Pelasgians - Revision history

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Pelasgians as Hellenes

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Modern theories

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Ancient Greek writers used the name '''"Pelasgians"''' ([[Ancient Greek|Gk.]] ''Pelasgoí'', s. ''Pelasgós'') to refer to groups of people who preceded the [[Hellenes]] and still dwelt in several locations in mainland [[Greece]], [[Crete]], and other regions of the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]], as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The Greek references to Pelasgians are unanimously in agreement that they spoke a language or dialect that was different enough from Greek dialects so as not to be intelligible to Hellenes. Whether Pelasgian was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which Pelasgian was a single language are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the [[Greeks]], and in recent times some may apply "Pelasgian" to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of [[Anatolia]] as well.

== Classical Greek uses of "Pelasgian" ==
===In Homer===
The ethnonym ''Pelasgoí'' (Pelasgians) is of unknown etymology. It first occurs in the poems of [[Homer]]: the Pelasgians in the ''[[Iliad]]'' appear among the allies of [[Troy]]. In the section known to scholars as the ''Catalogue of Ships'', which otherwise preserves a strict geographical order, they stand between the [[Hellespont]]ine cities and the Thracians of south-east Europe, i.e. on the Hellespontine border of [[Thrace]] (2.840-843). Homer calls their town or district "[[Larisa]]" 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 Teutamus. ''Iliad'', 10.428-429, describes their camping ground between the town of Troy and the sea.

''Odyssey'', 17.175-177, places the Pelasgians in [[Crete]], together with two apparently indigenous and two immigrant peoples ([[Achaeans]] and [[Dorians]]), but gives no indication to which class the Pelasgians belong. [[Lemnos]] (''Iliad'', 7.467; 14. 230) has no Pelasgians, but a [[Minyans|Minyan]] dynasty. Two other passages (''Iliad'', 2.681-684; 16.233-235) apply the epithet "Pelasgic" to a district called Argos about [[Mount Othrys]] in southern [[Thessaly]], and to the temple of [[Zeus]] at [[Dodona]]. But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans specifically people the Thessalian Argos, and Dodona hosts Perrhaebians and Aenianes (''Iliad'', 2.750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if "Pelasgian" was used in Homeric epic connotatively, to mean either "formerly occupied by Pelasgians" or simply "of immemorial age."

===Post-Homeric===
Strabo quotes [[Hesiod]] as expanding on the Homeric phrase, calling [[Dodona]] "seat of Pelasgians" (fragment 225); he speaks also of an eponymous [[Pelasgus]], the father of the culture-hero of [[Arcadia]], [[Lycaon]]. After Hesiod, a number of early authors flesh out his brief statement. An early genealogist, [[Asius]], describes Pelasgus as the first man, literally born of the earth to create a race of men. An early poet, [[Hecataeus]], makes Pelasgus king of Thessaly (expounding ''Iliad'', 2.681-684); [[Acusilaus]] applies this Homeric passage to the ''Peloponnesian'' [[Argos]], the Argolid, and engrafts the Hesiodic Pelasgus, father of Lycaon, into a Peloponnesian genealogy.

[[Hellanicus]] repeats this identification a generation later, and identifies this Argive or Arcadian Pelasgus with the Thessalian Pelasgus of Hecataeus. [[Aeschylus]] regards Pelasgus as earthborn (''Supplices'' I, sqq.), as in Asius, and ruler of a kingdom stretching from Argos to Dodona and the Strymon; but in ''Prometheus'' 879, the "Pelasgian" land simply means Argos. [[Sophocles]] takes the same view (Inac/jus, fragment. 256) and for the first time introduces the word "Tyrrhenian" (bringing the Etruscans into the story), apparently as synonymous with "Pelasgians".

===In Herodotus===
[[Herodotus]], like Homer, has a denotative as well as a connotative use. He describes actual Pelasgians surviving and speaking mutually intelligible dialects
* at Placie and Scylace on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont;
* near [[Crestonia|Creston]] on the [[Strymon]]; in this area they have "Tyrrhenian" neighbors (''Persian Wars'' 1.57).

He alludes to other districts where Pelasgian peoples lived on under changed names; [[Samothrace]] and Antandrus in [[Troas]] probably provide instances of this. In discussing [[Lemnos]] and [[Imvros]] he describes a Pelasgian population whom the [[Athens | Athenian]]s conquered only shortly before 500 BC, and in connection with this he tells a story of earlier raids of these Pelasgians on Attica, and of a temporary settlement there of Hellespontine Pelasgians, all dating from a time "when the Athenians were first beginning to count as Greeks."

