The name Pelasgians (, ) was used by Classical Greece writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, and British historian Peter Green comments on it as "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world".
In the Classic period, enclaves under that name survived in several locations of mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean. Populations identified as "Pelasgian" spoke a language or languages that at the time Greeks ambivalently identified as "barbarian", though some ancient writers nonetheless described the Pelasgians as Greeks. A tradition also survived that large parts of Greece had once been Pelasgian before being Hellenization. These parts fell largely, though far from exclusively, within the territory which by the 5th century BC was inhabited by those speakers of ancient Greek who were identified as Ionians and Aeolians.
Etymology
Much like all other aspects of the "Pelasgians", their ethnonym (
Pelasgoi) is of extremely uncertain
provenance and
etymology. Michael Sakellariou collects fifteen different etymologies proposed for it by philologists and linguists during the last two hundred years, though he admits that "most ... are fanciful".
An ancient etymology based on mere similarity of sounds links pelasgos to pelargos , postulating that the Pelasgians were migrants like storks, possibly from Arcadia, where they nest.
Gilbert Murray summarized the derivation from pelas gē , current at his time: "If Pelasgoi is connected with πέλας", 'near', the word would mean 'neighbor' and would denote the nearest strange people to the invading Greeks.
Julius Pokorny derived Pelasgoi from *pelag-skoi ; specifically, "inhabitants of the Thessalian plain". He details a previous derivation, which appears in English at least as early as William Ewart Gladstone's Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age; if the Pelasgians were not Indo-Europeans, the name in this derivation must have been assigned by the Hellenes. Ernest Klein argued that the ancient Greek word for , pelagos, and the Doric word plagos (which is flat), shared the same root, *plāk-, and that *pelag-skoi therefore meant , where the sea is flat.
Ancient literary evidence
Literary analysis has been ongoing since
classical Greece, when the writers of those times read previous works on the subject. No definitive answers were ever forthcoming by this method; it rather served to better define the problems. The method perhaps reached a peak in the
Victorian era when new methods of systematic comparison began to be applied in
philology. Typical of the era is the study by William Ewart Gladstone, who was a trained classicist.
[. The Pelasgians are covered especially in Volume I.] Unless further ancient texts come to light, advances on the subject cannot be made. Therefore the most likely source of progress regarding the Pelasgians continues to be archaeology and related sciences.
The term "Pelasgians" in ancient sources
The definition of the term
Pelasgians in ancient sources was fluid. The Pelasgians were variously described by ancient authors as
Greeks, semi-Greek,
Barbarian and pre-Greek. There are no
emic perspectives of Pelasgian identity. According to an analysis by historian Tristn Lambright of Jacksonville State University:
Poets
Homer
In the
Iliad, there were Pelasgians on both sides of the
Trojan War. In the section known as the
Catalogue of Trojans, they are mentioned between the
cities and the
Thracians of Southeastern Europe (i.e.,on the
border of
Thrace).
[Homer. Iliad, 2.840–2.843. The camp at Troy is mentioned in Iliad, 10.428–10.429.] Homer calls their town or district "Larisa"
[Not the same as the Larissa in Thessaly, Greece. Many towns bearing the same (or similar) name existed. This specific "Larisa" seems to have been located in Asia. See: ] and characterises it as fertile, and its inhabitants as celebrated for their spearsmanship. He records their chiefs as
Hippothous and
Pylaeus, sons of Lethus, son of
Teutamides.
[Homer. Iliad 2.806–12, 17.320–57 (transl. Robert Fitzgerald). See: ] The
Iliad also refers to the camp at
Greece, specifically at "
Argos Pelasgikon",
[Homer. Iliad, 2.681–2.684.] which is most likely to be the plain of Thessaly,
[The location is never explicitly given. Gladstone shows, by process of elimination, that it must be in the north of Thessaly. (.)] and to "Pelasgic
Zeus", living in and ruling over
Dodona.
[Homer. Iliad, 16.233–16.235.] Additionally, according to the
Iliad, Pelasgians were camping out on the shore together with the following tribes:
Towards the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians, with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones, and the goodly Pelasgi.[Homer. Iliad, 10.428.]
In the Odyssey, they appear among the inhabitants of Crete. Odysseus, affecting to be Cretan himself, instances Pelasgians among the tribes in the ninety cities of Crete, "language mixing with language side by side".[Homer. Odyssey, 19.175–19.177 (Robert Fagles's translation).] Last on his list, Homer distinguishes them from other ethnicities on the island: "Cretans proper", Achaeans, Cydonians (of the city of Kydonia/modern Chania), Dorians, and "noble Pelasgians".[Homer. Odyssey, Book 19 (T.E. Lawrence's translation).]
