Archeological survey at Grevena uplands
Project Director N. Efstratiou (University of Thessaloniki, Greece).
Surveys and test excavations have been carried out jointly by Aristotle University, Thessaloniki (Greece), Ca’ Foscari University, Venice (Italy) in cooperation with the Department of Civilizations and forms of Knowledge of the University of Pisa between 1999 and 2021 in the mountains of the north Pindus range, a remote and somewhat neglected region of Western Macedonia. The research was aimed at surveying and exploring the archaeological potential of the high-altitude landscapes around the Vlach town of Samarina (from ca. 1450 m to 2000 m a.s.l.), at the eastern piedmont of Mount Gurguliu (Gorgul’u). The initial purpose of the project was to search for high-altitude Mesolithic sites, but an impressing number of Middle Palaeolithic sites and several Holocene sites has been discovered. At present a program of analysis and study of the thousands of finds is ongoing.
Contact: Elisabetta Starnini
Research outputs
Biagi, P., Efstratiou, N., Starnini, E., Nisbet, R. (2021). Traces of Mesolithic occupation in the Pindos Mountains of western Macedonia (Greece), Mesolithic Miscellany, 30(1), 3-11 Available online
Biagi, P.; Starnini, E.; Efstratiou, N.; Nisbet, R.; Hughes, P.D.; Woodward, J.C. (2023). Mountain Landscape and Human Settlement in the Pindus Range: The Samarina Highland Zones of Western Macedonia, Greece. Land, 12, 96. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12010096
Biagi, P.; Nisbet, R.; Starnini, E.; Efstratiou, N.; Michniak, R. (2017) Where Mountains and Neanderthals Meet: The Middle Palaeolithic Settlement of Samarina in the Northern Pindus (Western Macedonia, Greece). Eurasian Prehistory,13, 3–76.