Contrary to modern understanding, Herodotus was convinced that the Hellenes were not invaders, but descendents of Pelasgians:
:"The Hellenic race has never, since its first origin, changed its speech. This at least seems evident to me. It was a branch of the Pelasgic, which separated from the main body, and at first was scanty in numbers and of little power; but it gradually spread and increased to a multitude of nations, chiefly by the voluntary entrance into its ranks of numerous tribes of barbarians. The Pelasgi, on the other hand, were, as I think, a barbarian race which never greatly multiplied."

That the Athenians were autochthonous was expressed mythically in the stories of [[Erechtheus]] and [[Erichthonius of Athens|Erichthonius]] and was emphatically stated by [[Isocrates]] in [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144;layout=;query=section%3D%23195;loc=4.23 Panegyric 23-5]:
:"For we did not win the country we dwell in by expelling others from it, or by seizing it when uninhabited, nor are we a mixed race collected together from many nations, but so noble and genuine is our descent, that we have continued for all time in possession of the land from which we sprang, being children of our native soil, and able to address our city by the same titles that we give to our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland and mother. "

Elsewhere "Pelasgian" in Herodotus connotes anything typical of, or surviving from, the state of things in Greece before the coming of the Greeks. (In this sense one could regard all Greece as formerly "Pelasgic".) The clearest instances of Pelasgian survivals in ritual and customs and antiquities occur in [[Arcadia]], the "Ionian" districts of the north-west Peloponnese, and Attica, which have suffered least from hellenization. In Athens itself the prehistoric wall of the [[Acropolis]] and a plot of ground close below it received veneration in the 5th century as "Pelasgian"; so too [[Thucydides]] (2.17).

We may note that all Herodotus' examples of actual Pelasgi lie round, or near, the actual Pelasgi of Homeric Thrace; that the testimony of Thucydides (4.106) confirms the most distant of these as to the Pelasgian and Tyrrhenian population of the adjacent seaboard: also that Thucydides adopts the same general Pelasgian theory of early Greece, with the refinement that he regards the Pelasgian name as originally specific, and as having come gradually into this generic use.

The historian [[Ephorus]] preserves a passage from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, and developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a warrior-people spreading from a "Pelasgian home", and annexing and colonizing all the parts of Greece where earlier writers had found allusions to them, from Dodona to Crete and the Troad, and even as far as Italy, where again their settlements had been recognized as early as the time of Hellanicus, in close connection once more with "Tyrrhenians."

Nothing in the ancient discussion of the Pelasgians is inconsistent with the Greeks, at least the Athenians, being autochthonous. Greece has been inhabited at least since the Neolithic, and there is no reason to believe that the classical Greeks were not also descended, in blood and culture, from the pre-existing inhabitants.

The copious additional information given by later writers either interprets local legends in the light of Ephorus's theory, or explains the name "Pelasgoi"; as when [[Philochorus]] expands a popular etymology "stork-folk" into a theory of their seasonal migrations; or [[Apollodorus]] says that Homer calls Zeus 'Pelasgian' "because he is not far from every one of us".

The connection with Tyrrhenians which began with Hellanicus, Herodotus and Sophocles becomes confusion with them in the 3rd century, when the Lemnian pirates and their Attic kinsmen become plainly styled as Tyrrhenians, and early fortress-walls in Italy (like those on the Palatine Hill in Rome) appear as "Arcadian" colonies. The character of the ancient citadel wall at [[Athens]] has given the name "Pelasgic masonry" to all constructions of large, unhewn blocks fitted together with mortar, from [[Asia Minor]] to Spain, the massive character that has also been called "[[cyclopean]]".

=== Modern theories ===
From a tribal name, both Classical historians and archeologists have come to use the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants in the lands around the [[Aegean Sea]] and their descendants before the arrival of the waves of proto-Greek-speaking invaders during the [[2nd millennium BC]]. The results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart (1955) and F. Schachermeyr (1979) led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the [[4th millennium BC]]. Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians:

*Groups of non-Indo-European loan words in the [[Greek language]], borrowed in its prehistoric development
*Non-Greek place names in the region containing the consonantal strings "-nth-" (e.g. [[Corinth]], [[Probalinthos]]), or its equivalent "-ns-" (e.g. [[Tiryns]]), or "-tt-" e.g. in the peninsula of [[Attica]], or with "-ss-" (e.g. Larissa), or "-en-" (e.g. [[Athens]], [[Mycenae]], [[Cyllene]]).
*Certain [[mythology|mythological]] stories or deities (usually goddesses) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians.
*A small number of non-Greek inscriptions, the best-known found on [[Lemnos]] (the [[Lemnos stele]]). These inscriptions use a version of the western Greek alphabet similar to that used in the Old Italic alphabet employed for Etruscan inscriptions.