Hesiod
Hesiod, in a fragment known from
Strabo, calls Dodona, identified by reference to "the
oak", the "seat of Pelasgians",
[Hesiod, fr. 319 M–W = Strabo. Geography, 7.7.10.] thus explaining why Homer, in referring to Zeus as he ruled over Dodona, did
not style him "
Dodonic" but
Pelasgic Zeus. He mentions also that
Pelasgus (Greek: Πελασγός, the
eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians) was the father of King Lycaon of Arcadia.
[Hesiod. Catalogue of Women, fr. 161 = Strabo. Geography, 5.2.4]
Asius of Samos
Asius of Samos () describes
Pelasgus as the first man, born of the earth. This account features centrally in the construction of an enduring autochthonous Arcadian identity into the
Classical Greece. In a fragment quoted by Pausanias, Asius describes the foundational hero of the Greek ethnic groups as "godlike Pelasgus whom black earth gave up".
Aeschylus
Aeschylus incorporates all the territories that the Archaic tradition identifies as Pelasgian, including
Thessaly (the region of Homer's Pelasgian Argos),
Dodona (the seat of Homer's Pelasgian Zeus), and Arcadia (the region ruled by autochthonous
Pelasgus's son Lycaon) into an Argive-Pelasgian kingdom ruled by Pelasgus. This affirms the ancient Greek origins of the Pelasgians as well as their widespread settlements throughout central Greece and the
Peloponnese.
In Aeschylus's play, The Suppliants, the Danaus fleeing from Egypt seek asylum from King Pelasgus of Argos, which he says is on the Strymon, including Perrhaebia in the north, the Thessalian Dodona and the slopes of the Pindus mountains on the west and the shores of the sea on the east;[Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 249–259.] that is, a territory including but somewhat larger than classical Pelasgiotis. The southern boundary is not mentioned; however, Apis is said to have come to Argos from Naupactus "across" ( peras),[Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 262–263.] implying that Argos includes all of east Greece from the north of Thessaly to the Peloponnesian Argos, where the Danaids are probably to be conceived as having landed. He claims to rule the Pelasgians and to be the "child of Palaichthon (or 'ancient earth') whom the earth brought forth".
The Danaids call the country the "Apian hills" and claim that it understands the karbana audan[Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 128–129.] (accusative case, and in the Dorian dialect), which many translate as "barbarian speech" but Karba (where the Karbanoi live) is in fact a non-Greek word. They claim to descend from ancestors in ancient Argos even though they are of a "dark race" ( melanthes... genos).[Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 154–155.] Pelasgus admits that the land was once called Apia but compares them to the women of Libya and Egypt and wants to know how they can be from Argos on which they cite descent from Io.[Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Lines 279–281.]
According to Strabo, Aeschylus's Suppliants defines the original homeland of the Pelasgians as the region around Mycenae.
Sophocles and Euripides
Sophocles and Euripides affirm the Greek origins of the Pelasgians while highlighting their relationship to the
Danaids, a relationship introduced and explored in depth in
Aeschylus's
Suppliants.
Sophocles presents Inachus, in a fragment of a missing play entitled Inachus, as the elder in the lands of Argos, the hills and among the Tyrsenoi Pelasgoi, an unusual hyphenated noun construction, "Tyrsenians-Pelasgians". Interpretation is open, even though translators typically make a decision, but Tyrsenians may well be the ethnonym Tyrrhenoi.
Euripides uses the term for the inhabitants of Argos in his Orestes[Euripides. Orestes, Lines 857 and 933.] and The Phoenician Women.[Euripides. The Phoenician Women, Line 107.] In a lost play entitled Archelaus, he says that Danaus, on coming to reside in the city of Inachus (Argos), formulated a law whereby the Pelasgians were now to be called Danaans.
Ovid
The
Ancient Rome poet
Ovid describes the Greeks of the Trojan War as Pelasgians in his
Metamorphoses:
[Ovid. Metamorphoses, 12.1.]
Historians
Hecataeus of Miletus
Hecataeus of Miletus in a fragment from
Genealogiai states that the
genos ("clan") descending from
Deucalion ruled
Thessaly and that it was called "Pelasgia" from king Pelasgus. A second fragment states that Pelasgus was the son of
Zeus and
Niobe and that his son Lycaon founded a dynasty of kings of Arcadia.
