The archaeological records revealed during the excavations of 2008 along with the material study, mainly the ceramics, clarified the situation regarding the occupation phases of the upper part of the ancient city of Apollonia, since its foundation in the archaic period until the Roman Empire. In particularly, a rich chronology of local and imported ceramics of the pre-Hellenistic periods was exposed in sondages 1, 1b and 2, opened at the northern sector of the excavation, to the southeast of the acropolis area, while the Hellenistic and Roman artifacts were revealed in almost all of the excavated sectors. The earlier occupation levels (those of the archaic and classical periods) appear to have been destroyed during the terracing rearrangement and the construction of new structures in the Hellenistic period. The most understandable stratigraphic sequence of the Archaic and Classical periods contains 4 occupation horizons. The earlier level relates to the deepest layer, set directly above the sterile ground and consists of roads, insulae and ceramics remains. The ceramic materials were represented mainly by large vases and imported proto-Corinthian kraters, hydrie, pyxis (of cylindrical and globular shapes), spherical aryballos, Ionian (of type BI) and Attician cups (sondage 2, US 516 and 521), as well as ceramic loom weights of pyramidal shape, which are all dated to the late 7th and the first half of the 6th Centuries BC.
The successive horizon was richer in structural remains (road segments and traces of insulae) and ceramic materials of various origins and typologies (US 499, 504, 510, 514, 515 of sondages 2, 1b, 5c, 8g – h, 9 and 11), and dates to the late 6th and beginning of 5th Centuries BC. The domestic wares consist of red-figured vases, black-gloss or painted kraters (three of the fragments discovered in sondage 11, are distinguished for their decoration with palmettes and lotus, wild animals, and a figurative scene of knights riding their horses to war), cups, hydriai, cylindrical oinochoe, kotyle, and miniature kalathiskoi vases of Corinthian origin, globular skyphos, etc., of regional production (territories between Dyrrhachion and Corcyra), and many other fragments made of local clay. Also, numerous fragments of pithoi, loom weights of conical shape and small bases, lamps, bowls, and two perirrhanterion fragments were uncovered in the occupation level of the late archaic period.
The third occupation horizon represents a transitional phase between the Archaic and Classical periods, as the related archaeological sequences contain mixed ceramic materials (US 502 in sondage 2, 5c and 5d) of the 5th Century BC. The forth occupation horizon relates to a sequence of uniform layers which are rich in archaeological material of the later 5th and the early 4th Centuries BC, representing thus for the Classical period of the agora of the city. The revealed material, mainly the ceramic consist of hundreds of types and categories, is dominated by both local and imported (Corinth and Corcyra) fabrics. These include cooking or tables vases of black-gloss or painted types: oinochoe, olpe, small kraters, jugs, unguentaria, hydriai, amphoriskos made of pure clay, jugs decorated with palmettes, handle-less or handled pots, drinking cups of rounded stool, vessels of vertical handles or S profiles, etc; along with transported amphorae of Corinthian B types, lambs, and etc. Cups, kettles’s and other tables wares, as well as several structures uncovered in sondage 1b (US 483), seem to be associated with a reception hall and a banquet of one of the houses of agora during classical period.
These earlier occupation horizons are followed by a series of layers, which are rich with materials and structures of Hellenistic, Roman Republican and Early Imperial times.