Not all of these features belong to the same people. For example, some evidence suggests that the "-ss-" placenames may have come from a language related to Hittite (for example: [[Parnassus]] may be related to the Hittite word ''parna-'' or "house"). Because of insufficient evidence from the 2nd millennium BC, no consensus exists on the relationship of these "Pelasgian" elements to their neighbors -- although much speculation has taken place, sometimes fueled by a desire for association with some of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe.

But much is not known about the Pelasgians, and may never be known. As Donald A. Mackenzie, writes (in ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe,'' 1917, page 75):

:"Before these [Hellenic] invaders entered into possession of the country [of Greece] it had been divided between various 'barbarous tribes', including the Pelasgi and their congeners the [[Caucones]] and [[Leleges]]. Thirlwall, among others, expressed the view 'that the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni, and that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself'. The Hellenes did not exterminate the aborigines, but constituted a military aristocracy. Aristotle was quoted to show that their original seat was near Dodona, in Epirus, and that they first appeared in Thessaly about 1384 B.C. It was believed that the Hellenic conquerors laid the foundation of Greek civilization."

Mackenzie continues, quoting George Grote:

:"By what circumstances, or out of what pre-existing elements, the aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece — the Pelasgi, the [[Leleges]], the [[Curetes|Kuretes]], the [[Caucones|Kaukones]], the [[Aones]], the [[Temmikes]], the [[Hyas|Hyantes]], the [[Telchines]], the [[Boeotia]]n [[Thrace|Thracians]], the [[Teleboae]], the [[Ephyri]], the [[Phlegyae]], &c. These are names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece — extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends by the logographers and subsequent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names designated real nations may be true but here our knowledge ends."

The poet and mythologist Robert Graves, in his works on [[Greek Mythology|Greek mythology]], 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 archetypical Earth Goddess — drawing additional support for his conclusion from his interpretations of other ancient literature: Irish, Welsh, Greek, Biblical, Gnostic and medieval writings. Mainstream scholarship considers Graves' thesis at best controversial, although certain literary circles and many neo-pagan groups have accepted it.

==Pelasgians as a Hellenic (Greek) people==
There is also a theory, based on a number of classical quotes, that the Pelasgians were Hellenes (Greeks), and direct ancestors of later Greek tribes. The components of this theory are as follows:

#That the term "barbarian" had a dual meaning. Aside from meaning "non-Greek," the term "barbarian" has been used by Greek tribes/city-states to deride other Greek tribes/city-states that were deemed unsophisticated in their use of the Greek language/culture ([http://www.globaled.org/nyworld/materials/greek2.html Foreigners and Barbarians]). When Athenian [[Demosthenes]] attacked [[Philip II of Macedon]], in the [[Philippics|Third Philippic]], Demosthenes deemed the Macedonians as non-Greek, unrelated to the Greeks, and not even worthy of being deemed as "barbarians." The ancient Greek social and political climate that gave rise to Demosthenes' derogatory account of the Macedonians is complex, and it is not certain what meaning the term "barbarian" was intended to have in a number of passages.
#From the dual meaning of the term "barbarian", some propose that when [[Herodotus]] deemed the Pelasgians as "barbaric", he did not imply that they were non-Hellenes. In support of this interpretation, these theorists point to the passage where Herodotus deems the Hellenes a branch of the Pelasgians ([http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Heropel.html Herodotus on the Pelasgians and the Early Greeks]). Herodotus [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?layout=&doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126&query=chapter%3D%2357&loc=1.57.1 1.57] concludes that the Athenians "changed language" when they "joined the Hellenic body"; but this may be open to different interpretations. Herodotus also tells of a war in which the Athenians expelled the Pelasgians from Attica to Lemnos. Yet, Herodotus is known for not distinguishing the difference between dialects and languages that are completely separate ([http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1998/harrison.html Herodotus' Conception of Foreign Languages]). As a result of the ambiguity of Herodotus in distinguishing languages from dialects, one can propose that the language of the Pelasgians was a "barbaric" (or unsophisticated) form of Greek as opposed to it being non-Greek.
#That the [[autochthonous]] nature of the Athenians — an ancient belief to which [[Herodotus]], [[Isocrates]], [[Plutarch]] and others attest — implies they are descended from the autochthonous Pelasgians. The Athenians deemed themselves "true Greeks" due to their well-developed society.

