Prehistory and early history
Epirus in antiquity was known to be rich in pasture, cattle, pigs and sheep, and later Butrint was effectively a fish-farming enclave. This wealth would have attracted hunters and fishermen since at least 100,000 BC to Butrint and to the edges of the marsh judging from surface finds. The rich landscape also meant that, following the Upper Palaeolithic, it was to sustain a large population.
Lithic finds of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers have been found around the edges of Lake Butrint. The best collection of flints comes from a fossilised beach site near Xarra near Butrint. These belong to a long timescale, ranging from Middle Palaeolithic of c. 100,000 years ago to the Mesolithic, or post-glacial period. The former period is represented mainly by Levallois flakes, scrapers and denticulates; the latter period by a single but crucial microlith, an almost unique find in Albania.
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Recent excavations by the Institute of Archaeology and the Butrint Foundation at Himara and at the Kanalit rockshelter north of Saranda have added substantially to the knowledge of the Mesolithic period. At these sites a series of extremely rare Mesolithic stone tools in flint and black jasper came to light as well as evidence for a stone tool production site.
A number of small pebble-tools, probably Palaeolithic to Mesolithic, found near Butrint resemble specialised shellfish toolkits found in Italy dated to between 10,000 and 7,000 BC. The most exciting aspect of the assemblage is the small number of tools reminiscent of the Aurignacian technology, dated to about 40,000 years ago and indicative of the transition between Neanderthals and Modern Humans.
The Neolithic and Bronze Age communities are less in conspicuous, but Albanian-American excavations at a cave-site near Konispoli south of Butrint have brought to light a range of finds showing that early-Neolithic pastoralist communities were making use of the cave – as did modern peasant groups until recently.
- Neolithic bone tolls from Konispoli (Butrint Museum)
- Neolithic pottery from Konispoli (Butrint Museum)
- Neolithic pottery and spindle whorls from Konispoli (Butrint Museum)