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During the course of the nineteenth century the island of Kythera, Southwest Greece, was part of the United States of Ionian Islands, under the control of the British empire. This paper explores the materiality of colonialism in local contexts, through the object itineraries of a group of stoneware bottles—a class of artefacts that continues to be represented in domestic assemblages locally today. We examine the diverse ways the vessels became entangled with the lives of individuals, colonialist agendas, and collective perceptions of identity, seeking to identify how the meanings associated with the objects and their relational connections shifted across time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a survey of the port of Fiskardo, a village located north of the island of Kefalonia, the largest of the Ionian Islands, in Greece. Called the "Venice of the South" as the coloured elevations of the houses, the subject of the research, are similar to Venetian buildings, Fiskardo owes its name to Roberto d'Altavilla who founded a Frankish colony in this bay.The study, starting with archival iconographic research, was carried out with the support of the photogrammetric technique supported by a four-helix drone allowed the documentation of the cultural heritage. This activity is configured as a search for identity characteristics through actions of knowledge of the places and geometries of the port through the use of UAV technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of a new economic and political system in post-socialist Albania strongly affected the neighbouring regions of Greece, particularly by successive waves of migration. This paper explores three key aspects of Albanian migration to Greece. First, it investigates the basic factors that determine Albanian migrants' decision to settle in middle-sized Greek cities close to the border with Albania. Second, it examines the main patterns of trans-border mobility between Albania and Greece. And third, it looks at the possible interconnections between integration into Greek society and trans-border mobility. The role of geographical proximity and other factors that define migrants' integration are also discussed. The paper concludes that frequent mobility produces important trans-national activity and discusses whether this mobility corresponds to an emerging type of 'trans-migrant'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Wine is one of the oldest traditional alcoholic beverages consumed worldwide. In addition, red and white wines are an excellent source of antioxidant compounds. Numerous studies have focused on the analysis of phenolic acids and flavonoids of several wines originating from organic and conventional cultivars growing grapes. However, to the authors best knowledge, there are no research papers dealing with the phenolic content of wines made on the Ionian Islands so far. Materials and methods. The amount of total phenolics, total flavonoids, total anthocyanins, total tannins, the concentrations of individual phenolic compounds, as well as the antioxidant capacity, were used synergistically to assess the compositional profile of eleven monovarietal wines. Results. As expected, red wines exhibited the strongest antioxidant profile. Vertzami was the richest variety in total phenols and antioxidant capacity, followed by the Avgoustiatis variety and Mavrodaphne variety. Regarding white wines, Thiako white had the highest total phenolic values, while Robola rosé contained a similar total phenolic content as the white varieties. A highly positive correlation between the antioxidant capacity and polyphenol composition expressed as total phenolic, total flavonoid, total anthocyanin and total tannin content, was observed. Last, gallic acid and tyrosol were two of the major phenolic compounds detected in all tested wines. Conclusion. Our findings revealed that the amounts of phenolic contents and antioxidant activity vary significantly in different types of wines. The observed differences could be related to a range of variables such as geographical origin, aging, climate and the vinification techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Late Helladic (LH) burial structures and related sacred areas of the southern Ionian Islands and considers how they served as diachronic markers of social space and active agents within the processes of individual and collective identity formation and negotiation. More specifically, it explores a series of examples depicting instances of manipulating memory and the past. I argue that Mycenaean burial monuments played an important part in the configuration of ideological narratives and the construction of traditions aimed either to affirm or to legitimise social status and socio-political hierarchies. Development of tomb and hero cults as interrelated phenomena with strategies of past manipulation are also discussed in detail. The chronological framework covers a broad period between the early LH and the Geometric period, and focuses on the island of Kefalonia, which includes the richest dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1800, while the Napoleonic Wars raged, in the former Venetian Ionian islands was founded the state of the Septinsular Republic, which came under the protection of Russia and the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire in which the new State was tributary. Soon the administration of the islands has launched a dense consular network. Main activity of the Ionian consuls was the service of merchants and shipping entrepreneurs, but also all of those Ionians travelling for various reasons abroad. One of the activities of the consuls was however information of Ionian authorities on various developments of military and political level happening in the Italian peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean in a period full of decisive military facts, in which played a dominant role the conflict between Napoleon Bonaparte and the British Empire. The main aim of the proposed paper is the presentation of this corpus of documentation and its evaluation in relation to both the general accepted historical facts and the sources of such information. War at sea and trade routes in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to add a new principle in power system operation: the economic use of equipment. Economic use of equipment guides system operation, so that the cost of equipment wear is considered during the minimization of overall system running cost. To achieve this, a mathematical description of the connection between wear and use of equipment is needed. In this work, a methodology of expressing wear of cables as a function of their operating point is presented. A cost is attached to the wear of each cable system, which is augmented to the overall system running cost. The interconnected network of the Ionian Islands in Greece is used as a study case, which demonstrates the impact of the wear cost of cables during economic dispatch. