Bronze Age Epirus

But who said that exactly?

If Yetos is correct, afaiu, the Hellenes were a non-Mycenaean group speaking a 'NW Greek' dialect which expanded south. Similar views are based on things Aristotle said among others, about a tribe of Hellenes formerly called Graecoi in Epirus, about 'ancient Hellas' in Epirus etc.

If I am correct (I follow Herodotus) the original Hellenes associated with the Dorians originated in Phthiotis, expanded first to NW Greece where they were called 'ethnos Makednon' and then expanded south. If that is true they were 'Mycenaean' related but had expanded to Epirus/West Macedonia before the movement south.

Unfortunately I don't remember exactly who said what and the posts have been deleted, but someone said it, someone even had a map, I remember Yetos had another map claiming to represent the proto-Greek area, then Angela cited the Encyclopedia Britannica, which stated that Epirus was settled by Greek-speakers associated with Myceneans since the Neolithic. I suspected this was wrong and after learning some things here I am convinced it is.

As long as there is a consensus on the continuity of Mycenean and Homeric Greek I will accept it since I am not a linguist to interpret Linear B on my own. As for the Hellenes, as they were probably only one of several Greek-speaking groups they might have been central to the Greeks gaining consciousness about being one people, but I am more interested in the origins of Greek speakers in general. Were the Myceneans the first ones to arrive to the region? Were they the only ones? Were they even linguistically homogenous? I would like to know these answers.
 
But who said that exactly?

If Yetos is correct, afaiu, the Hellenes were a non-Mycenaean group speaking a 'NW Greek' dialect which expanded south. Similar views are based on things Aristotle said among others, about a tribe of Hellenes formerly called Graecoi in Epirus, about 'ancient Hellas' in Epirus etc.

If I am correct (I follow Herodotus) the original Hellenes associated with the Dorians originated in Phthiotis, expanded first to NW Greece where they were called 'ethnos Makednon' and then expanded south. If that is true they were 'Mycenaean' related but had expanded to Epirus/West Macedonia before the movement south.

As you wrote above, I think much of the apparent misunderstanding in this thread stems from you and Yetos using "Hellenes" to specifically refer to the identity that emerged from perhaps a tribe in Thessaly to slowly encompass the whole Greek-speaking world and this being misunderstood as referring to all Greek speakers, including those that were outside the area of Mycenaean emergence. West Greek speakers (mostly under the subcategory "Dorians") themselves quite likely didn't inhabit parts of southern Greece until the Dark Ages, after all, and the Epirotes themselves were plausibly/possibly (North)West Greek-speaking with some Illyrian and other elements.

I think Yetos actually summed it up quite well with "These tribes called NW Greek plus Mycenae is IE branch of ancient Greeks as we know them...but with Minoans and Pelasgians is the Greek nationality as created among 1100 to 900 BC" (well, likely a bit later) i.e. language vs the development of a certain ethnic identity. The latter can be at least somewhat explored in the case of the ancient Greeks since they left enough writings about their emic identities versus the rest of the ancient Balkans. Historians like Jonathan Hall or Irad Malkin have written quite a bit on that.
 
Is it there a possibility that instead all of them being all wrong in every aspect to the point you consider their beliefs as nonsense it is you that might not have sufficient knowledge about linguistics, languages, ethnography, history, epigraphy and many other disciplines necessary to rule out their beliefs such as `nonsense` or `rubbish`, as part of a fair judgement? Beside this, if they express their beliefs in a honest way, how does this go against forum policies, which very often you paradoxically consider acceptable, for your convenience, to be acceptable only as interpretations of scholars actual jobs.

As far as I noticed, it's not true, that Albanians used this forum or similar forums for what it matters, to bully the Greeks, quite the opposite seems to be true , not only the Greeks and Serbs have come up with the craziest theories about their idealized past, but most of them haven`t lost any chance to attack the very essence of Albanian history, culture and pride.

I studied these matters at university and since university. I've been involved in this community for ten years. I don't go out on a limb with wild, unproven hypothesis. I stick pretty close to what is the consensus and what can be proven through genetics, archaeology and linguistics. I don't care what they show. If the data changes, I change my opinion. I have no horse in this race, and even if I did, my personal integrity wouldn't allow me to argue in contradiction to the evidence unless the data was faulty or the interpretation was illogical, or, of course, if there was some sort of dishonesty involved.

