Modeling Differential Cultural Interaction in Late Bronze Age Thessaly

On the northern border of Mycenaean civilization and encompassing several ecological zones, the province of Thessaly represents an opportunity to test the Cross-Cultural Interaction Model involving processes such as acculturation and ethnogenesis in a border/frontier zone. In the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC) southeastern Thessaly, with a climate and topography similar to the Mycenaean core zone of southern and central Greece, was in direct contact with the centers of Mycenaean civilization and evolved in a similar manner, while in the inner plains further north, a transition zone between the Mediterranean environment of the coast and the Continental environment of southeastern Europe, local elites selectively adopted some aspects of Mycenaean culture, and in the mountainous zone further to the north and west nomadic pastoral tribes had little contact with the Mycenaean world and were even more selective borrowing cultural elements.