# Maliq Culture Flourishes (c. 5000 BCE)

URL: https://allhistories.com/albania/timeline/-5000-maliq-culture-flourishes
Location: Maliq, Korçë
Themes: Key Events

After the arrival of farming, communities in the Korçë basin multiplied along the shores of Lake Maliq and the Devoll river. The settlements of Vashtëmi, Dunavec, Maliq and Podgorie formed the core of a regional tradition whose pottery and beliefs spread through the valleys of eastern Albania. The site of Maliq, excavated from the 1960s by the archaeologist Frano Prendi, revealed pile dwellings built on the edge of the lake and a long sequence of layers from the Neolithic through the Copper Age into the Bronze Age. During the Middle Neolithic (5th–4th millennia BCE) a cultural unity developed across sites such as Dunavec–Maliq, Cakran, Kolsh and Xarë, marked by black and grey polished pottery, four-footed ritual vessels and Mother Earth figurines. Later phases added painted ceramics in red and black, millstones, hoes and simple spinning tools. The Maliq culture became the reference sequence for Albanian prehistory, showing continuity of settlement in the Korçë basin over thousands of years. Its later Bronze Age levels also record contacts with the Aegean and the wider Balkans, the background from which the Iron Age peoples of the region later emerged. At this point in the timeline (c. 5000 BCE), no ruler of the Albanian lands is recorded in this dataset; the region was home to prehistoric and early Illyrian communities and Greek colonies.

## Why it matters
The Maliq sequence is the backbone of Albanian prehistoric archaeology, tracing village life from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Maliq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maliq)
- [Wikipedia — Prehistoric Albania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Albania)
- [Wikipedia — Archaeological Museum of Korçë](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeological_Museum_of_Korçë)
- [Wikipedia — Prehistory (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Albania)