Numerous recent studies have been focused on the last glacial period and its impact on human adaptation. The results turned out to be legitimately sufficient due to the relatively broad preserved...Show moreNumerous recent studies have been focused on the last glacial period and its impact on human adaptation. The results turned out to be legitimately sufficient due to the relatively broad preserved archaeological record (Gamble et al. 2004, 244-247). Nevertheless not all parts of the Palaeolithic Europe have been well investigated like Germany, France and the Iberian Peninsula. This BA thesis gives an insight in the Upper Palaeolithic hunter and gatherer societies of the Northwestern part of the Balkan, including Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), dating from 26.5ka to approximately 19ka calendar years ago. The primary research will discuss the hypothesis whether the latter named regions were a possible refugium for hunter and gatherer communities from north and central Europe. An inventory of Upper Palaeolithic sites located in the Northwestern Balkan region, provived a set of data including the faunal remains, the lithic industries and the stratigraphical sequences. The outcome resulted in a divided conclusion, on the one hand stating that all 7 sites included in the inventory yielded traces of hominid occupation corresponding with a frequently occupated Balkan region during the entire Last Glacial Maximum. The inventory data on the other hand, did not prove the presence or origin from Central European hominids. Whereas the traces of occupation could have also been from indigenous localities. More specialistic research focused on genetic DNA shall reveal these ambiguities in the future.Show less
This thesis is about one of the basic concepts of International Relations, a highly valued theory that has been used to explain multiple cases in world history: the security dilemma. The originally...Show moreThis thesis is about one of the basic concepts of International Relations, a highly valued theory that has been used to explain multiple cases in world history: the security dilemma. The originally interstate concept was intended to explain those conflicts where states were involuntarily drawn to conflict. Not only has the security dilemma been applied to interstate conflict as it was originally intended, there is also a sizable literature available on the security dilemma applied to ethnic conflict. But in order to account for ethnic conflict the security dilemma has been stretched and a while authors like Posen, Kaufman, Melander and Roe assert that the conflict in Croatia and the former Yugoslavia was a consequence of the security dilemma. This thesis will illustrate the opposite, showing that the security dilemma neglects and fails to account for essential processes that have contributed to and even caused the ethnic violence in Croatia in 1991. The revisiting of the case study of the ethnic conflict between the Serbs and Croats in Croatia will serve to lay the foundations for the broader theoretical claim that the security dilemma cannot be successfully applied to intra-state conflict.Show less