Presents a thematic collection of papers dealing with the Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeology of the Ionian Sea, situated off the south western Balkan peninsula. It is based on an international conference held in Athens, Greece in January 2020.
The eastern Ionian occupies a geographically complex area, which since the Pleistocene has undergone significant alterations due to tectonic activity and sea-level fluctuations. This dynamic environment, where islands, mainland, and sea intertwined to present different landscapes and seascapes to the human communities exploring the region at different times in the past, provides an ideal setting for their study from a diachronic perspective.
This book deals thematically with the processes of circulation of people, materials, artefacts and ideas by examining patterns of settlement, burial and multi-layered interconnections between the different communities via land and sea. It investigates aspects of regional and interregional communication, isolation, collective memory and the creation of distinct identities within and between different cultural and social groups. It focuses on the islands of the Central Ionian Sea, offering new data from excavations and surveys on Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaki and the smaller islands of the Inner Ionian Archipelago between Lefkada and Akarnania. The cultural interchange between the islands and the continental coasts is reflected in the volume with the addition of chapters dealing with contemporary sites in west Greece and southeast Italy.
The Ionian, often regarded as ‘at the fringes’ of the Aegean, the Balkan and the central Mediterranean archaeological discourse, has lately offered new and exciting data that not only enrich but also alter our perceptions of mobility, settlement and interaction. The collection of papers in this book enhances theoretical discussions by offering a geographically and culturally comparative approach, ranging from the earliest Palaeolithic evidence of human presence in the region to the end of the Bronze Age.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part A. Island Archaeology
  • Comparative perspectives in ‘island archaeology’: a view from the Ionian Sea Helen Dawson
• Part B. Prehistory
  • 1. Lithics as diachronic proxies for the circulation of people and ideas in the dynamic Ionian landscape
  • 2. Prehistoric settlement in the Inner Ionian Sea Archipelago and its Ionian island connections
  • 3. Palaeolithic chipped stone industries from Zakynthos, Ionian islands, Greece. Interpreting the new evidence within the western Greek and Adriatic context
  • 4. Beyond the horizon. Stone artefacts and social networks in Late Neolithic Drakaina Cave, Kefalonia island, western Greece
  • 5. Evidence of settlements on Kefalonia during the Final Neolithic and the Early Helladic period
  • 6. The communal ceramic traditions of prehistoric Ithaca
  • 7. The Early and Middle Bronze Age in the Ionian Sea. New evidence from Zakynthos
  • 8. Aitoloakarnania and the Ionian Sea in the Εarly Bronze Age: a history of interaction
• Part C. The Late Bronze Age
  • 9. Islands in the stream: a maritime perspective of the south-central Ionian islands in the Late Bronze Age
  • 10. The palaeo-geographic development of Livadi Marsh, Paliki: implications for the detection of an ancient harbour and anthropogenic settlement
  • 11. The Archaeological Shoreline Research Project on the cultural semantics of coasts: the promontory of Kapros, southeast Kefalonia, in the Bronze Age
  • 12. Diverging trajectories within the west Mycenaean koine: the evidence from Kefalonia
  • 13. Migrants, refugees and social restructuring in Late Helladic Kefalonia
  • 14. The nature of warfare in western Greece and the Ionian islands during the Late Bronze Age
  • 15. The Ionian-Adriatic interface as a landscape of mobility
• Appendix: Continuity in the material culture of Kefalonia: from the Late Bronze Age to the historical period in Drakaina cave by Agathi Karadima