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper examines the history of relations between the Roman Inquisition and the societies of the Venetian Ionian Islands. Specifically, it studies cases of arrest or accusation to the Inquisition of subjects of the Republic of Venice residing permanently or displaying in the Ionian region delinquent behaviour on issues relating to faith during the period οf the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Besides the definition of the divergent ideas embraced or propagated by the accused as well as their deviant behaviours and practices, principal issues investigated are on the one hand the role and the policies of the State authorities regarding religious dissent and its repression, and on the other the perception of the Roman Inquisition by the local societies and the reflections of its function in the social domain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the study of the geomorphological processes and the impact of neotectonic deformation on the geomorphological structure. A vast database was developed, containing different kinds of information, concerning geology, topography, drainage characteristics, vegetation and land use of the Ionian Islands. A geographic information system platform was developed in order to analyse the data, and to model and finally map the prevailing geomorphological processes: the erosion and deposition zones. Erosion risk factors have been processed in order to develop erosion risk maps demonstrating vulnerable to erosion areas. This study also concludes that the Ionian Islands are strongly influenced by the neotectonic processes that have defined their current morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used the Species Area Relationship (SAR) (modelled with the power function) to predict the butterfly richness of Othoni, the westernmost Ionian island, (Greece), by comparing two datasets: one only based on literature data, and the other including new records. Although the SAR based on literature data indicated that butterfly richness for this island was already well sampled (nine species recorded against 7.3 predicted by the model), during a four-day fieldwork in August 2023 we spotted 11 previously unrecorded butterfly species. We discussed that the evaluation of the SAR was largely affected by under sampling of small islands while faunal inventories of large islands appeared almost complete. This was also reflected by a very high slope (z ≈ 0.5) and an intercept (c ≈ 2) which appears quite low for Mediterranean butterflies. A SAR model only including large islands and those showing richness above the 95% confidence interval revealed more trustworthy c and z values (0.3 and 8, respectively). We conclude that evaluating SAR parameters using literature data which did not originate from specifically planned research in archipelagos comprising small islands could return unreliable predictions. Moreover, we documented that the current faunal list of Othoni island can be considered sufficiently accurate to reliably include this island in wider biogeographical analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present for the first time geomorphological, sedimentary and microfaunal evidence of palaeotsunami impact on Corfu (Ionian Islands, Greece). The island of Corfu is located in an area of exceptional tectonic stress: towards the south, the African oceanic plate is being subducted underneath the Aegean plate, whereas towards the north, the Adriatic and European plates form a continental collision zone. Recent publications provide evidence of earthquake related co-seismic movements that potentially trigger extreme wave events as well as relative sea level fluctuations. In this context, we investigated two selected near-coast geological archives – the Chalikiopoulou Lagoon in the east and the Korission Lagoon in the southwest of Corfu Island. Our results clearly document that the eastern as well as the southwestern coasts of Corfu were repeatedly affected by palaeotsunami impact during the Holocene. With regard to the local topographical constellation and the recent geomorphodynamic potential of each study area, evidence of high-energy wave impact is based on the stratigraphical and microfaunal record of selected vibracoring sites as well as on numerical modelling results. It is concluded that the eastern coast of Corfu is preferably affected by high-energy wave impacts from a southern direction. Such impacts are most likely related to teletsunamis from the major seismical zone of the Hellenic Trench. In contrast, the southwestern coast of Corfu is endangered by impacts from both western and southern directions. Such impacts may comprise teletsunamis triggered in the Hellenic Trench or the Etna regions but may also be caused by local submarine landslides at the steeply sloping continental shelf directly west of Corfu. Our study builds a bridge between palaeotsunami-research conducted in the southern Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea and allows to better discriminate between the effects of teletsunamis and locally triggered events within one of the seismically most active regions in the eastern Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samples from three oil shows in Western Greece were studied following a suite of analytical geochemical procedures, aiming to reveal the origin of the organic matter and characterize its depositional environment. The