Acusilaus
A fragment from the writings of
Acusilaus asserts that the
Peloponnesus were called "Pelasgians" after Pelasgus, a son of
Zeus and
Niobe.
[Mentioned in Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.1.]
Hellanicus
Hellanicus of Lesbos concerns himself with one word in one line of the
Iliad, "pasture-land of horses", applied to Argos in the
Peloponnesus.
[Hellanicus fr. 36, Fowler, p. 173 (apud Scholia (T+) Iliad 3.75b); cf. Hellanicus fr. 7, Sturtz, pp. 49–51; Homer. Iliad, 3.75.] According to Hellanicus, from
Pelasgus and his wife Menippe came a line of kings:
Phrastor, Amyntōr,
Teutamides and Nanas (kings of Pelasgiotis in Thessaly).
[Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.28.3 (citing Hellanicus, Phoronis) = Hellanicus fr. 4, Fowler, pp. 156–157; cf. Hellanicus fr. 76, Sturtz, pp. 108–109.] During Nanas's reign, the Pelasgians were driven out by the Greeks and departed for Italy. They landed at the mouth of the
Po River, near the Etruscan city of
Spina, then took the inland city "Crotona" (
Κρότωνα), and from there colonized
Tyrrhenia. The inference is that Hellanicus believed the Pelasgians of Thessaly (and indirectly of the Peloponnese) to have been the ancestors of the
Etruscans.
Herodotus
In the
Histories, the Greek historian
Herodotus of
Halicarnassus made many references to the Pelasgians. In Book 1, the Pelasgians are mentioned within the context of
Croesus seeking to learn who the strongest Greeks were to befriend them.
[Herodotus. Histories, 1.56.] Afterwards, Herodotus ambivalently classified the Pelasgian language as "
Barbarians" though he thought of the Pelasgians to have been essentially Greek. Herodotus also discussed various areas inhabited (or previously inhabited) by Pelasgians/Pelasgian-speakers along with their different neighbors/co-residents:
[Herodotus. Histories, 1.57. (.)]
Furthermore, Herodotus discussed the relationship between the Pelasgians and the (other) Greeks,[Herodotus. Histories, 1.56–1.58. (.)] which, according to Pericles Georges, reflected the "rivalry within Greece itself between ... Dorian Sparta and Ionian Athens." Specifically, Herodotus stated that the Hellenes separated from the Pelasgians with the former group surpassing the latter group numerically:[Herodotus. Histories, 1.58. (.)]
In Book 2, Herodotus alluded to the Pelasgians as inhabitants of Samothrace, an island located just north of Troy, before coming to Attica.[Herodotus. Histories, 2.51. The text allows two interpretations, that Pelasgians were indigenous there or that they had been resettled by Athens.] Moreover, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians simply called their gods theoi prior to naming them on the grounds that the gods established all affairs in their order ( thentes); the author also stated that the gods of the Pelasgians were the Cabeiri.[Herodotus. Histories, 2.51.] Later, Herodotus stated that the entire territory of Greece (i.e., Hellas) was initially called "Pelasgia".[Herodotus. Histories, 2.56.]
In Book 5, Herodotus mentioned the Pelasgians as inhabitants of the islands of Lemnos and Imbros.[Herodotus. Histories, 5.26.]
In Book 6, the Pelasgians of Lemnos were originally Hellespontine Pelasgians who had been living in Athens but whom the Athens resettled on Lemnos and then found it necessary to reconquer the island.[Herodotus. Histories, 6.137–6.140.] This expulsion of (non-Athenian) Pelasgians from Athens may reflect, according to the historian Robert Buck, "a dim memory of forwarding of refugees, closely akin to the Athenians in speech and custom, to the Ionian colonies".[.] Also, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians on the island of Lemnos opposite Troy once kidnapped the Hellenic women of Athens for wives, but the Athenian wives created a crisis by teaching their children "the language of Attica" instead of the Pelasgian.[Herodotus. Histories, 6.138.]
In Book 7, Herodotus mentioned "the Pelasgian city of Antandrus"[Herodotus. Histories, 7.42.] and wrote about the Ionian inhabitants of "the land now called Achaea" (i.e., northwestern Peloponnese) being "called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or Pelasgi of the Sea Shore"; afterwards, they were called Ionians.[Herodotus. Histories, 7.94.] Moreover, Herodotus mentioned that the Aegean islanders "were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name Ionians" and that the Aeolians, according to the Hellenes, were known anciently as "Pelasgians."[Herodotus. Histories, 7.95. (.)]
