Ethnographic context in pre-Macedonian Era

[Flipper]

Strabo (Geography) provides us with information about the tribes in Macedonia before the Macedonians arrived.

This land was inhabited by some Epirotans and Illyrian people, but mostly by the Bottiaei and the Thracians, the former being purportedly Cretans and having
Botton as their leader.

Strabo, Geography, 7.11ff

Some Cretans from Sfakia nowadays consider themselves having the purest connection to Macedonia, since Sfakia was never conquered by anyone and kept a very closed society over the centuries (even their dialect is unique).

As for the Thracian tribes, from findings dating around 1200BC they were of Phrygian descend and used Linnear B script. The Linnear B script could have been borrowed eather from the Cretan tribes or from the Cadmians living near Olympus.

Later on the same work we locate the following:

But over all the above mentioned it was the tribe called the Argeadae who made themselves supreme,as did the Chalcidians in Euboea. In fact, the Chalcidians in Euboea actually invaded the land of the Sithones* where they jointly founded some 30 cities.

The last extract I've located as far as I've reached is...

Caranus also came to Emathia with a large band of Hellenes, being insctructed by an Oracle to
seek a home in Macedonia.

I just love how Strabo reminds us that the progenitor of the ancient Macedonian royal house and his followers were Hellenes.

* The Sithonia Penisulla, located in Chalkidiki, Central Macedonia, Greece.

[akritas]

This thread and generaly the assumptions are based, with certain reservation on myths, less reliable ancient testimonies (e.g. some of Strabo passages) and most of all in archaeological theories like Hammond, Borza, Keramopoulos, Girtzi e.t.c.

The ethnographic map of the broader area of Macedonia constituted a complex picture long before and after the foundation of the Macedonian Kingdom. This was a result of several successive «invasions» and the subsequent expulsions or amalgamations. For instance, according to the Aeschylus (Hiketides, 253), the first inhabitants of Greece -and thus of Macedonia- were the Pelasgians. The archaeological evidence (Hammond in Macedonia - 4000 years of Greek history) on the other hand pointed to an invasion and subsequent settlement in the broader area of Macedonia of Indo-European tribes -the so called Pre-Greeks or Pelasgians- at the end of Late Neolothic Age as a result of the southern drift of other groups from the region of midle Danube.

Other myths (Homer, Iliada, B 848-850, II 287-288/ 154-160, Pausanias V, 1.3-5) mentioned that Paiones lived in Macedonia during the Trojan war. In addition, an archaeological theory(Hammond in History of Macedonia, Volume 1) implied that simultaneously with the Pelasgian invasion some groups of Anatolian origin -among them Paionians and Thracians-, coming through Thrace, settled initially east of the Axios, some of them possibly expanded westwards, due to the migration of the Proto-Greek tribes (Achaeans, Ionians) in 1900 BC and either expelled or assimilated the Pelasgians.

The legend of Midas, the mythical king of Phrygians (Herodotus I, 14, VIII, 138, Justin VII, 1.7-12), mentioned that the Phrygians, as well, lived at some time before the Trojan war in what later became Lower Macedonia. Some scholars (Hammond, p 407-413 and Borza, page The Shadow of Olympus pages 64-65) suggested that northern tribes identified as bearers of Lausitz culture (probably identical with the Phrygians) arrived in Pelagonia in ca 1200BC and in ca 1150BC expanded southwards, occupying western and central Macedonia.

Strabo (VII, 329, fr.11) claimed that in Macedonia, among others, lived a few Illyrians. This testimony coincides with the archaeological theories (Hammond, pages 420-428) implying that an invasion of Illyrians (tribes originating in central Yugoslavia) took place in the early 9th century Be. It is said that they came in three phases (till 650 BC), and as a result they occupied the Macedonian coastal plain (driving out the Phrygians) and the Axios valley (displacing the Paiones).

Herodotus (I, 16, VII, 20) and Strabo (I, 60) mentioned that the Kimmerians were expelled by Scythians from Russia. According to the archaeological evidence(Borza, page 75), a Kimmerian migration to the southwest, not only forced the Illyrians to retreat from Macedonia, but also favoured the expansion of Thracians and Paionians (in the future Thrace and broader Paionia, respectively) and the invasion of Macedonians in Macedonia. The foundation of southern Greek colonies in different parts of Macedonia (e.g. Pieria, Mygdonia, Bisaltia), during the 8th and 7th century BC, constituted isolated instances that had slightly affected the Macedonian ethnography as said the archaeologists (Maria Girtzi,Historical topography of ancient Macedonia, page 40).

To be continued......

[akritas]

According to the legends for the invasion of Herakleidai and the testimonies of Herodotus (I, 56, VIII, 43), an «ethnos Makednon» (a Dorian Macedonian tribe) had initially lived in several places.Being forced by several reasons, they once invaded Macedonia and advanced as far as its heartland, founding Aigeai (Herodotus VIII, 137-138, Justin VII, 1.7-11).

The archaeological theories ( Hammond in Vol II pages 64-65, Borza pages 79-80 and Gintzi pages 40-41) suggested that the already mentioned Illyrian expansion had displaced the Macedonians (from an initial habitation to the west) and pressed them to the south. Shortly afterwards ( 700 BC), the necessity to search for better pasture as stock-breeders or land for permanent settlement (a process that could constitute part of the general transition from herding and hunting to a search for land for agriculture and thus permanent habitation) compelled them to migrate east, an act that was favoured by the sequels of the simultaneous Kimmerian drifts.

Consequently, the Macedonians, at the beginning, invaded Emathia -which became the Macedonian core - and progressively expanded in all directions, driving out or assimilating the former inhabitants, which consisted mostly of local tribes (i.e. Pieres, Bottiaioi, Almopians, Eordians, Elimeiotians, Orestians, Lynkestians, Mygdonians, Krestonians, and Bisaltians).

Those tribes -being either descendants of some of the above mentioned tribes or of distinctive originalong with the above mentioned minorities (eg southern Greeks, Illyrians etc.) composed the ethnographic picture of Macedonia.