Page "History of Albania" Paragraph 5

During the Bronze Age, several artifacts from tumulus burials have been unearthed in central and southern Albania, showing close connection with sites in southwestern Macedonia and Lefkada, Greece.

Archeologists have come to the conclusion that from the middle of the third millennium BC, these regions were inhabited by Indo-European people who spoke an early form of Greek.

A part of them later moved to Mycenae around 1600 BC and founded the Mycenaean civilisation there.

On the other hand the Illirii, probably the southernmost Illyrian tribe of that time that lived on the border of Albania and Montenegro, were possibly neighboring with the Greek tribes.

In the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age a number of possible population movements occurred, with the Bryges being settled in areas of southern Albania-northwestern Greece and Illyrian tribes moved into central Albania.

The later derive from early Indo-European presence in western Balkan Peninsula.

Their formation can be assumed to coincide with the beginning Iron Age in the Balkans, during the early 1st millennium BC.