To insist on quoting Fayrmeyer ad nauseam after we have ancient dna from Greece is t-rollish behavior. The musings of someone from the 19th century, who knew nothing about genetics, when the field didn't even exist, are irrelevant in the field of population genetics, especially when he was a blatant racist of the Noridicist variety who couldn't believe that the "dark" Greeks created Greek civilization.

The people posting that kind of material admit, have admitted to me that the science is against them, but they don't care. They feel that "common sense", what they were taught as children and in schools is correct, and all the "experts" are wrong. It's all a big conspiracy where all these people are being influenced by Greeks to take their "side". This is borderline "crazy" behavior. It's like Creationists saying the earth was created 6000 years ago, and the sun travels around the earth because that's what the Bible and common sense tells them, and geologists and astronomers don't know what they're talking about.

I suggest that you download and read some linguistics papers on the "Balkan" branch of the Indo-European languages, and that you read the papers on genetics here, with specific attention to the ones which highlight ancient Balkan, including Greek ancient dna:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/34850-Important-papers-for-newbies-to-Population-Genetics

I think you'll see these outlandish claims are either in contradiction to established norms in academia, or they are based on no data whatsoever and just arise from what some people wish to be true.
 
Unfortunately I don't remember exactly who said what and the posts have been deleted, but someone said it, someone even had a map, I remember Yetos had another map claiming to represent the proto-Greek area, then Angela cited the Encyclopedia Britannica, which stated that Epirus was settled by Greek-speakers associated with Myceneans since the Neolithic. I suspected this was wrong and after learning some things here I am convinced it is.

As long as there is a consensus on the continuity of Mycenean and Homeric Greek I will accept it since I am not a linguist to interpret Linear B on my own. As for the Hellenes, as they were probably only one of several Greek-speaking groups they might have been central to the Greeks gaining consciousness about being one people, but I am more interested in the origins of Greek speakers in general. Were the Myceneans the first ones to arrive to the region? Were they the only ones? Were they even linguistically homogenous? I would like to know these answers.

I think the map Yetos posted was based on Georgiev's view that pre-Greek toponyms (the ss/nth type of stuff, and others) start to dramatically dwindle beyond a certain line that roughly runs from central Thessaly to Aetolia and instead various toponyms he thought could be explained as rather archaic Greek are more prominent. It's very theoretical of course like all those theories based on scant linguistic evidence, though the view that the proto-Greeks entered Greece via Albania and Pelagonia has been expressed by others too, Hammond comes to mind but via archaeological means. It's quite possible that we'll actually never find out the exact paths certain IE branches took before they arrived to their final destination via ancient DNA either but who knows.

A recent volume on the ancient Greek dialects is "Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects - From Central Greece to the Black Sea" ed. Giannakis, Crespo and Filos. This chapter deals with what you're interested in. A couple of papers by Andrew Garrett on IE dialects were interesting too since they make mention of Mycenaean Greek and the space it potentially occupies between IE, proto-Greek and the other Greek dialects. I think I linked you to one of them in the past.
 
Unfortunately I don't remember exactly who said what and the posts have been deleted, but someone said it, someone even had a map, I remember Yetos had another map claiming to represent the proto-Greek area, then Angela cited the Encyclopedia Britannica, which stated that Epirus was settled by Greek-speakers associated with Myceneans since the Neolithic. I suspected this was wrong and after learning some things here I am convinced it is.

As long as there is a consensus on the continuity of Mycenean and Homeric Greek I will accept it since I am not a linguist to interpret Linear B on my own. As for the Hellenes, as they were probably only one of several Greek-speaking groups they might have been central to the Greeks gaining consciousness about being one people, but I am more interested in the origins of Greek speakers in general. Were the Myceneans the first ones to arrive to the region? Were they the only ones? Were they even linguistically homogenous? I would like to know these answers.

You have made errors in every single post in this thread, and you are continuing your losing streak.

If you're going to say I (or the Encyclopedia Britannica) said something, darn well make sure you're accurate. I'm tired of constantly correcting the record with you.
While you're at it, learn the difference between INFLUENCE in terms of GENETICS AND MIGRATION, and CULTURE.

This is what I said and QUOTED:

"I linked the article for one purpose and one purpose only, i.e. for the fact that The Encyclopedia Britannica endorsed that Epirus was part of the peripheral Mycenaean world and that this has been shown through multiple sites having material evidence of Mycenaean links.


