The Balkans at 18000 BP: the view from Epirus

The Balkan region, according to convention, includes the modern states of Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece ( Fig. 8.1 ). The region is dominated by mountain chains reaching to heights of about 3000 m, and is extremely diverse in physiographic and climatic terms, with a general trend from oceanic conditions on the Mediterranean coast to the west, to continental conditions in the north and east. Superimposed on this general trend are steep local gradients of topography, temperature and precipitation. For present purposes we shall exclude Yugoslavia lying within the area of the Danube and Sava basins and their immediately adjacent foothills, since there are reasons for supposing that these areas form part of a distinctive palaeoenvironmental region (Gamble 1986). Our focus will therefore be mainly on Gamble’s (1986) Mediterranean-East province, and within this specifically on the Epirus region of northwest Greece.