Early Foreign Influences in Paleo-Balkan Communities

[Soldier of Macedon]

The Greek position with respect to the origin of the ancient Macedonians relies almost entirely on archaeology. The purpose of this thread will be to demonstrate that Macedonia is not a unique case among the Paleo-Balkan peoples when it comes to early interaction with the ancient Hellenes. Below are some excerpts from John Wilkes regarding the Illyrians:

The 18 burials in the second tumulus at Kuc i Zi, beginning around the middle of the seventh century, are skeleton graves with few weapons and no ‘Glasinac’ jewellery. Some of the pottery is hand-made in local forms but most is wheel-made and imitates Greek forms. Greek imported pottery was also found and there were two examples of mouth-pieces of sheet gold tied across the faces of the deceased.

Weapons found at Sanski Most include iron spears and single-edged short swords. A double-edged Greek sword and two pairs of greaves, also imports, were recovered. Most of the graves date to the fifth and fourth centuries and, taken as a whole, the material culture appears to reflect a group of local origin, though imitating some Slovenian forms.

By comparison with that of other groups the pottery of the Liburnians is relatively little known as it rarely occurs in graves. There are quantities of imported wares, including Daunian from south Italy, some Hellenistic and a small quantity of classical Greek.

Imported pottery from Venetic northeast Italy also reached the area, along with wares from Apulia and Greece (Attica). From the late seventh century the Dolensko culture is distinguished by an abundance of metal vessels, including buckets, setulae (water-buckets for the ritual of wine-drinking), cauldrons, tankards, etc.

Early Iron Age prosperity brought instability to their traditional pattern of social relations and a decline had already set in before the end of the seventh century. New groups emerged, notably those of Glasinac and Dolensko (Lower Carniola), through exploiting the qualities of iron to amass a wealth of cattle and create fortified settlements. Their elites are distinguished by graves that are rich in weapons and jewellery and contain imports from Italy and Greece.

All above references to centuries are BC. Going by the above, it is clear that the Illyrians have interacted with the ancient Hellenes from a very early period. Here is something with regard to art in ancient Greece:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_in_ancient_Greece

The art of Ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. As noted above, the Geometric age is usually dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years (traditionally known as the Dark Ages), the period of the 7th century BC witnessed the slow development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. The onset of the Persian Wars (480 BC to 448 BC) is usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the reign of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC) is taken as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic periods.

From the 7th century BC to the 4th century BC, there are continual traces of Hellenic influences in Illyria as a result of colonisation and trade, which vary in degree depending on the area in question. This means that interaction has taken place from the beginning of the Archaic period. We know that there are no Hellenic inscriptions found in Macedonia prior to the 5th century BC, but when was Macedonia first exposed to the same Hellenic influences which are evident in Illyria?

In any case, when ranged against the native cultures of the region, the Hellenic element was largely insignificant until the 4th century BC, when the Macedonians began to adopt certain Hellenic practices on a larger scale, as their kingdom expanded and advanced. This resulted in the Paleo-Balkan peoples having more intense contact with the Hellenes, and Macedonia, located between the Hellenic and 'barbarian' worlds, and the most dominant force in the region at the time, served as the medium. Hence the following from Wilkes:

Though widespread from the seventh century onwards the Greeks had relatively little impact on the material culture of the southern Illyrians (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania) until the expansion of Macedonia in the fourth century. By way of contrast the communities in Croatia , Slovenia and western Bosnia were deeply influenced by the Italic cultures, especially in parts of Slovenia (Lower Carniola)...........The rapid falling-away in the number of burials before the end of the fourth century seems to indicate a general desolation, probably marked by the departure of whole groups towards the expanding world of Greece and Macedonia.

[Soldier of Macedon]

The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe, edited by Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press, 1994.

The first Greek colony on the southern, Aegean shore of Thrace – Abdera – was founded in 654 BC, but the timing of the colonization of the Pontic coast is less certain. Istros, near the mouth of the Danube, seems to have been the earliest formally established colony; available archaeological evidence from the site dates its earliest surviving levels to 630 BC. However, the historians Eusebius and pseudo-Scymnys give dates for its foundation that bracket the archaeological determination: 650 BC and c.600 BC respectively.