Prehistoric Balkans

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Prehistoric Balkans is the period of human presence (including early hominins) before the appearance of Indo-European people, which extended through prehistory, and ended when the first written records appeared between ca. 1500 and 6th century BC[1] (Protohistory)[2].

Contents

[edit] Palaeolithic

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See also: Balkan Transition to the Upper Palaeolithic

There is evidence of human presence in Balkans from Middle Paleolithic onwards, but the number of sites is limited. According to Douglass W. Bailey[3]:

“ it is important to recognize that the Balkan Upper Palaeolithic was a long period containing little significant internal change. Thus, the Balkans transition was not as dramatic as in other European regions. Crucial changes that define the earliest emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens are presented at Bacho Kiro at 44,000 BCE. The Bulgarian key Palaeolithic caves named Bacho Kiro and Temnata Dupka with early Upper Palaeolithic material correlate that the transition was gradual. ”

[edit] Mesolithic

Main article: Balkan Mesolithic

The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch 10th millennium BC and ended with the Neolithic introduction of farming, the date of which varied in each geographical region. According to Douglass W. Bailey[4]:

“ It is equally important to recognize that the Balkan upper Palaeolithic was a long period containing little significant internal change. The Mesolithic may not have existed in the Balkans for the same reasons that cave art and mobiliary art never appeared: the changes in climate and flora and fauna were gradual and not drastic. (…) Furthermore, one of the reasons that we do not distinguish separate industries in the Balkans as Mesolithic is because the lithic industries of the early Holocene were very firmly of a gradually developing late Palaeolithic tradition ”

[edit] Neolithic

See also: Neolithic Europe

The Balkans were the site of major Neolithic cultures, including Vincha, Varna, Karanovo, Hamangia.

The Vinča culture was an early culture of the Balkans (between the 6th and the 3rd millennium BC), stretching around the course of Danube in Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans, parts of Central Europe and Asia Minor.

"Kurganization" of the eastern Balkans (and the Cucuteni culture adjacent to the north) during the Eneolithic is associated with a first expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans.

[edit] Bronze Age

Further information: Bronze Age Europe

The Bronze Age in the Balkans is divided as follows (Boardman p. 166)

  • Early Bronze Age: 20th to 16th centuries BC
  • Middle Bronze Age: 16th to 14th centuries BC
  • Late Bronze Age: 14th to 13th centuries BC

The Bronze Age in the Central and Eastern Balkans begins late, as in Central Europe, around 1800 BC. The transition to the Iron Age gradually sets in over the 13th century BC.

The "East Balkan Complex" (Karanovo VII, Ezero culture) covers all of Thrace. The Bronze Age cultres of the Central and Western Balkans are less clearly delineated, and stretch to Pannonia, the Carpathians and into Hungary.

[edit] Iron Age

Thracian tribes before the Roman period.
Thracian tribes before the Roman period.
Distribution of "Thraco-Cimmerian" finds
Distribution of "Thraco-Cimmerian" finds

After the period that followed the arrival of the Dorians, known as the Greek Dark Ages or the Geometric Period, the classical Greek culture developed in the southern Balkan peninsula, the Aegean islands and the western Asia Minor Greek colonies starting around the 9–8th century and peaking with the 5th century BC Athens democracy.

The Greeks were the first to establish a system of trade routes in the Balkans, and in order to facilitate trade with the natives, between 700 BC and 300 BC they founded several colonies on the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus) coast, Asia Minor, Dalmatia, Southern Italy (Magna Graecia) etc.

The other peoples of the Balkans organized themselves in large tribal unions, such as the Thracian Odrysian kingdom in the Eastern Balkans, created in the 5th century BC, and the Illyrian kingdom in the Western Balkans, from the early 4th century.

Other tribal unions existed in Dacia at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles. The Illyrian tribes were situated in the area corresponding to today's former Yugoslavia and Albania. The name Illyrii was originally used to refer to a people occupying an area centred on Lake Skadar, situated between Albania and Montenegro (= Illyrians proper). The term Illyria was subsequently used by the Greeks and Romans as a generic name to refer to different peoples within a well defined but much greater area.[5]

Hellenistic culture spread throughout the Macedonian Empire created by Alexander the Great from the later 4th century BC. By the end of the 4th century BC Greek language and culture were dominant not only in the Balkans but also around the whole Eastern Mediterranean.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Minoan,Mycenaean ~1500 BC - Thracian,Lemnian,Venetic 6th c.BC
  2. ^ There is no stable definition. According to Classical World "Bronze Age Greece (2000-1200 BC) is mainly protohistoric". According to historiography criterion Balkans enter in Protohistory with Herodotus 5th c.BC.(e.g. Thrace in book V) or even before; Homer (Historicity of the Iliad,Geography of the Odyssey)
  3. ^ Balkan prehistory Page 15 By Douglass W. Bailey ISBN 0415215978
  4. ^ Balkan prehistory Page 36 By Douglass W. Bailey ISBN 0415215978
  5. ^ The Illyrians. John Wilkes

[edit] Sources

John Boardman, The Cambridge Ancient History, Part I: The Prehistory of the Balkans to 1000 BC, Cambridge University Press (1923), ISBN 0521224969.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links