Konstantinos Kotsakis was born in 1950 in Peiraias, Greece. He obtained his BA in Archaeology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1975. Between 1981-1983 he has been a holder of an Alexandros Onassis Foundation Scholarship. He obtained his PhD in 1983 in Prehistoric Archaeology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 1992 he was a visiting professor in the Department of History and Anthropology, University of Thrace and a visiting scholar at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge during 1989. In 1997-2000 he served as Head of the Department of Archaeology and History of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During the academic year 2001-2002 he was a visiting professor in the University of Stanford. In 2007 he was a Tytus fellow at the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati.
He is a member of the Association of European Archaeologists, member of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, member of the Hellenic Archaeometric Society, member of the American Association of Anthropologists.

 

Excavations - Work in Museums - Research

Director of excavations at Sesklo, 1978-1981
Excavations at the neolithic site Dimitra, East Macedonia, 1978 and 1980.
Co-Director of the excavations at the neolithic site of Mandalo, West Macedonia, 1981-84.
Co-Director of the University of Thessaloniki excavations at the bronze age site of Toumba, 1985-2000
Co-Director of the intensive archaeological survey project in the Langadas Basin, 1986-97.
Director of the Greek excavations at Çatal Höyük, Turkey 1995-1997
Co-director of the excavations at the neolithic site Paliambela, Kolindros. 2000- present

 

Publications

`Aspects of Technology and Distribution of MN Pottery of Sesklo` Science in Archaeology, R.E.Jones and H.W. Catling (eds), British School at Athens, Fitch Laboratory Occasional Paper, 1986, σσ. 1-2.
`Assessment of in-site variability of pottery from Sesklo, Thessaly` Archaeometry 30, 2 (1988), 264-274.
The Powerful Past: Theoretical Trends in Greek Archaeology` I. Hodder (ed), Archaeological Theory in Europe. The last 3 decades. Routledge. 1991.
RUNSECT: A computer program for the analysis of excavation data` Journal of Field Archaeology, 16, 1989: 369-375.
The Use of Habitational Space in Neolithic Sesklo`  La Thessalie. Lyon, 1991. Athnes 1994.
“Prehistoric Rural Communities in Perspective: The Langadas Survey Project”. In P.N. Doukelis and L.G. Mendoni (eds) Structures rurales et societes antiques. Actes du colloque de Corfou (14-16 Mai 1992) Paris 1994, 17-25
`A new method for the identification of wild and cultivated charred grape seeds` Journal of Archaeological Science, 23(3) 1996
“Review of Aegean Prehistory IV: the Northern Greece” American Journal of Archaeology, July 1996.
"United we stand?" Antiquity 70 (1996)
"The Past is Ours." In Meskell, Lynn (ed) Archaeology Under Fire, Routledge 1998.
"What tells can tell" In P. Halstead (ed.). Neolithic Society. Sheffield University Press. Sheffield 1999.
“Counting people in an artifact poor landscape” In J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias (eds) Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe. Populus Monograph I. 2000
“Exister au present grace au passé” In  L’ avenir des musées. Louvre, Conférences et colloques 2001.
“From the Neolithic side: The Mesolithic/Neolithic interface in Greece” Proceedings of the Mesolithic Symposium in Cambridge. Cambridge 2001.
“Mesolithic to Neolithic in Greece. Continuity, Discontinuity or change of course?” Documenta Prehistorica 28 (2001)
“Birch-bark tar at Neolithic Makriyalos, Greece”. Antiquity 76(2002) 962-7
“Organic residues in storage vessels from the Toumba Thessalonikis” Prehistoric Pottery. People, pattern and purpose. Alex Gibson, (ed.) BAR International Series 1156, 2003.
“Evidence for large scale feasting at Late Neolithic Makriyalos, North Greece” in P. Halstead and J. Barrett (eds), Food cuisine and society in Prehistoric Greece. Oxford, Oxbow 2004
“Archaeology and the spread of farming”. Current Anthropology, 2004, 45(4), 50-51
“Across the border: unstable dwellings and fluid landscapes in the earliest Neolithic of Greece” in D. Bailey, A. Whittle, V. Cummings (eds) (un)settling the Neolithic. Oxbow, 2005
Settlement of Discord: Sesklo and the emerging household. Homage to Milutin Garasanin.In N. Tasic and C. Grozdanov (eds)Belgrade 2006.
“A bridge too far: essentialist concepts in Greek archaeology”. In S. Antoniadou and A. Pace (eds) Mediterranean Crossroads. Athens 2007.
“Pottery Cuisine and Community in the Neolithic of Northern Greece”. In C. Mee and J. Renard (eds) , Cooking up the Past, Oxbow 2007
“A sea of agency: Crete in the Context of the Earliest Neolithic in Greece”. In V. Isaakidou and P. Tomkins (eds), Escaping the Labyrinth: Cretan Neolithic in Context. Oxbow, 2008.