Mount Boras/Voras, west of the River Axios, and Kerkine, to the east of
it, which belongs to the southern outliers of the extensive mountain
range of Rhodope; beyond it, the west–east running chains of the Sredna
Gora and the Balkan range itself (Stara Planina, the‘Old Mountain’);
Strandja, the plateau region separating the east Balkans from the hinter-
land of Byzantion; the triple spine of Chalkidike and its outcrops, Thasos
and Samothrace. The mineral diversity of this mountainous landscape
and its wealth in timber and related resources has been one of its key
long-term strengths. These assets, including both the renewable and the
non-renewable resources, have determined some of the area’s principal
economic activities.
Landscapes are more than potential physical resources that are avail-
able to be tapped by human societies. They are the canvases on which
people write their life stories, just as they are the substance of individual
and collective survival strategies.^3 The kinds of materials that we use to
build domestic structures, the range of staple crops and the repertoire of
symbolic forms that structure our cultural languages all depend on a
range of essential local resources. In a twenty-first century context, the
Fig. 5.1.Bridge over the River Haliakmon near Vergina (the ancient city of Aigeai)(^3) For survey literature that is particularly relevant here, Doonan 2004, 93–118, on Sinop
and its environs (especially timber); Bintliff 2009; Constantakopoulou 2007, esp. 20– 8
(island connectivity); 38–60 (religious networks); 228–53 (islands and theirperaiai).
Regionalism and regional economies 195