"Epirus has been occupied since at least Neolithic times by seafarers along the coast and by hunters and shepherds in the interior who brought with them the Greek language.[1]These people buried their leaders in large tumulicontaining shaft graves, similar to the Mycenaean tombs, indicating an ancestral link between Epirus and the Mycenaean civilization.[1] A number of Mycenaean remains have been found in Epirus,[9] especially at the most important ancient religious sites in the region, the Necromanteion (Oracle of the Dead) on the Acheron river, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.[1]"

The number 1 refers to the Encyclopedia.

This is the consensus: that's why it wound up in an encyclopedia. Had the authors of the article wished to cite books and papers, it would have been an easy thing to do."

I then proceeded to find and post other papers.

Have I bought Tandy's book and checked every site to see if it's pots or also tumuli at those sites on the map? No, I haven't. Since it's of such importance to some posters, I expected them to get the information and get back to us.


The fact remains that nothing I've seen so far invalidates that information. There was a spread of Mycenaean CULTURAL INFLUENCE in a lot of EPIRUS, as the Mycenaean sphere expanded northwards toward Macedonia and toward Epirus. There are indications of some population movement in specific places, one tumuli, for example, in a paper I provided. The most important one, Glykys Limin, the encyclopedia didn't even mention, but I provided a paper about it, and YES, it is in Epirus, although an offshoot of another colony. That's what Mycenaean colonies did, and Greek city states of the first millennium BC. Colonies spawn their own colonies.

How much actual population "replacement" occurred? It's impossible to say, although perhaps we could cautiously say that given what we know so far perhaps it was limited to or at least heaviest in the more southern regions. We'll have to wait for more ancient dna to see.

So far as I know the consensus is that Greek arrived in Greece with the Mycenaeans. If anyone has PROOF to the contrary, that would be interesting.
 
They hypothesized the Mycenean base for sustaining the colony was either Aitoloakarnania or Pylos.



Yes, and my point was that it was a colony, Epirus was not Mycenean just as China was not British simply because of one colony. I am not trying to argue that the Mycenean civilization had no influence there, I think we can agree on a limited and temporary intrusion, as you said, plus cultural influences that are normal between neighboring regions.

The point was being made in the other thread (now I can't quote it) that Epirus was heavily settled by Myceneans but there's just no proof for that.

I don't know who said Epirus was heavily settled by Mycenaeans. I certainly didn't.

The comparison with China is really not apt.

I doubt that the Mycenaeans were HUGELY different genetically from the people to their north. It's all Neolithic farmer central for much of its history, after all. They got some Indo-European in the north too. It's just clear that they were a different group, with a different culture. The exact nature of the autosomal and uniparental signal differences is going to have to wait for more ancient dna for us to be able to quantify it.

Of course, as time went on, differences accumulated. I think there was more Gothic and Germanic and Slavic north of Greece proper because they took more of the brunt of the invasions. Then people moved around. In those days there were no border guards and lines on maps, so everything got even more mixed.

So, even though modern mainland Greeks derive a huge amount of their ancestry from Mycenaean times, they've picked up other influences, and more were picked up by their northern neighbors.

No modern ethnicity is a clone of its most distant ancestors.
 
There was a spread of Mycenaean CULTURAL INFLUENCE in a lot of EPIRUS, as the Mycenaean sphere expanded northwards in Macedonia and toward Epirus.

Yep, that's indeed true, there have been Mycenaean findings in southern Epirus and Pieria (southern Macedonia) to my knowledge but both areas (and even parts of Thessaly) seem to have been rather peripheral to the Mycenaean world itself. The exact relationship isn't certain but there certainly has been uncovered evidence of cultural exchange where its very existence was uncertain some time ago.

So far as I know the consensus is that Greek arrived in Greece with the Mycenaeans. If anyone has PROOF to the contrary, that would be interesting.

I'm sure you're aware of much of this but strictly speaking, what we call "Mycenaean" covers the period from roughly the 17th century on (the Late Helladic), until the Bronze Age collapse. The scenarios for the coming of the proto/early Greek speakers (excluding some less argued-for ones) have them in "Greece", even southern Greece, at potentially any time from the 23th century until the emergence of the Mycenean sphere when the Linear B findings definitively tell us that Greek speakers could be found as far as Crete. And indeed Linear B Greek itself seems like a dialect with certain innovations as far as I know, not a proto-Greek that can encompass all attested Greek dialects, so a certain period of separation from the rest before its attestation seems to be indicated. Mallory basically covers the broad theories in e.g. "In Search of the Indo-Europeans" and we've discussed this topic before on this forum.
 
I said clearly.

