Early History: From Matriarchy to the Illyrians

Traces of human history in Albania remount to the Palaeolithic Age 100.000 years ago, when groups of hunters and gatherers lived in caves, using flint tools. Their life expectancy was only 21 – 30 years due especially to the high infant mortality. Old Stone Age humans are proven to have lived in the Gajtani cave near Shkodra, in Konispol, at the Dajt mountain next to Tirana and in Xara in the Saranda region.

During the Neolithic Age, people settled down in the plains and river terraces, building wooden pile dwellings and living from agriculture. This was the emergence and flourishing of matriarchy. „From the end of the Palaeolithic Age they passed on to groupings linked together by consanguinity (...) where the ancestry of a child was determined only by the mother. This was the beginning of the organization of matriarchal society, which took on its full expression during the following periods, in the Neolithic Age (New Stone Age), 6000 – 3000 years b.c..“[1] Hard to believe, but true: in the nowadays so patriarchal Albania there was a time when women held the leading positions in society and economy.

This feminist paradise was to change in the Copper Age (3000 – 2100 b.c.) marked by the discovery of metals and the specialization in peasants and shepherds. „Livestock breeding gave pre-eminence to men’s work. The matriarchal system began to weaken, and men began to take over the leading role in economy and in the social groups.“[2] This was the beginning of patriarchy, which reached its first bloom during the Bronze Age (2100 – 1100 b.c.) and the Iron Age (last millennium b.c.).

The first inhabitants of the Balkans before the Illyrians and the Ancient Greeks are, according to some antique authors, the Pellazgians. They belong to the Balkan-Aegean archaeological and cultural complex of the Copper Age. Some scientists, especially the founder of albanology, the Austrian Hahn, claim that the Pellazgian language is the forerunner of modern Albanian and that the Pellazgians are the forefathers of the Illyrians, two thesis still to be proven.

In the 5^th century b.c., Greek historian Herodot writes about the Pellazgians that they adore a great number of deities they sacrifice nearly everything to, but these gods have no names. Yet they foundet the Oracle of Dodona, which did not speak in words, but in images, symbols, that means in an archaical way, addressing more the unconscious than the conscious mind with various layers or circles of signification. The prophets of Dodona interpreted the trajectories of three doves.

Many historians consider the Illyrians to be the ancestors of the Albanians. They are believed to be an autochtone people from the Balkans themselves and lived between the Danube, the Sava and Drava, Preveza and the Vardar, whereas some Illyrian tribes, the Mesaps and the Japigs, settled down in Southern Italy.

Here are the names of 20 Illyrian tribes living from the second millennium b.c. on in the Balkans:

-         the Taulants

-         the Enkelejs

-         the Dasarets

-         the Albans

-         the Ardians

-         the Dardans

-         the Paions

-         the Dalmats

-         the Penests

-         the Molosses

-         the Chaons

-         the Thesprots

-         the Parthins

-         the Thunats

-         the Galabres

-         the Labians

-         the Pirusts

-         the Liburns

-         the Amants

An Illyrian tribe worth mentioning because of its name is the tribe of the Albans. They lived in the hinterland of Durres, and their capital, near the today Kruja, was called Albanopolis. It was this tribe which gave its name to the Albanians, who in Early Middle Age were calles „albanë“ or „arbër“.

© 2001 Silke Liria Blumbach. All rights reserved.

[1] Prof. Dr. Hysni Myzyri, Historia e popullit shqiptar për shkollat e mesme, Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese e Librit Shkollor, 1995, p. 5.

[2] Historia, p. 6.