authors’ findings were compared, and confirmed to a great extent, to geochemical results from previously published studies. Certain compositional differences exist between the three oil shows, reflecting different source rock and/or different facies. The influence of different analytical methodologies commonly used to separate compound groups (saturates, aromatics, resins, asphaltenes) on the obtained geochemical indices was also examined. The results demonstrate that bulk composition of maltenes, as well as most biomarker indices, are not affected significantly by the employed group-type separation procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cephalonia, located in the middle of the central Ionian Islands, has been affected by destructive earthquakes during both the instrumental and the historical period. Despite the fact that it is widely studied from several scientific viewpoints, limited research has been conducted so far regarding the earthquake-triggered landslides (ETL) and the related susceptibility. In the context of the present study, an inventory with 67 ETL from 11 earthquakes that occurred from 1636 to 2014 is presented. Given this record, the study further examines the ETL susceptibility exploiting 10 landslide causal factors in the frame of a GIS-based Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Four factors (i.e., slope, PGA, tectonic structures and lithology) were associated in a higher degree to the locations where ETL occurred on the island. Based on the comparison of the ETL inventory and the landslide susceptibility index (LSI) map, the distribution of ETL in Cephalonia is not random, as their majority (82%) were generated within high to critically high susceptible zones. This fact, along with the AUC values of 80.3%, reveals a fair-to-good accuracy of the landslide susceptibility assessment and indicate that the contribution of the studied variables to the generation of ETL was effectively determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper summarises the current development in the southern Ionian Islands (Kefallinia and Zakynthos) prehistory and places it within the context of seafaring. Archaeological data from the southern Ionian Islands show human habitation since Middle Palaeolithic going back to 110 ka BP yet bathymetry, sea-level changes and the Late Quaternary geology, show that Kefallinia and Zakynthos were insular at that time. Hence, human presence in these islands indicates inter island-mainland seafaring. Seafaring most likely started some time between 110 and 35 ka BP and the seafarers were the Neanderthals. Seafaring was encouraged by the coastal configuration, which offered the right conditions for developing seafaring skills according to the “voyaging nurseries” and “autocatalysis” concepts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: While earlier hypotheses concerning the household formation patterns of Greek populations were proved mistaken, further hypotheses have been proposed. Though the small number of existing studies prevents us from conclusively describing the household formation patterns in nineteenth century Greece, no studies exist referring to eighteenth century. This paper examines the household formation patterns on eighteenth century Kythera using nominal census and notarial sources. It demonstrates that Kythera did not belong either to the West or to the East, as these were described by Hajnal; neither did its household formation system conform to Laslett''s Mediterranean tendency in quotation marks. The widespread prevalence of nuclear households in Kythera disguised the strong economic links between the paternal household and those of his sons. Thus, the residential independence, as demonstrated in the quantitative analysis of the census, contrasts the economic inter-dependence between the paternal and the son''s households, as depicted in the qualitative notarial sources. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The efficiency of earthquake clustering investigation is improved as we gain access to larger datasets due to the increase of earthquake detectability. We aim to demonstrate the robustness of a new clustering method, MAP-DBSCAN, and to present a comprehensive analysis of the clustering properties in three major seismic zones of Greece during 2012–2019. A time-dependent stochastic point model, the Markovian Arrival Process (MAP), is implemented for the detection of change-points in the seismicity rate and subsequently, a density-based clustering algorithm, DBSCAN, is used for grouping the events into spatiotemporal clusters. The two-step clustering procedure, MAP-DBSCAN, is compared with other existing methods (Gardner-Knopoff, Reasenberg, Nearest-Neighbor) on a simulated earthquake catalog and is proven highly competitive as in most cases outperforms the tested algorithms. Next, the earthquake clusters in the three areas are detected and the regional variability of their productivity rates is investigated based on the generic estimates of the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model. The seismicity in the seismic zone of Corinth Gulf is characterized by low aftershock productivity and high background rates, indicating the dominance of swarm activity, whereas in Central Ionian Islands seismic zone where main shock-aftershock sequences dominate, the aftershock productivity rates are higher. The productivity in the seismic zone of North Aegean Sea vary significantly among clusters probably due to the co-existence of swarm activity and aftershock sequences. We believe that incorporating regional variations of the productivity into forecasting models, such as the ETAS model, it might improve operational earthquake forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a paper about a joint Danish-Greek archaeological landscape and field-work program carried out during 1991-98 across the northern, the eastern and the south-eastern parts of Kephallenia, the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece. People and organizations involved in the project; Greek operational contact and main partner; Participation of scholars and students; Funding for the main project; Parameters of the project; Work in progress; Knowledge acquired.