== See also ==
*"[[Barbarian]]" for the Greek usage of the term
*[[Names of the Greeks]]

[[Category:Ancient Greece]]

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 * Milan Budimir. ''The Greeks and Pelasti'' (1950).
 * Nermin Vlora Falaschi. ''L'Etrusco lingua viva''. Roma: Bardi, 1989.
-* [[Nicolae Densusianu]]. ''Dacia Preistorica''. Bucharest, 1913.
+* Nicolae Densusianu. ''Dacia Preistorica''. Bucharest, 1913.
 * Rismag Gordeziani. ''Pre-Grecian and Georgian''. Tbilisi, 1985 (in Georgian, German summary).
 * Robert d'Angély. ''Des Thraces & des Illyriens à Homère''. Nicariu, Corsica: Cismonte è Pumonti, c. 1990.

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 #That the term "barbarian" had a dual meaning. Aside from meaning "non-Hellenic," the term "barbarian" has been used by Greek tribes/city-states to deride other Greek tribes/city-states that were deemed unsophisticated in their use of the Hellenic language/culture.<ref>[http://www.globaled.org/nyworld/materials/greek2.html Foreigners and Barbarians (adapted from ''Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks'')], The American Forum for Global Education, 2000. ''The status of being a foreigner, as the Greeks understood the term does not permit any easy definition. Primarily it signified such peoples as the Persians and Egyptians, whose languages were unintelligible to the Greeks, but it could also be used of Greeks who spoke in a different dialect and with a different accent...Prejudice toward Greeks on the part of Greeks was not limited to those who lived on the fringes of the Greek world. The Boeotians, inhabitants of central Greece, whose credentials were impeccable, were routinely mocked for their stupidity and gluttony. Ethnicity is a fluid concept even at the best of times. When it suited their purposes, the Greeks also divided themselves into Ionians and Dorians. The distinction was emphasized at the time of the Peloponnesian War, when the Ionian Athenians fought against the Dorian Spartans. The Spartan general Brasidas even taxed the Athenians with cowardice on account of their Ionian lineage. In other periods of history the Ionian-Dorian divide carried much less weight.''</ref> For example, when [[Athens|Athenian]] orator [[Demosthenes]] attacked [[Philip II of Macedon]] in the [[Philippics|Third Philippic]], he deemed the Macedonians as non-Hellenic, unrelated to the Hellenes, and not even worthy of being deemed as "barbarians." This indicates that the utilization of the term "barbarian" in many ancient Greek accounts was reflective of the socio-political competition that existed between various Greek city-states, tribes, and civilizations.
 #From this dual meaning, [[Herodotus]] did not imply that the Pelasgians were non-Hellenes when he described them and their language as "barbaric." Support for this argument is found within a passage where Herodotus deemed the Hellenes as a branch of the Pelasgians.<ref>[http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Heropel.html Herodotus on the Pelasgians and the Early Hellenes (George Rawlison, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885)] - ''The Hellenic race has never, since its first origin, changed its speech. This at least seems evident to me. It was a branch of the Pelasgic, which separated from the main body, and at first was scanty in numbers and of little power; but it gradually spread and increased to a multitude of nations, chiefly by the voluntary entrance into its ranks of numerous tribes of barbarians. The Pelasgi, on the other hand, were, as I think, a barbarian race which never greatly multiplied''.</ref> Moreover, it was not an uncommon phenomenon for a Greek tribe to speak Greek crudely to the point where it was difficult for other Greeks to understand.<ref>Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, pp. 9-10. ''Whether the Pelasgi were anciently a foreign or Grecian tribe, has been a subject of constant and celebrated discussion. Herodotus, speaking of some settlements held to be Pelaigic, and existing in his time, terms their language "barbarous;" but Mueller, nor with argument insufficient, considers that the expression of the historian would apply only to a peculiar dialect; and the hypothesis is sustained by another passage in Herodotus, in which he applies to certain Ionian dialects the same term as that with which he stigmatizes the language of the Pelasgic settlements. In corroboration of Mueller's opinion, we may also observe, that the "barbarous-tongued" is an epithet applied by Homer to the Carians, and is rightly construed by the ancient critics as denoting a dialect mingled and unpolished, certainly not foreign. Nor when the Agamemnon of Sophocles upbraids Teucer with "his barbarous tongue," would any scholar suppose that Teucer is upbraided with not speaking Greek; he is upbraided with speaking Greek inelegantly and rudely. It is clear that they who continued with the least adulteration a language in its earliest form, would seem to utter a strange and unfamiliar jargon to ears accustomed to its more modern construction.''