Excavations near the villages of Vardali and Neo Monastiri in Fthiotida prefecture, central Greece, unearthed a 6.6-meter-tall hill that covers a space of roughly 4 hectares, regarded as one of the largest manmade hills in Greece. The important and impressively preserved archaeological site of Koutroulou Magoula, where the discoveries were made, was inhabited during the Mid Neolithic Period (c. 5800-5300 BC) by a few hundred people who built carefully designed houses made of stone and sun-dried bricks, featuring floor substrate made of stone.
Some of the preserved stone walls are up to one-meter-tall which is very rare for the specific period, suggesting that the walls were made entirely of stone and not just the foundations of the houses. The excavations brought to light many and important findings, among them, a large number of clay statuettes. Roughly 300 have been unearthed, a very impressive number, considering that the area excavated was very limited in size.
A Bronze Age arched tomb built at the top of the hill and the remains of a young female dated back to the Middle Ages (12th - 13th centuries AD) prove that the site was inhabited for many centuries.
The excavations were launched in 2001 and since 2010 have been conducted by the archaeological service in cooperation with the University of Southampton via the British School at Athens. (AMNA)
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