The August 1953 seismic sequence comprised the most destructive events in the recent history of Greece. The mainshock on 12 August, and its foreshocks on 9 and 11 August, devastated the southern Ionian Islands. The existing literature emphasized the destructive effects of the earthquakes on buildings, as well as to the emergency response and recovery actions. This resulted in a large gap in capturing the full picture of the earthquake's environmental effects. The present study aims to fill this gap by reconstructing the most complete picture possible of the primary and secondary effects on the environment of the southern Ionian Islands by the August 1953 earthquakes. This reconstruction is based on all available sources, comprising not only the existing scientific literature, but especially sources that have not been considered to date, including newspapers of local and national circulation. In total, 120 cases of the earthquake's environmental effects were identified, comprised of 33 cases of primary and 87 cases of secondary effects. In descending order of occurrence, slope failures, co-seismic uplift, hydrological anomalies, ground cracks, tsunami, liquefaction, dust clouds, hydrocarbon-related phenomena, jumping stones and vegetation effects were distributed mainly in Cephalonia Island and secondarily in the Ithaki and Zakythos Islands. The primary effects were mainly detected in eastern Cephalonia, which presented uplift of up to 70 cm, while the majority of the secondary effects were triggered in specific zones with characteristics that made them susceptible to the occurrence of earthquake-related hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several conference papers on the archeological activities in Ionian Islands, Greece are presented. It discusses the excavation of a historic site along the channel which connects Lake Korission with the sea. It examines the artificial channel which connects the lake to the sea uncovered Pleistocene deposits which are placed above the sea level. It states that the archaeological materials found during the excavation include stone flakes, cores, tools, and animal bones.

Background: Greece has two island archipelagos, the Aegean and the Ionian, which host a rich array of plants and wildlife, particularly endemic and threatened plant species. Despite the long history of island biogeographic studies in the Aegean, similar studies in the Ionian remain limited, with the two island archipelagos rarely being compared. Results: The Aegean and Ionian archipelagos share many features, especially regarding total plant diversity, but exhibit different patterns of endemism. For instance, when considering similarly sized islands, those in the Ionian host as many as, if not more, species compared to the Aegean. In contrast, the Ionian Islands are poor in endemics (particularly narrow range endemics, such as single island or regional endemics) and threatened taxa, compared to the Aegean Islands. In the Ionian, endemics only persist on the largest islands, and form a very small proportion of the species pool, compared to the Aegean archipelago. Conclusions: The lack of endemism might be attributed to the more recent separation of the Ionian Islands from the mainland and the shorter distance separating them from the mainland. In addition, the Ionian Islands receive higher levels of precipitation and are typically covered by denser and higher vegetation than the Aegean Islands. These conditions favour greater total species richness, but tend to lead to higher numbers of common species compared to threatened and endemic taxa. This study demonstrates that both isolation and precipitation serve as biodiversity drivers, influencing plant species diversity and endemism patterns, of the two Greek archipelagos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tectono-sedimentary evolution of the western Pre-Apulian zone of the Hellenides is investigated through comparison of the microfacies of clasts from breccia beds within gravity-flow successions of Zakynthos with those of the carbonate ramp of the westernmost part of Cephalonia. After the demise of a Late Cretaceous rimmed platform, the Paleogene successions of the Ionian Islands represent different facies patterns of a carbonate ramp. In western Cephalonia (Lixouri peninsula), different successions suggest the existence of five juxtaposed tectono-sedimentary sectors, remnants of a larger carbonate ramp. In Zakynthos, six distinct sectors with different toe of slope-proximal basin stratigraphic successions were recognized, all affected by a Paleocene-Lower Eocene hiatus, which can be grouped into two tectono-sedimentary units. Through the analysis of successions of the Lixouri peninsula and breccia clasts from Zakynthos, 24 age-constrained and spatially related Upper Cretaceous-Oligocene microfacies types were recognized, illustrating a variety of sedimentary environments. These microfacies were allocated to five different stages in the evolution of a tectono-sedimentary model from down-faulting, through backstepping, uplift and dismantling, to fault-controlled subsidence and finally complete drowning. Various microfacies of the clasts can be correlated to the stratigraphic record of the Lixouri peninsula, whereas others are absent there. Thus an inferred adjacent source terrain, now tectonically obliterated, was likely located west of the present-day Ionian Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iliadou E., Panitsa M., Raus Th. & Dimopoulos P.: Flora and factors affecting species diversity in protected 'Natura 2000' sites of the Ionian area: the Echinades islet group (Greece). - Willdenowia 44: 121-136. 