In times of the independent medieval state

In the 7th century the Slavs permanently settled on the territory of the present-day Autonomous Province of Kosovo 
\nand Metohija, known in the 19th and first half of the 20th
\ncentury as Old Serbia. As they followed Roman communication routes, moving through cultivated and urbanized areas, the Slavs came upon ideal settlement conditions in the 
\nfertile, finely undulating valleys of the Lab, Sitnica, Binačka 
\nMorava and Lepenica rivers, as well as in the rich plains in 
\nthe upper and central river courses of the Beli Drim and 
\nits tributaries. The subjects of the Roman Emperor, only 
\npartly Romanized, seem to have retreated towards the coast 
\nand to the highlands that surrounded these river valleys – 
\nfrom Mt. Kopaonik in the north to Mt. Šar in the south, 
\nand from the Prokletije Mountains and Mokra Planina in 
\nthe west, to Mts. Radan, Goljak and Crna Gora in the east. 
\nAmong the many individual Slavic tribes and their temporary groupings organized into sclaviniae, the Serbs were the 
\nmost numerous in the central and southwestern regions of 
\nthe Balkans. In the absence of adequate systematic research 
\nand examination of material evidence, the Serbian presence 
\nin Kosovo and Metohija in the early medieval period is reflected principally in the toponyms that must have emerged 
\nand become widely accepted over a lengthy period before 
\nthey began to appear in their definitive form in written 
\nsources from the 11th century onwards. Written and material evidence suggests that over the following centuries until 
\nthe Turkish conquest of the region the share of the Serbian 
\npopulation in Kosovo and Metohija exceeded 95%. There 
\nis no evidence of Albanian presence in this territory before 
\nthe 14th century1
\n and even thereafter it was limited to individuals or small groups in urban areas or stand-alone nomadic herding bands (katuni) on the slopes of the Prokletije 
\nmountain range, in Altin and in the Ribnik (Erenik) valley.