Revisiting Bronze and Early Iron Age Central Epirus (Prefecture of Ioannina, Greece)

Eleni Vasileiou Journal of Greek Archaeology 3 (2018): 145-164

The area of central Epirus (prefecture of Ioannina) occupies the northwestern part of the Greek peninsula. It has been continuously settled for a quarter of a million years during which it witnessed lots of changes of physical landscape owing mainly to the intense tectonic activity. Central Epirus is dominated by two different geographical units, the Ioannina basin2 and the mountains surrounding it. Defining the chronological boundaries between the Bronze and Early Iron Age periods in Epirus is a difficult task but a tentative suggestion may be permitted, based on what is valid for the rest of Greece. Researchers subdivide the Bronze Age according to the conventional tripartite schema into Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age. The earliest Bronze Age carbon-14 dates from the area reach back to the 4th millennium BC.