The prehistoric settlement of Lerna is situated in the northwestern area of the gulf of Argolis. It is built in a fertile plain, several hundreds of metres from the shoreline of the gulf and was inhabited from the Neolithic to the Early Mycenean period. The American excavators discerned six main building phases (Lerna I-VI) from which Lerna III (A-D) corresponds to the EH II and Lerna IV (A-D) to the EH III period. The settlement occupies an area of 180X160 metres and has the form of a low hill elevated at 5,5 metres.

In the excavated region which corresponds to 1/7 of the settlement's total area, the unearthed pottery verifies the habitation of the area from the EH I period. But the most significant architectural remains date to the later phases of the EH period. During the phase Lerna IIIC the "Building BG" of 197 square metres dominates in the settlement.

It belongs to the "Corridor House" type and is indicative of its administrative and social organization and of the economic prosperity of the settlement.

Lerna. Plan of the excavated area.

This building has a clay hearth of a 1,15 metre diametre. Its raised rim bears impressed decoration of a clay cylinder seal. In the centre of the hearth there is a double axe carving.
Close to the "Building BG" are remains of rectangular, long and narrow independent houses which do not correspond to a specific town planning. In one of them, building DM, opposite the "Building BG", about 100 clay seals which sealed the content of wooden boxes and storage vases, were discovered. The buildings of this phase are protected by a fortification wall with horseshoe-shaped towers.The wall included small rooms for habitation and storage.

At the end of Lerna IIIC these buildings were levelled and the "House of the Tiles" was built in their place. This building supplants the "Building BG" in architecture and function and seems to be the only building in this part of the settlement during Lerna IIID. It is the EH "Corridor House" that has been most extensively excavated. The surface it occupies is 300 square metres (25X12 metres) and it has a complex arrangement with wooden staircases leading to the upper floor. The absence of mobile finds during the excavation is remarkable. Only room XI of the ground floor contained sealed storage containers and vases, 143 clay sealings and many vessels of exceptional quality. The "House of the Tiles" was destroyed by fire before the completion of the works leaving an imposing pile of ruins with thousands of baked roof tiles. The inhabitants of the settlement respected the place of this multifunctional building of the community and formed a stone circle around its ruins thus creating a mound of ruins which suggested a tumulus.

During the phase Lerna IV cultural traits never known before are discerned. Researchers associate them with the coming of new populations in south Greece during the EH III period. The widespread use of freestanding apsidal, buildings around the mound of ruins of the "House of the Tiles" is a remarkable architectural feature. During the same time the long and narrow rectangular buildings continue to be used. They are built in groups, without observing specific principles, for example in orientation and size. The use of storage pits (bothroi) is characteristic of this phase. The next phase, Lerna V, which dates to the Middle Bronze Age presents the same architectural traits.

In the settlement, 9 individual burials of children were found: 6 in simple pits, one in a pithos and one in a cist grave. The cemetery of the settlement has not yet been detected.

Buildings of Lerna III:
late Early Helladic II.