Mysterious 8,000-year-old village discovered at the bottom of a lake in Albania

Under the waters of Lake Ohrid on the Balkan Peninsula discovered ancient village. Scientists believe that this is one of the earliest sedentary communities in Europe.

The lake is considered the deepest (in some places reaches 288 meters) in the region and one of the oldest in the world - it has existed for more than a million years. This "pearl of the Balkans" is located on the mountainous border of North Macedonia and Albania. The settlement was found on the Albanian side.

During a recent dive, archaeologists found that the village was surrounded by approximately 100,000 spiked planks that were used as defensive barricades. To do this, scientists believe, local residents had to cut down a whole forest. However, they still cannot understand why the villagers needed such extensive fortifications.

Rings on pieces of preserved oak, from which the fortifications were made, made it possible to quickly determine the age of the village - it is about 8000 thousand years old.

The study of the settlement is still ongoing, but it can already be assumed that from 200 to 500 people constantly lived in it. All of them were completely dependent on agriculture and livestock - various seeds, plants, as well as bones of wild and domestic animals were found at the bottom. But it will take about two decades to fully study this find, the scientists concluded.