Before Minoans?
8,800-Year-Old Settlement on Aegean Island Imbros Reveals Early Architecture Before the Minoans By Nisha Zahid August 29, 2025 Aegean island of Imbros. Credit: SahinBasaran / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest farming architecture ever found in a settlement in the Aegean Islands, placing the northern island of Imbros (Greek: Ίμβρος)—modern-day Gökçeada in Turkey—at the center of a story long dominated by Crete. The discovery at the Uğurlu-Zeytinlik Mound reveals the first architectural remains linked to the Aegean’s earliest farming communities, dated to around 8,800 years ago. Scholars had no physical evidence of how the first farmers on the islands lived until now. According to the researchers, the find provides the earliest footprint of permanent settlement in the Aegean, centuries before the rise of the Minoan palaces on Crete. Round houses reveal Neolithic lifeways Excavations uncovered five houses dating to ab...