to the Greek Ministry of culture the related studies which EXP expect to be approved by the central archaeological Council so maybe next time we will be able to invite you for another onsite lecture at dilash thank you very much for your attention so