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The fourth research program (2019 – )

Since 2019, a new Greek-French research program is in progress at Dikili Tash, under the auspices of the the Archaeological Society and the French School at Athens and the direction of Pascal Darcque, Chaido Koukouli-Chryssanthaki, Dimitra Malamidou and Zoï Tsirtsoni. Additional funding is provided by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Institute of Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP, until 2021) and from the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation-Institute of France 2020 Great Prize of Archaeology (for the years 2021-2024). The company Raycap supported some of the works, especially those regarding publications and valorization of the site.

Fieldwork (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 et 2024) has resumed around two themes that emerged from previous works: the earliest occupation levels, and the Late Bronze Age.

A new sector, 9, was opened around coring point C3, on the tell’s northern slope, which yielded evidence of occupation from the beginning of the Early Neolithic period (6400-6200 BC), a phase unknown so far in Greek Eastern Macedonia. Excavations will also investigate layers of the Early and Middle Neolithic period (late 7th and 6th millennium BC), adding them to the known sequence of the recent phases (5th and early 4th millennium BC). The first campaigns brought to light the superimposed remains of two houses destroyed around 4300 BC, and renewed our knowledge of the settlement’s layout, techniques and funerary practices for the Late Neolithic II period. They further provided information about the occupation of the tell at an advanced stage of the Early Bronze Age (2800-2500 BC).

At the top of the tell, in sector 7, excavated in 2019 and 2021, evidence from stratigraphy, mobile finds and 14C dating confirms that there was an interruption in occupation during the centuries corresponding to the end of Early and to the Middle Bronze Age (second half of the 3rd and first half of the 2nd millennium BC). The beginning of the Late Bronze Age (around 1450 BC) saw the construction of two buildings, one of which, very well preserved, is apsidal. The comparison of the new remains with those known from previous excavations in this area is changing our knowledge of the organization and evolution of settlement in this period.