Macedonia

Abstract

Discussion of Macedonia before the time of Philip and Alexander has long been dominated by Nicholas Hammond’s view that Macedonians arrived on the Aegean coast as transhumant pastoralists taking part in a long-running, large-scale set of migrations. New archaeological evidence shows that there was, in fact, a high degree of continuity in settlement in the northern Aegean from the Late Bronze Age onward; Hammond’s migrations are a scholarly myth. That starting point leads to new perspectives on the establishment and expansion of the Temenid kingdom. Control over key resources such as timber and the gradual adoption of a Macedonian ethnic identity by neighboring, initially distinct groups were factors as important as military conquest in building the polity inherited by Philip.