From the early centuries of the first millennium there is evidence of regular, though not necessarily widespread, contact between the regions west and east of the Pindus mountains. A distinctive type of matt-painted pottery is found across the Balkan peninsula from southern Illyria (the area of Elbasan, south of Albanian Tirana) as far east as the Chalcidic peninsula in the north, Acarnania and the gulf of Volos to the south (Kilian 1985: 237-47). There are general cultural resemblances in burial forms, personal ornaments, and tools within this region, extending westwards to the gulf of Otranto in southern Italy. The distribution of specific mobile items suggests that extensive social networks were maintained within and outside the Pindus range, at a time of considerable dislocation elsewhere in the Greek mainland.
From the eighth century onwards, Corinthian and Corinthianizing products chart these networks, between the Korye area (eastern Albania) and Pelagonia, via Lake Ohrid; between Thesprotia in southern Epirus (figure 15.7), supplied from Corinthian and local merchants at Corcyra, and Ambracia; from Dodona and the plain above Lake Ioannina through the principal passes of Pindus - northwards, along the valley of the River Sarandaporos into the Grevena region of western Macedonia, and eastwards through the Metsovo pass and Meteora into north - west Thessaly.22 In the Iliad's “Catalogue of Ships,” the Perrhaebians are said to set up homes around “wintry Dodona,” but they also till fields on the banks of the River Titaresius (2.750); while the Phthiotid Achilles invokes Zeus of Dodona and his interpreters, called Selli (16.234). Modern political borders have worked to conceal rather than reveal connections that surpassed local ones. The visible symptoms of exchange tend to survive in very small numbers, so individual artifacts carry much more significance than they possess intrinsically.
The maintenance of these social and cultural networks has often been attributed to pastoral strategies. Shepherds did cross local boundaries in order to move herds from their host villages to suitable pasture. The best evidence for the seasonal migration of herds comes from Epirus, particularly the settlement of Vitsa, in the Zagoria region north of Ioannina (Vokotopoulou 1986). This upland site was inhabited from at least the ninth to the fourth centuries. The house forms are rather more substantial than simple chalets - many had stone foundations and were quite robust structures.
World History