Proto-Greeks were not Myceneans, neither Minoans,
Even in Iliad is obvious the Myrmidones and the Myceneans,

when we say Myceneans is a clear IE culture of long corridor palaces etc
it is one of the ancestors of Hellenic culture
But Proto-greeks is another story,
We speak about the Dorians, the Epirotans the Makedonians,
who were in touch with Myceneans,

Proto-Greek is earlier by few centuries to Mycenean
and is the ones who stabilize Helladic space to a unification movement
after the collapse of Mycenae and Sea peoples.

These tribes called NW Greek plus Mycenae is IE branch of ancient Greeks as we know them,
Minoans is still a wondering if IE or not,
but with Minoans and Pelasgians is the Greek nationality as created among 1100 to 900 BC,

In Iliad Mycenae was a major city. Myceneans were probably the Acheans.
 
Athenians and Ionians weren't really Hellenes. Herodotus who was from a Dorian colony and had probably Dorian/Karian ancestry clearly associated the term 'Hellenes' with the Dorians. Ionians started being considered Hellenes probably after the creation of the Delphic Amphictyony.

I have remember that "None of Ionians worship to Zeus" But I am not sure where did I read it.
 
I studied these matters at university and since university. I've been involved in this community for ten years. I don't go out on a limb with wild, unproven hypothesis. I stick pretty close to what is the consensus and what can be proven through genetics, archaeology and linguistics. I don't care what they show. If the data changes, I change my opinion. I have no horse in this race, and even if I did, my personal integrity wouldn't allow me to argue in contradiction to the evidence unless the data was faulty or the interpretation was illogical, or, of course, if there was some sort of dishonesty involved. To insist on quoting Fayrmeyer ad nauseam after we have ancient dna from Greece is t-rollish behavior. The musings of someone from the 19th century, who knew nothing about genetics, when the field didn't even exist, are irrelevant in the field of population genetics, especially when he was a blatant racist of the Noridicist variety who couldn't believe that the "dark" Greeks created Greek civilization.The people posting that kind of material admit, have admitted to me that the science is against them, but they don't care. They feel that "common sense", what they were taught as children and in schools is correct, and all the "experts" are wrong. It's all a big conspiracy where all these people are being influenced by Greeks to take their "side". This is borderline "crazy" behavior. It's like Creationists saying the earth was created 6000 years ago, and the sun travels around the earth because that's what the Bible and common sense tells them, and geologists and astronomers don't know what they're talking about. I suggest that you download and read some linguistics papers on the "Balkan" branch of the Indo-European languages, and that you read the papers on genetics here, with specific attention to the ones which highlight ancient Balkan, including Greek ancient dna:https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/34850-Important-papers-for-newbies-to-Population-GeneticsI think you'll see these outlandish claims are either in contradiction to established norms in academia, or they are based on no data whatsoever and just arise from what some people wish to be true.

You did !? This is outstanding, but seems a wasted talent to deal with normal people, who are not so opportunists to go within the limits of the conventional science, and to be called stupid and outlandish just because they don't want to stick to the mainstream, which in fact is not that reliable as you put it. By the way did you study genetics and linguistics, at the same time? What about history, religion, paleontology, epigraphy, sociology and language? You seem to underestimate and despise the content of Albanian universities curriculum, but you have no clue, you just assume. Furthermore, at least some Albanian posters have graduated in prestigious universities outside Albania, and i am pretty sure their knowledge exceeds yours significantly in many aforementioned disciplines. They are putting a different outstanding perspective and reasoning which make the arguments of the conventional science to look dull and thick, and so looks the "truth" of it. This is the reason, their threads get closed and deleted and they get banned and you know it, we all know.
 
You did !? This is outstanding, but seems a wasted talent to deal with normal people, who are not so opportunists to go within the limits of the conventional science, and to be called stupid and outlandish just because they don't want to stick to the mainstream, which in fact is not that reliable as you put it. By the way did you study genetics and linguistics, at the same time? What about history, religion, paleontology, epigraphy, sociology and language? You seem to underestimate and despise the content of Albanian universities curriculum, but you have no clue, you just assume. Furthermore, at least some Albanian posters have graduated in prestigious universities outside Albania, and i am pretty sure their knowledge exceeds yours significantly in many aforementioned disciplines. They are putting a different outstanding perspective and reasoning which make the arguments of the conventional science to look dull and thick, and so looks the "truth" of it. This is the reason, their threads get closed and deleted and they get banned and you know it, we all know.

I'm pretty sure 8/10 Albanians who comment here, think something like:
> There weren't Mycenaean settlements in Epirus
> Therefore Epirus was Albanian.