</ref> So, when Herodotus (1.57) concludes that the Athenians ''changed language'' when they ''joined the Hellenic body'', it means that they advanced linguistically, socially, and culturally from their Pelasgian forebears. Herodotus (6.137) also discusses the expulsion of Pelasgians by the Athenians from Attica to Lemnos. However, this passage may be derived from an event whereby the Athenians expelled Pelasgian Boeotian refugees (closely related to them culturally and linguistically) to the Ionian colonies.<ref>Buck, p. 79. ''The presence of the Pelasgians in Boeotia should represent in some traditions the original inhabitants, many, if not most, of whom were expelled to Athens. The confused story in Herodotus (6.137) about the expulsion of some (non-Athenian) Pelasgians from Athens may be a dim memory of the forwarding of refugees, closely akin to the Athenians in speech and custom, to the Ionian colonies.''</ref> Herodotus is also known for not distinguishing the difference between linguistically similar dialects and languages that are completely separate from Greek.<ref>[http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1998/harrison.html Herodotus' Conception of Foreign Languages] (Thomas Harrison, University College, London) - ''The entire frame within which the Greeks viewed foreign languages was, in a number of ways, very different. First, although on a number of occasions Herodotus refers to, or implies, the existence of a common Greek language, including the quotation with which I began (8.144.2), Herodotus has no unambiguous way of referring to dialect as distinct from language. On one occasion he appears at first sight to come close to a formula for describing dialect. The cities of Ionia do not use the same language (glossan) as one another, but have four characteres glosses, or forms of language (1.142.3). He goes on immediately, however, in turning to the cities of Lydia (Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenae and Phocaea) to say that these cities 'do not agree at all' in their language with the other Ionians but 'sound the same as one another' (homologeousi kata glossan ouden, sphisi de homophoneousi, 1.142.4). Elsewhere Herodotus talks of the 'Attic language' (glossan, 6.138.2). This haziness in the distinction of language and dialect is not unique to Herodotus. The expression 'the Attic language', for example, is used in the poetry of Solon; Thucydides can speak of the 'Dorian language' and Aeschylus of the Phocian. The term dialektos can be used of foreign languages and of the range of accents within a city[63] as much as of differences between cities or regions. The distinction between dialect and language is, of course, inevitably a hazy one, given that it is often dictated rather more by political than linguistic criteria''.</ref> As a result of this ambiguity, the language of the Pelasgians was "barbaric" in the sense that it was an unsophisticated form of Hellenic as opposed to being non-Hellenic.<ref>[http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1998/harrison.html Herodotus' Conception of Foreign Languages] (Thomas Harrison, University College, London) - ''In other instances, however, Herodotus concedes a greater degree of non-Greek influence on Greek. Herodotus' account, for example, of the adoption by the Pelasgians of the names of the gods (2.52.1) suggests a much closer relationship between the Pelasgian and Greek languages. Before they heard the names of the gods, the Pelasgians (assuming, interestingly, the existence of a number of gods) called them simply theoi, on the grounds that they had 'established (thentes) all affairs in their order'. This etymology, advanced apparently in all seriousness, seems to suggest that the Pelasgians spoke a language at least 'akin to' Greek''.</ref>
-#That the [[autochthonous]] nature of the Athenians (an ancient belief to which [[Herodotus]], [[Isocrates]], [[Plutarch]] and others attest) implies they are descended from the autochthonous Pelasgians. The Athenians deemed themselves "true Hellenes" due to their well-developed society.
+#That the autochthonous nature of the Athenians (an ancient belief to which [[Herodotus]], [[Isocrates]], [[Plutarch]] and others attest) implies they are descended from the autochthonous Pelasgians. The Athenians deemed themselves "true Hellenes" due to their well-developed society.
