Post-antique settlement patterns in the central Balkans: Use of Justinianic landscape in the early middle ages

Abstract

The authors examine reoccupation and refortification of the Late Roman and Early Byzantine hinterland hilltop localities in the central Balkans in the 9th and 10th centuries. This process is studied in the best researched area of Ras and its neighbouring territories, stretching between the Lim River in the west and the Ibar in the east and south. The Early Medieval fortifications there reflect the population clustering and the renewal of old communication routes along the major river courses. All these forts were built in the locations of Late Roman/Early Byzantine fortifications by the main artery along the Pešter Plateau, or along the valleys of Raška and Ibar. The Late Antique fortifications situated far from the main roads and deeper into the mountains were left uninhabited in the Early Middle Ages. The refortification of this area and wider territories in the Balkan hinterlands was caused by the 9th-century Bulgarian expansion towards the west and the contemporaneous Serbian advance. One of the issues is to evaluate the model of fortification in the Early Middle Ages and its origins. In mountainous Balkan hinterlands, the geographical features of the terrain were considerably different from those in distant Slavic lands. In the central Balkans, Slavic military architecture drew from Late Roman and Early Byzantine experiences, modifying these patterns according to new needs, which resulted in the development of specific solutions.