beach
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...
in the southern part of
Lesbos island
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Anatolia, Asia Minor ...
. The name (Βατερά) comes from ''βάτα'' (''vata'', meaning "bramble"), in reference to prickly bushes that blocked the old mule-drive access.
It is 55 km in total from
Mytilini
Mytilene (; el, Μυτιλήνη, Mytilíni ; tr, Midilli) is the capital of the Greek island of Lesbos, and its port. It is also the capital and administrative center of the North Aegean Region, and hosts the headquarters of the University of ...
. The 7 km long, sandy beach here, backed by vegetated hills and looking out to Hios and
Psara
Psara ( el, Ψαρά, , ; known in ancient times as /, /) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small island of Antipsara (Population 4) it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios regional unit, which is part of ...
, offers some of the warmest, cleanest swimming on
Lesvos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
. Several family hotels and taverns with traditional tastes are across the biggest beach on the island.
3 km west you can gaze out to the cape of Agios Fokas, where foundations and columns stubs remain of the temple of
Dionysos
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
and an early
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
basilica
In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...
.
The Vatera area hit the Greek news in 1997 when a
palaeontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Michael Dermitzakis confirmed what farmers unearthing bones had long suspected when he announced that the area was a treasure trove of two-million-year-old
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s, belonging to the Late
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Equus stenonis''),
mastodons
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...
, a baboon-like monkey (''Paradolichopithecus'') and a giant tortoise (''Cheirogaster''), the latter the size of a small car.
Around two million years ago,
Lesvos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
was not an island but was joined to the Asian mainland, and the gulf of Vatera was a subtropical shallow sea. The environment of Vatera at that time, was partly forested, partly open woodlands, with meandering rivers through the area flowing to the sea. The animals in question died somewhere near the rivers and their carcasses were transported by the water downstream. They got stuck somewhere at a bend, and sediments covered the remains until they were removed by Dermitzakis' team. In the nearby village of Vrissa, the
University of Athens
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; el, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the Univers ...
has established a natural history collection dedicated to the palaeontological finds.
Athanassiou A. 2002. A new gazelle species (Artiodactyla, Bovidae) from the Late Pliocene of Greece. Annales Géologiques des Pays Helléniques 1e Série 39, A: 299-310.
Dermitzakis MD, Eisenmann V, Galoukas SF. 1991. The presence of Pleistocene Mammals in Lesvos Island (E. Aegean). Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece XXV (2), 405-421.
De Vos J, Van der Made J., Athanassiou A, Lyras G, Sondaar PY, Dermitzakis MD. 2002. Preliminary note on the Late Pliocene Fauna from Vatera (Lesvos, Greece). Annales Géologiques des Pays Helléniques 1e Série 39, A: 37-70.