In Book 8, Herodotus mentioned that the Pelasgians of Athens were previously called Cranai.[Herodotus. Histories, 8.44.]
Thucydides
In the
History of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek historian
Thucydides wrote about the Pelasgians stating that:
[Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.3.2.]
The author regards the Athenians as having lived in scattered independent settlements in Attica; but at some time after Theseus, they changed residence to Athens, which was already populated. A plot of land below the Acropolis was called "Pelasgian" and was regarded as cursed, but the Athenians settled there anyway.[Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.16–2.17.1.]
In connection with the campaign against Amphipolis, Thucydides mentions that several settlements on the promontory of Mount Athos were home to:[Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 4.109.4.]
Ephorus
The historian
Ephorus, building on a fragment from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a people living a "military way of life" (
stratiōtikon bion) "and that, in converting many peoples to the same mode of life, they imparted their name to all", meaning "all of Hellas". They colonized Crete and extended their rule over Epirus, Thessaly and by implication over wherever else the ancient authors said they were, beginning with Homer. The Peloponnese was called "Pelasgia".
[Strabo. Geography, 5.2.4.]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
In the
Roman Antiquities, Dionysius of Halicarnassus in several pages gives a synoptic interpretation of the Pelasgians based on the sources available to him then, concluding that Pelasgians were Greek:
[Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.17.]
He goes on to add that the nation wandered a great deal.
From there, the Pelasgians dispersed to Crete, the Cyclades, Histaeotis, Boeotia, Phocis, Euboea, the coast along the Hellespont and the islands, especially Lesbos, which had been colonized by Macar son of Crinacus.[Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.18.] Most went to Dodona and eventually being driven from there to Italy (then called Saturnia), they landed at Spina at the mouth of the Po River.[Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.19.] They and the Aborigenes took over Umbria but were dispossessed by the Tyrrhenians.[Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, 1.19–1.20.]
Geographers
Pausanias
In his
Description of Greece, Pausanias mentions the Arcadians who state that
Pelasgus (along with his followers) was the first inhabitant of their land.
[Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.1.4.] Upon becoming king, Pelasgus invented
huts, sheep-skin coats, and a diet consisting of
while governing the land named after him, "Pelasgia".
[Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.1.5 and 8.1.6.] When
Arcas became king, Pelasgia was renamed "Arcadia" and its inhabitants (the Pelasgians) were renamed "Arcadians".
[Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.4.1.] Pausanias also mentions the Pelasgians as responsible for creating a wooden image of
Orpheus in a sanctuary of
Demeter at Therae,
[Pausanias. Description of Greece, 3.20.5.] as well as expelling the
Minyans and
Lacedaemonians from Lemnos.
[Pausanias. Description of Greece, 7.2.2.]
Strabo
Strabo dedicates a section of his
Geographica to the Pelasgians, relating both his own opinions and those of prior writers. He begins by stating:
He defines Pelasgian Argos as being "between the outlets of the Peneus River and Thermopylae as far as the mountainous country of Pindus" and states that it took its name from Pelasgian rule. He includes also the tribes of Epirus as Pelasgians (based on the opinions of "many"). Lesbos is named Pelasgian. Caere was settled by Pelasgians from Thessaly, who called it by its former name, "Agylla". Pelasgians also settled around the mouth of the Tiber River in Italy at Pyrgi and a few other settlements under a king, Maleos.[Strabo. Geography, 5.2.8.]
Language
In the absence of certain knowledge about the identity (or identities) of the Pelasgians, various theories have been proposed. Some of the more prevalent theories supported by scholarship are presented below. Since Greek is classified as an Indo-European language, the major question of concern is whether Pelasgian was an Indo-European language.
Reception
The theory that Pelasgian was an Indo-European language, which "fascinated scholars" and concentrated research during the second part of the 20th century, has since been critiqued; an emerging consensus among modern linguists is that the substrate language spoken in the southern
Balkans was non-Indo-European. García-Ramón remarked that "the attempt to determine phonological rules for an Indo-European pre-Greek language ('Pelasgian') ... is considered a complete failure today", while Beekes (2018) notes that "one of the demerits of Georgiev's Pelasgian theory was that it drew attention away from the Pre-Greek material itself", concluding that "the search for Pelasgian was an expensive and useless distraction." However, Biliana Mihaylova finds no contradiction between "the idea of an Indo-European Pre-Greek substratum" and "the possibility of the existence of an earlier non-Indo-European layer in Greece" given certain Pre-Greek words possessing Indo-European "patterns of word formation."
