The ethnological survey of pastoral transhumant sites in the Grevena Region, Greece
The ethnological survey of pastoral transhumant sites in the Grevena Region, Greece

Summary/Abstract: What are the origins of specialized pastoral transhumance in Mediterranean Europe ? This question concerning the long-distance, twice yearly movement of herders and their sheep and goat flocks between upland summer pastures and lowland winter pastures in Greece and other areas of the Balkans has been the subject of on-going archaeological debate. The debate has been fueled by comparisons drawn from historic and contemporary pastoral groups living in the mountainous regions of the Mediterranean. Yet despite the numerous conjectures attempting to either prove or disprove the existence of historical continuity between contemporary and prehistoric pastoral transhumance, the evidence for specialized pastoralism (e.g. sites, artifacts, fauna remains) has yet to be found in the archaeological record.

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