From dugouts to houses: Urban development in late archaic Olbia Pontica

Abstract

The earliest building phase in Olbia, Borysthenes and the settlements of the Olbian chora is represented by primitive dugouts, carved in the underground. Around the last quarter of the 6th century BC the dugouts in Olbia were replaced with above round houses, with a square plan and adobe walls, also cut in the clay subsoil at different depths. These houses appeared simultaneously with the new regular city planning system, implemented at Olbia a short time later than at Borysthenes. Similar houses from the same period are also known to have existed in Histria. This situation demonstrates an idea about the common manner of spatial and urban development of the Greek colonies in the late Archaic – early Classical era North-Western Pontic region.