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Prehistoric Emporio

Emporio was inhabited since the Early Neolithic Times (6000 BC). The region provides suitable living conditions, an ideal harbor for the vessels, a cultivable plain and a source of potable water. Circa 3000 BC the settlement was destroyed by conflagration, caused by an incursion by foreign tribes or some other factor. It was rebuilt , however, and during the final periods developed into a major urban center of the Aegean, covering a huge area, in the excess of 30 hectares. The focal point of the settlement was a well, protected by a series of large walls. Other walls were also found, perhaps belonging to a fortification, though more probably they formed a terrace, retaining the soil far from the well.

The houses were single-storey, stone-built, with earthen floors and flat roofs. Specialist artisans fashioned and decorated the pottery vessels, made tools of wood, bone and metal.
Vases, in a considerable variety of shapes, were brought to light from the British School of Archaeology as well as other objects include spoons, clay figurines, spindle whorls of diverse types decorated with the same motifs as the vases, as well as hundreds of cores, flakes and blades of obsidian and flint. all these finds are housed at the Archaeological Museum of Chios.

Mycenaean settlement (13th century BC) was also brought to light in the same area. The houses had large rooms and were built on the basis of a central town plan. The vases are of different shapes decorated mainly with painted linear motifs. From the architectural evidence and the other finds, the relations between the settlement and other parts of the Aegean, such as Euboia, Kea and elsewhere, are surmised. Circa 1100BC this settlement was destroyed by fire and abandoned. Its demise coincides with the inception of Ionian colonization.