The new volume Helike IV was recently published by the Helike Society, edited by the Society President Prof. Dora Katsonopoulou. In the new volume, under the specific title PROTOHELLADIKA- The Southern and Central Greek Mainland, are included 18 papers of well known Greek and foreign scholars regarding results of studies and research in Ancient Helike and other Early Helladic sites of the southern and central Greece.

In the first paper of the volume, an important issue of the Greek prehistory is discussed, namely the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Greece and its possible connection with broader migration movements of Indo-European speakers in SE Europe and NW Anatolia (J. Coleman). Then, the role of local topography in supplying boundaries for EH settlements is examined, using examples from the Peloponnese and central Greece (Ε. Weiberg). The next group of papers refers to the recent discovery of a proto-urban EH II-III settlement in the area of Helike in Achaea . First, a synthesis of all finds from the excavations carried out between 2000-2007 is presented suggesting a high level of urbanization for the settlement which seems to have functioned as a central coastal settlement in the area of eastern Achaea in the third millennium BC (D. Katsonopoulou). Next, the rich in quantity and quality pottery is presented, its morphology is analyzed and its use and distribution inside the settlement is discussed (St. Katsarou-Tzeveleki). The study of the pottery is further illustrated by the presentation of the first results of petrographic assessment of houseware and storage pithoi from the settlement (I. Iliopoulos et al.). The products of a small scale flake industry in EH Helike relying primarily on local sources of raw material are presented (N. Thompson) and important data on dietary habits and specific activities of the settlement are discussed based on studies of representative assemblages from malacological (L. Karali) and faunal remains (M. Fillios). Lastly, environmental changes in the area of the EH settlement are discussed based on geoarchaeological research of the Helike Delta (A. Koutsios and N. Kontopoulos).  

In the next session, the EH I period is examined in the area around the eastern Corinthian Gulf focusing on the EH I site of Aigeira in Achaea (E. Alram-Stern). New evidence from the neighboring Derveni in Korinthia suggests the existence of an EH II coastal settlement continuously inhabited from early to late EH II period (Δ. Σαρρή). The impressive sealings from Lerna are re-examined in the light of new ideas (M. Wiencke), while sea rise and climatic changes are suggested as the factors of Early Helladic cultural change on the Argive plain (C. Shriner et al.).  The late EH II pottery from the site of Kolonna on Aegina is analyzed next (L. Berger). The recently found EH sites on the island of Poros are also presented and discussed (Ελ. Κονσολάκη-Γιαννοπούλου). In the last part of the volume, are discussed monumental buildings of the Early Helladic period such as the EH burial mounds of Thebes (Βασ. Αραβαντινός και Κ. Ψαράκη), and corridor houses discovered in the southern and central Greece (Π. Θέμελης). Based on the results of geoarchaeological work in Akovitika of Messenia, the relationship between environmental changes and desertion of sites is examined (M. Engel et al.).