Origin of the Ancient Greeks

[akritas]

There are three theories as about the origin of the ancient Greeks

a) Indo-European theory origin of Greeks and their locomotion by the north to the Hellenic peninsula , that constitutes fruit of Comparative Linguistics.

b) Afrocentrism theory, at which ancient Hellas (and accordingly her culture) it was the result “Egyptian' and “Phoinician” settlement at the 2nd millennium B.C.. The bigger supporter of this theory today is the Martin Bernal.

g) Autochthony theory, which supported himself the ancient Greeks and are verified by the modern Anthropology. Mainer representatives of this theory are the Colin Renfrew in the historical science and the Aris Poulianos in the Anthropology.

[Ehetlaios]

Afrocentrism is definitely out of the question.

As to the other theories, personally I haven't decided yet, but I'll go with us being autochthonus.

[Euklid]

In my opinion the Ancient Greeks were a fusion of "Indo-Europeans", autochonous populations, with afrocentric influences.

I think that all three, hold a piece of the pie, and in my mind the largest piece is taken by the autocthony theory.

I find it impossible for only one of them to be a 100% accurate.

After all we are talking about the piece of land in between 3 continents.

3 the continents...3 the ingredients in the recipe.

[Reaper]

Think we were from the steppes.

[Flipper]

Nice one!
I have studying a lot lately. I choosed other.

First of all there are no native europeans, except if we want to talk about Neadartals.

I believe like many nowadays that the pre-indoeuropean population the pelasgoi were proto-greek speaking people of an ealier migration or anatolians.

But I will focus on what I have read lately. The Hellenic, Phrygian, Luwian, Armenian languages belong to the same group of languages. That means that way back in time those people lived as one group somewhere and had no ethnic hypostasis as we treat it nowadays.

The Luvians were unfortunately extinct and they didn't leave traces on their prehistory. The linguistic aspect these days, support the Anatolian theory of the Greek migration. That means that the Greeks didn't follow the same route as the other indoeuropeans but invaded the balcans through Minor Asia.

According to the anatolian theory there were more than one migrations. There is no doubt about the first european greek settlement which was Epirus. There is a debate though on the year. Some talk about 7000BC while others say 3200BC. I tend to believe 3200BC sounds a bit more sensible.

The question is: How do they know when there is no lingustic evidence? The answer is imports and agriculture. The epirus findings differ a lot from the neighbouring civilizations (Vucedols and later Illyrians). The agriculture provide as well valuable data. For example in Western Greece and Macedonia, Safran was imported which is indeed an anatolian plant found mainly in Iran. The pottery imported is also very different to the neighbouring nations and have again similarities with the anatolian ones.

As for the language, we have elements like Δ, Θ etc that do not appear in such a frequency on other indoeuropean languages. The similarities of the early greek language with the other sister languages are also very obvious (Phrygian, Armenian). The -σσ words are Pelasgian which in their turn have a connection to the Tyrhenian, Phrygian and Luvian languages. Anatolian sounds again. As for today, the greek language is the only one that has whole unchanged pelasgian words: Gynaika, Andras, Dynamis, Alifi, Asti, deytera, thalassa, omo/omio, drepani, arpa, Elaio, Alas, eleftheria, opsi, ortho, plithra, labyrinthos just to name a few.

In any case, I believe that what created what the Greeks called themselves back in the days was a mixture of closely related indoeuropeans. However, the semitic element cannot be ignored since the island populations and minor asia became a part of the Greek nations body.

[Euklid]

Very nice info, you got there Flipper, i didnt know, that all these words were full complete Pelasgian ones.

It is astonishing.

[Tsontos]

I beleive Corinthos and Minthos are also Pelasgian words?

By the way I beleive in the Nordcist theory. Or maybe it was the Iranic theory...i cant remember

[Spartan]

I believe that we are a mixture of the Autochthonous populations with little influence from "the Indoeuropeans". This is supported by Herodotus and his discussion on the ORIGINS of the Athenians.(I will look up the page and chapter for this and post it.)

I don't believe anything from Egypt influenced the Ancient Greeks. The only thing that may have been influenced in Archaic Greece are the sculptures known as Kouroi, even here there is a gap of 1900 years from the time of the Egyptian Kouroi to the Greek Kouroi. So it is quite possible that the Archaic Greek sculptures evolved on their own. Just like animal species can evolve on there own to look identical but have absolutely no connection genetically. Yes, there was trade between Greece and Egypt but the philosophical, cultural and architectural differences are too vast to make the claim that the Egyptians influenced the Greeks.

Now I can support an influence from the Phoenicians since there are known Phoenician colonies in Greece. But the Phoenicians ARE NOT EGYPTIANS and are not Black!

[Tsontos]

Guys I really dont know much about these subjects. One question though: how can we only have a little influence from IndoEuropeans when our language is Indo-European?

[Flipper]

Originally Posted by Voulgaroktonos

I beleive Corinthos and Minthos are also Pelasgian words?

Yeah they are. All νθ words are.