Pelasgian as Indo-European
Greek
Edward Bulwer-Lytton argued that the Pelasgians spoke
Greek language based on the fact that areas traditionally inhabited by the "Pelasgi" (i.e. Arcadia and Attica) only spoke Greek and the few surviving Pelasgian words and inscriptions (i.e., Lamina Borgiana,
[An inscription discovered in Calabria in 1785 and preserved in Cardinal Borgia's collection at Velletri, discussed in Luigi Lanza, Saggio di lingua Latina e altri antichi d'Italia, vol. I, 2nd ed. Florence 1824.] Herodotus 2.52.1) betray Greek linguistic features despite the classical identification of Pelasgian as a
barbarian language.
[.] According to Thomas Harrison of Saint Andrews University, the Greek etymology of Pelasgian terms mentioned in Herodotus such as
θεοί (derived from
θέντες) indicates that the "Pelasgians spoke a language at least 'akin to' Greek".
According to French classical scholar Pierre Henri Larcher, if this linguistic affiliation is true, then it proves that the Pelasgians and the Greeks were the same people.
[: "If this affiliation of language be admitted, then the Pelasgians and Greeks were of the same race."]
Anatolian
In western Anatolia, many
with a "-ss-"
suffix derive from the adjectival suffix also seen in
cuneiform Luwian language and some
Palaic language; the classic example is
Bronze Age Tarhuntassa (loosely meaning "City of the Storm God Tarhunta"), and later
Parnassus possibly related to the Luwian word
parna- or "house". These elements have led to a second theory that Pelasgian was to some degree an Anatolian language, or that it had areal influences from Anatolian languages.
Thracian
Vladimir I. Georgiev, a Bulgarian linguist, asserted that the Pelasgians spoke an Indo-European language and were, more specifically, related to the
Thracians.
[See, for example, , , and .]
Albanian
In 1854, an
Austrian Empire diplomat and Albanian language specialist, Johann Georg von Hahn, identified the Pelasgian language with
Proto-Albanian. This theory is not supported by any scientific evidence, and is seen as a myth by modern scholars.
[; Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bernd Jürgen Fischer, editors of Albanian Identities: Myth and History, present papers resulting from the London Conference held in 1999 entitled "The Role of Myth in the History and Development of Albania." The "Pelasgian" myth of Albanians as the most ancient community in southeastern Europe is among those explored in Noel Malcolm's essay, "Myths of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements, As Expressed in the Works of Albanian Writers in America in the Early Twentieth Century". The introductory essay by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers establishes the context of the "Pelasgian Albanian" mythos, applicable to Eastern Europe generally, in terms of the longing for a stable identity in a rapidly opening society.]
Undiscovered Indo-European
Albert Joris Van Windekens (1915–1989) offered rules for an unattested hypothetical Indo-European Pelasgian language, selecting vocabulary for which there was no Greek etymology among the names of places, heroes, animals, plants, garments, artifacts and social organization. His 1952 essay
Le Pélasgique was skeptically received.
[As, for example, in Gordon Messing's extended review, criticizing point-by-point, in Language 30.1 (January–March 1954), pp. 104–108.]
Pelasgian as pre-Indo-European
Unknown origin
One theory uses the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants of the lands around the
Aegean Sea before the arrival of
Proto-Greek speakers, as well as traditionally identified enclaves of descendants that still existed in classical Greece. The theory derives from the original concepts of the
philology Paul Kretschmer, whose views prevailed throughout the first half of the 20th century and are still given some credibility today.
Though Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote them off as mythical, the results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart and Fritz Schachermeyr led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the 4th millennium BC.[; ; .] In this theory, a number of possible non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features are attributed to the Pelasgians:
-
Groups of apparently non-Indo-European loan words in the Greek language, borrowed in its prehistoric development.
-
Non-Greek and possibly non-Indo-European roots for many Greek toponyms in the region, containing the consonantal strings "- nth-" (e.g.,Corinth, Probalinthos, Zakynthos, Amarynthos), or its equivalent "-ns-" (e.g.,Tiryns); "- tt-", e.g.,in the peninsula of Attica, Mounts Hymettus and Penteli, Lycabettus Hill, the deme of Gargettus, etc.; or its equivalent "- ss-": Larissa, Mount Parnassus, the river names Kephissos and Ilissos, the Cretan cities of Amnisos and Tylissos etc. These strings also appear in other non-Greek, presumably substratally inherited nouns such as asáminthos (bathtub), ápsinthos (absinth), terébinthos (terebinth), etc. Other placenames with no apparent Indo-European etymology include Athēnai (Athens), Mykēnai (Mycene), Messene, Kyllēnē (Kastro-Kyllini), Cyrene, Mytilene, etc. (note the common -ēnai/ēnē ending); also Thebes, Delphi, Lindos, Rhamnus, and others.
