Flipper
01-20-2007, 03:00 PM
I just found a resume on Colemans work (Cornell University) which supports the newer theories expressed about the first Greeks.
An archaeological scenario for the Coming of the Greeks ca. 3200 B.C.
I here argue that the Indo-European language that eventually became Greek came to Greece with a group of people who arrived from the north at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the later fourth millennium B.C.[1] These proto-Greeks entered a landscape that had been largely depopulated for centuries before their arrival and they soon came to dominate most of the mainland of Greece (but not the Cycladic islands or Crete). Influenced by the Cycladic islanders, they eventually created the Early Helladic civilization of the third millennium B.C. The later Bronze Age population of mainland Greece was largely descended from that of the EBA and the Greek language of the Linear B texts of the Late Bronze Age gradually developed from the language or languages spoken then. The pre-Greek linguistic substrate in Greek (e.g., words with endings in -ssos and -nthos) may have entered Greek from the language spoken by the previous LN II inhabitants of the Aegean area and probably also by their EBA descendants in the Cyclades and Crete. The essay begins with a critique of the current theory that the proto-Greeks entered Greece at the end of the second phase of the Early Helladic period ca. 2400/2200 B.C. and concludes that it is less likely than it formerly seemed to be. This is followed by details of the scenario here advocated, which is supported by the differences in character between the EBA culture of the Greek mainland and that of the latest Neolithic culture and by the probable existence of a hiatus of occupation between the end of the Neolithic era and the beginning of the EBA. Correlations with the evidence for immigrations of Indo-European speakers to the Balkan countries to the north of Greece are then sketched and arguments briefly presented for an association of the pre-Greek linguistic substrate with the LN II inhabitants. The conclusions deal with some general questions related to the new scenario.
An archaeological scenario for the Coming of the Greeks ca. 3200 B.C.
I here argue that the Indo-European language that eventually became Greek came to Greece with a group of people who arrived from the north at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the later fourth millennium B.C.[1] These proto-Greeks entered a landscape that had been largely depopulated for centuries before their arrival and they soon came to dominate most of the mainland of Greece (but not the Cycladic islands or Crete). Influenced by the Cycladic islanders, they eventually created the Early Helladic civilization of the third millennium B.C. The later Bronze Age population of mainland Greece was largely descended from that of the EBA and the Greek language of the Linear B texts of the Late Bronze Age gradually developed from the language or languages spoken then. The pre-Greek linguistic substrate in Greek (e.g., words with endings in -ssos and -nthos) may have entered Greek from the language spoken by the previous LN II inhabitants of the Aegean area and probably also by their EBA descendants in the Cyclades and Crete. The essay begins with a critique of the current theory that the proto-Greeks entered Greece at the end of the second phase of the Early Helladic period ca. 2400/2200 B.C. and concludes that it is less likely than it formerly seemed to be. This is followed by details of the scenario here advocated, which is supported by the differences in character between the EBA culture of the Greek mainland and that of the latest Neolithic culture and by the probable existence of a hiatus of occupation between the end of the Neolithic era and the beginning of the EBA. Correlations with the evidence for immigrations of Indo-European speakers to the Balkan countries to the north of Greece are then sketched and arguments briefly presented for an association of the pre-Greek linguistic substrate with the LN II inhabitants. The conclusions deal with some general questions related to the new scenario.