Dispilio (Greek: Δισπηλιό), known before 1926 as Dupiak (Greek: Δουπιάκ), is a village near Lake Orestiada, in the Kastoria regional unit of Western Macedonia, Greece. Near the village is an archaeological site containing remains of a Neolithic lakeshore settlement that occupied an artificial island.

History

The lake settlement was discovered during the dry winter of 1932, which lowered the lake level and revealed traces of the settlement. A preliminary survey was made in 1935 by Antonios Keramopoulos. Excavations began in 1992, led by George Chourmouziadis, professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The site's paleoenvironment, botany, fishing techniques, tools and ceramics were published informally in the June 2000 issue of Επτάκυκλος, a Greek archaeology magazine and by Chourmouziadis in 2002. A recreation of the lake dwellers' settlement has been erected near the site to attract tourists from Greece and abroad.

The site appears to have been occupied over a long period, from the final stages of the Middle Neolithic (5600-5000 BC) to the Final Neolithic (3000 BC). A number of items were found, including ceramics, wooden structural elements, seeds, bones, figurines, personal ornaments, flutes and a wooden tablet with markings on it, the Dispilio Tablet.

A new method has been used to date wooden structures at the site to have been constructed between 5328 BC and 5140 BC.

See also

• Orestis (region)
• Upper Macedonia