[.]
-
Non-Greek inscriptions in the Mediterranean, such as the Lemnos stele.
The historian George Grote summarizes the theory as follows:
The poet and mythologist Robert Graves asserts that certain elements of that mythology originate with the native Pelasgian people (namely the parts related to his concept of the White Goddess, an archetype Goddess) drawing additional support for his conclusion from his interpretations of other ancient literature: Irish, Welsh, Greek, Bible, Gnosticism, and Middle Ages writings.[. Graves also imaginatively reconstructs a "Pelasgian creation myth", which involves a creatrix "Eurynome" and a serpent "Ophion".]
Minoan
According to Russian scholar Yu. D. Andreyev, the Pelasgians may have been related to the Minoans. A number of scholars consider Minoan to be essentially the same language as Pelasgian.
Ibero-Caucasian
Some Georgian scholars (including R. V. Gordeziani, M. G. Abdushelishvili and Z. Gamsakhurdia) connect the Pelasgians with the Ibero-Caucasian peoples of the prehistoric
Caucasus, known to the Greeks as
Colchians and Iberians. According to Stephen F. Jones, these scholars portray Georgia as a source of spirituality in the Greek world by "manipulating Greek and Roman sources in a highly dubious manner".
Archaeology
Attica
During the early 20th century, archaeological excavations conducted by the Italian Archaeological School and by the American Classical School on the Athenian Acropolis and on other sites within
Attica revealed
Neolithic dwellings, tools, pottery and skeletons from domesticated animals and fish. All of these discoveries showed significant resemblances to the Neolithic discoveries made on the Thessalian acropolises of
Sesklo and
Dimini. These discoveries help provide physical confirmation of the literary tradition that describes the Athenians as the descendants of the Pelasgians, who appear to descend continuously from the Neolithic inhabitants in Thessaly. Overall, the archaeological evidence indicates that the site of the Acropolis was inhabited by farmers as early as the 6th millennium BC.
[.]
The results on the prehistoric material of the American excavations near the Clepsydra have also been analyzed by Immerwahr, arguing (in contrast to Prokopiou) that no Dimini-type pottery was unearthed.[: "It is the Late Neolithic period that provides most of our parallels, yet, curiously, the striking Dimini-type painted wares of Thessaly are completely lacking, and there is only one small recognisable sherd of the related Mattpainted ware of Central and Southern Greece."]
Lemnos
In August and September 1926, members of the Italian School of Archaeology conducted trial excavations on the island of
Lemnos. A short account of their excavations appeared in the
Messager d'Athènes for 3 January 1927. The overall purpose of the excavations was to shed light on the island's "Etrusco-Pelasgian" civilization. The excavations were conducted on the site of the city of Hephaisteia (i.e.,Palaiopolis) where the Pelasgians, according to Herodotus, surrendered to Miltiades of Athens. There, a necropolis () was discovered revealing bronze objects, pots, and more than 130
ossuaries. The ossuaries contained distinctly male and female funeral ornaments. Male ossuaries contained knives and axes whereas female ossuaries contained earrings, bronze pins, necklaces, gold
, and bracelets. The decorations on some of the gold objects contained spirals of Mycenean origin, but had no Geometric forms. According to their ornamentation, the pots discovered at the site were from the Geometric period. However, the pots also preserved spirals indicative of Mycenean art. The results of the excavations indicate that the Early Iron Age inhabitants of Lemnos could be a remnant of a Mycenaean population and, in addition, the earliest attested reference to Lemnos is the
Mycenaean Greek ra-mi-ni-ja, "Lemnian woman", written in
Linear B syllabic script.
[.]
Boeotia
During the 1980s, the Skourta Plain Project identified Middle Helladic and Late Helladic sites on mountain summits near the plains of
Skourta in
Boeotia. These fortified mountain settlements were, according to tradition, inhabited by Pelasgians up until the end of the
Bronze Age. Moreover, the location of the sites is an indication that the Pelasgian inhabitants sought to distinguish themselves "ethnically" (a fluid term)
[.] and economically from the
Mycenaean Greece who controlled the Skourta Plain.
[.]
See also
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