20 March 2014. - Version of record published online ahead of inclusion in April 2014 issue; ISSN 1868-6397; © 2014 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. DOI: The vascular plant species diversity of the Echinades islet group, quite unexplored so far, is documented by an inventory of flowering plants and ferns, filling a gap in the floristic information available for the National Park to which these islets belong, as well as for the Ionian land-bridge island system, for which detailed studies concerning floristic and phytogeographical relationships were available before. Field investigations on 19 of the 20 Echinades islets generated an inventory of plant species composition for the first time for 18 of them and added 56 taxa as new to the islet of Oxeia as compared to previous literature. The total vascular flora of the Echinades islets comprises 386 plant taxa. Spectra of life-form and chorological categories are presented and discussed. Floristic cross-correlations (beta-diversity) showed that the individual islet floras differ from each other from 25 % to 85 %. Concerning the role of geographical variables as influencing plant species diversity in the area, regression analyses indicated island surface area and elevation as the major predictor variables of species richness, while distance to the mainland plays a subordinate predictive role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our purpose in undertaking this research is to methodically map the labour market circumstances of the main immigrant groups in Greece. We classify all of the Districts of Greece into three categories (Diverse, Mixed and Unmixed) according to the ethnic composition of each District. We measure how the employment status of the immigrants varies (1) according to the ethnic group and sex of the immigrant, and (2) according to the ethnic composition and economic structure of a District. In general, the majority of immigrants exhibit lower unemployment and higher economic activity rates than the indigenous Greeks. Three immigrant groups (Albanians, Bulgarians and 'Other'), which make up two-thirds of the foreign-born population of Greece, have lower unemployment rates than the national average, and lower rates than Greeks as well. The poorest labour market outcomes are observed in Unmixed and Mixed Districts, whereas Diverse Districts are better off. At the regional level, the most disadvantaged Geographical Department is the Ionian Islands, since it presents the highest unemployment rates for the general population for both sexes. With regard to sex-differential unemployment across immigrant groups, we found that women exhibit higher unemployment than men in almost every ethnic group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the variability of the precipitation regime across the Ionian Islands complex, Greece (Central Mediterranean), for a period spanning more than one century. Significant negative long-term linear trends in the annual precipitation totals are observed, more pronounced in the southern parts of the studied area, while a climatic discontinuity possibly occurred during the 1970s, manifested first in the southern Ionian. Statistically significant nonlinear trends and subdecadal intermittent oscillations were detected using Monte Carlo singular spectral analysis. The correlation of the winter precipitation variability at Ionian complex with the North Atlantic Oscillation anomalies was also investigated and extended in the frequency domain. Finally, future projections were performed using an ensemble of Regional Climatic Models. Model simulations suggested a decrease of the order of ∼20% or more in the mean annual precipitation of the area by the end of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the seventh and sixth centuries bc parallels observed between Daskyleion and Gordion regarding trade amphoras imply that common ports and routes were used by these settlements. These similarities, as far as the transfer of goods to settlements in the inner part of Anatolia are concerned, place a special emphasis on the Hellespontine-Phrygia route to the southern ports of Propontis. During this period, this route supplied Greek goods to Phrygia on an equal level to the contemporary Ionia-Sardes route. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia (BBGK) is dedicated to the ex situ conservation of native plants of Greece and the Balkans. The BBGK has formulated a conservation strategy for the collection of wild plant material for propagation, prioritizing mainly the endemic, rare, endangered, threatened and vulnerable plants of Europe found in different regions of Greece. Its aim is to contribute to the implementation of Target 8 of the Global and European Strategies for Plant Conservation at local, regional and international scales. In order to (i) define the ecological profile of the in situ requirements preferred and/or tolerated by each selected species, (ii) develop rapid and effective species-specific propagation protocols, and (iii) improve the cultivation of species of conservation concern in BBGK's nurseries and ex situ conservation sections, geographical coordinates and in situ collection data obtained for each taxon were imported into a Geographic Information System environment (GIS). This information was then linked with several digital GIS thematic layers, including topographic, geological, edaphic, climatic, precipitation and temperature data derived from digital databases. Based on this approach, sexual and asexual propagation of plants from the Ionian Islands were conducted and rapid and effective baseline protocols were developed for 29 taxa (species and subspecies); four are presented here in detail and species-specific ex situ propagation and cultivation guidelines are given. Most of the taxa originating from the Ionian Islands were propagated by cuttings (55.2%) or seeds (34.5%), while the rest were propagated by root division at a rate from 1.7 to 2. The first round of propagation achieved a success rate ranging from 15 to 50% for 3 taxa, from 60 to 80% for 8 taxa and from more than 80 to 100% for 16 taxa, while the ex situ cultivation of the wild and propagated plant material has, so far, been successful. The application of GIS exemplified here presents a sensible and invaluable tool with a broad-scale potential in enhancing the prospects of the ex situ conservation of priority species collected from diverse environmental conditions in man-made habitats such as botanic gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]