Europe’s oldest stilt community was discovered in Lake Ohrid, Albania. Dating to roughly 6000 BCE, it’s nearly 1,000 years older than any other known lake-dwelling site in the Mediterranean and Alpine regions, and it’s also one of the earliest sedentary villages. Somewhere between 200 and 500 people would have lived in houses on stilts above the water’s surface (or perhaps above regularly-flooded land). And around the settlement, roughly 100,000 spiked planks were found suggesting some serious defensive fortifications. Seeds, plants, and bones of animals (both wild and domesticated) were also unearthed. Why they built their village here, as well as what they were protecting themselves from with all those spikes, remain mysteries.