Earlier excavations in western Greece, carried out by Dörpfeld in Lefkas and by British archaeologists in Ithaca and Akarnania, were chiefly aimed at answering the ‘Ithaca question’. After these investigations during the first decades of our century the western part of central Greece remained archaeologically unexplored. The newly discovered EH settlement of Platygiali, Astakos, fills a large gap in our knowledge of prehistoric habitation in western Greece, while certain features indicate that the settlement has a distinctive cultural significance.