But there's also DuPidh who thinks also that Dorians were speaking Albanian.

I don't understand what Angela meant either, by the way. But why don't you inform us about your own views?
 
@Jovani

People that don't stick to the mainstream are fringe conspiracy theorists. Plain and simple; fringe of the mainstream. Also, STOP distorting and misrepresenting what other people write. You're feigning confusion in an effort to use it as some lame tactic.

Moreover, you've received an infraction for your presumptuous, condescending, and provocative post.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenism_(religion).
.
you talking about the above?
.
in the end, people can pray to any named god as there is only one god .................unless you think there is more than one god :confused:


There is no İonia or İonian word in entire page so I don't get your point.

But I am happy to read that "In 2017, Hellenism was legally recognized as a "Known Religion" in Greece.[1]"
 
This is what I said and QUOTED:

"I linked the article for one purpose and one purpose only, i.e. for the fact that The Encyclopedia Britannica endorsed that Epirus was part of the peripheral Mycenaean world and that this has been shown through multiple sites having material evidence of Mycenaean links.


"Epirus has been occupied since at least Neolithic times by seafarers along the coast and by hunters and shepherds in the interior who brought with them the Greek language.[1]These people buried their leaders in large tumulicontaining shaft graves, similar to the Mycenaean tombs, indicating an ancestral link between Epirus and the Mycenaean civilization.[1] A number of Mycenaean remains have been found in Epirus,[9] especially at the most important ancient religious sites in the region, the Necromanteion (Oracle of the Dead) on the Acheron river, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.[1]"

The number 1 refers to the Encyclopedia.

This is the consensus: that's why it wound up in an encyclopedia. Had the authors of the article wished to cite books and papers, it would have been an easy thing to do."

My last post didn't concern your views at all. I only said you posted a link of the Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia is wrong on one point. I did not say you endorse that particular point so honestly I don't even know why you felt you needed to reply to that. I said you posted the link, which is true.

You have made errors in every single post in this thread, and you are continuing your losing streak.


If you're going to say I (or the Encyclopedia Britannica) said something, darn well make sure you're accurate. I'm tired of constantly correcting the record with you.
While you're at it, learn the difference between INFLUENCE in terms of GENETICS AND MIGRATION, and CULTURE.

First, please be respectful. I know very well what genetics, culture and migration mean. I made it very clear in post #9 that I was referring to genetics and linguistics:

I don't have a strong opinion on this either, I just followed your sources out of curiosity. But I was considering linguistic affiliations, since the Encyclopedia mentioned Greek speaking Mycenenans. I think genetic results show that a neolithic-BA continuity in Epirus, which the Encyclopedia states, is not compatible with the Neolithic-BA discontinuity in linguistic and genetic terms. So I'm not sure if we can say BA Epirotes were Greek speakers or not, but we can't say that they were Greek speakers (especially Myceneans) who were there from the Neolithic.


This is still my opinion. As you can see, again, I am not opposing cultural influence and a very limited population replacement in the South.

Second, please quote any single statement I have made in this thread or the previous that you can say is wrong. Except for mistakenly placing Aitoloakarnania in the Peloponnese once.
 
Socrates and Galileo are cring in their grave

Why would they? That's a completely false equivalence in what you're implying. They weren't trying to refute an international academic consensus based on the scientific method.
 
Socrates and Galileo are cring in their graves

What nonsense. Galileo's theories can be proved with mathematics and scientific instruments.

These rubbish "hypotheses", like those of that racist 19th century German "historian", and I use that term lightly, are like Creationist dogma. They're contradicted by science.

Stop trying to muddy the waters.
 
Why would they? That's a completely false equivalence in what you're implying. They weren't trying to refute an international academic consensus based on the scientific method.

Thank God there's a few people on here who have a brain.
 
My last post didn't concern your views at all. I only said you posted a link of the Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia is wrong on one point. I did not say you endorse that particular point so honestly I don't even know why you felt you needed to reply to that. I said you posted the link, which is true.



First, please be respectful. I know very well what genetics, culture and migration mean. I made it very clear in post #9 that I was referring to genetics and linguistics:



This is still my opinion. As you can see, again, I am not opposing cultural influence and a very limited population replacement in the South.

Second, please quote any single statement I have made in this thread or the previous that you can say is wrong. Except for mistakenly placing Aitoloakarnania in the Peloponnese once.

You have misrepresented what I said, and what papers said in every single post.

Please read more carefully so you understand the point the sources are trying to make. You'll make less errors.
 

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