The Balkan Aegean migrations revisited: changes in material culture and settlement patterns in the late bronze age central Balkans in light of new data

Abstract

Alleged “Aegean migrations” have long been seen as underlying major transformations in lifeways and identity in the Balkans in the 12th–11th centuries BC. Revisiting the material culture and settlement changes in the north-south “routeway” of the Velika Morava–Južna Morava–Vardar/Axios river valleys, this paper evaluates developments within local communities. It is argued that mobility played an important role in social change, including an element of inward migration from the north. We argue that rather than an Aegean end point, these river valleys themselves were the destination of migrants. The prosperity this stimulated within those communities led to increased networks of personal mobility that incorporated elements from communities from the wider Carpathians and the north of Greece over the course of two centuries.