Following the successful underwater research campaigns at from 2023/24, the international team will continue its investigations in 2025 at the prehistoric lakeside settlement of Lin on the western shore of Lake Ohrid, Albania. Building on previous campaigns, this season’s focus will be on expanding the underwater survey and sampling area, with the goal of enhancing our understanding of the site’s spatial organisation, construction phases, and occupation chronology.
In 2025, targeted excavations will be conducted around previously identified palisade structures. The main aim is to better understand how they are connected to the settlement remains further to the shore and on land. Hundreds of additional wooden piles will be mapped and sampled for dendrochronological analysis, contributing to the ongoing construction of a tree-ring chronology and potentially anchoring it by recent identifications of Miyake event. These efforts are key to developing a high-resolution temporal framework for early Neolithic lakeshore settlements in the region.
Material culture, particularly ceramics, will be systematically recovered and analysed to refine the cultural and functional interpretation of the site. Lin is among the earliest known pile-dwelling settlements in the Balkans, but the 2025 campaign aims to provide critical insights into the later settlement phases that are connected to the palisades around 1500 years after the earliest settlement traces.
The work is being carried out in collaboration with the National Academy of Science of Albania and benefits especially from the support of the SLSA (Schweizerisch-Liechtensteinische Stiftung für archäologische Forschungen im Ausland).