-#During the early 20th century, archaeological excavations conducted by the Italian Archaeological School and by the [[American School of Classical Studies at Athens|American Classical School]] on the Athenian [[Acropolis]] and on other sites within Attica revealed Neolithic dwellings, tools, pottery, and sheep skeletons. All of these discoveries showed significant resemblances to the Neolithic discoveries made on the Thessalian acropolises in [[Sesklo]] and Dimini. These discoveries helped provide physical confirmation of ancient records that described the Athenians as the descendants of the Pelasgians (who were primarily the Neolithic inhabitants of Thessaly).<ref>Procopiou, pp. 21-22. ''Our knowledge of the neolithic age is much greater. Some forty years ago excavations on the Athenian Acropolis and on other sites in Attica brought to light many indications of neolithic life - dwellings, vases, tools, skeletons of sheep - which confirmed the traditions recorded by Herodotus that the Athenians were descended from the Pelasgians, the neolithic inhabitants of Thessaly. Indeed the neolithic vases of Attica date from the earliest neolithic age (5520-4900) like the ceramics from the Thessalian acropolis of Sesclos, as well as from the later neolithic age (4900-3200) like those from the other Thessalian acropolis of Dimini...The search for traces of the neolithic age on the Acropolis began in 1922 with the excavations of the Italian Archaeological School near the Aesclepium. Another settlment was discovered in the vicinity of the Odeion of Pericles where many sherds of pottery and a stone axe, both of Sesclos type, were unearthed. Excavations carried out by the American Classical School near the Clepshydra uncovered twenty-one wells and countless pieces of handmade pottery, sherds of Dimini type, implements of later Stone Age and bones of domestic animals and fish. The discoveries reinforced the theory that permanent settlement by farmers with their flocks, their stone and bone tools and ceramic utensils had taken place on the rock of the Acropolis as early as the sixth millenium''.</ref>
+#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 sheep skeletons. All of these discoveries showed significant resemblances to the Neolithic discoveries made on the Thessalian acropolises in [[Sesklo]] and Dimini. These discoveries helped provide physical confirmation of ancient records that described the Athenians as the descendants of the Pelasgians (who were primarily the Neolithic inhabitants of Thessaly).<ref>Procopiou, pp. 21-22. ''Our knowledge of the neolithic age is much greater. Some forty years ago excavations on the Athenian Acropolis and on other sites in Attica brought to light many indications of neolithic life - dwellings, vases, tools, skeletons of sheep - which confirmed the traditions recorded by Herodotus that the Athenians were descended from the Pelasgians, the neolithic inhabitants of Thessaly. Indeed the neolithic vases of Attica date from the earliest neolithic age (5520-4900) like the ceramics from the Thessalian acropolis of Sesclos, as well as from the later neolithic age (4900-3200) like those from the other Thessalian acropolis of Dimini...The search for traces of the neolithic age on the Acropolis began in 1922 with the excavations of the Italian Archaeological School near the Aesclepium. Another settlment was discovered in the vicinity of the Odeion of Pericles where many sherds of pottery and a stone axe, both of Sesclos type, were unearthed. Excavations carried out by the American Classical School near the Clepshydra uncovered twenty-one wells and countless pieces of handmade pottery, sherds of Dimini type, implements of later Stone Age and bones of domestic animals and fish. The discoveries reinforced the theory that permanent settlement by farmers with their flocks, their stone and bone tools and ceramic utensils had taken place on the rock of the Acropolis as early as the sixth millenium''.</ref>
 #During the [[1980s]], the Skourta Plain project identified [[Middle Helladic]] and [[Late Helladic]] sites on mountain summits near the plains of [[Skourta]]. 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 "ethnically" (a fluid term according to [http://www.globaled.org/nyworld/materials/greek2.html Foreigners and Barbarians]) and economically distinguish themselves from the Mycenean Greeks who controlled the Skourta plain.<ref>French, p. 35. '''''Skourta Plain project.''' The fourth and final season of the survey of the Skourta plain was conducted in 1989 by M. and M.L.Z. Munn (ASCS). "Explorations begun in 1985 and 1987 were extended into new parts of the plain and surrounding valleys, so that by now a representative portion (approximately 25%) of most of the inhabitable areas of the three koinotites of Pyli, Skourta, and Stefani have been examined intensively. 66 sites were discovered or studied for the first time in the course of this highly productive season, yielding a total of 120 premodem sites studied by our survey since 1985. The survey should have identified all major settlement sites (over 5 ha) and a representative sample of smaller sites in the study area. A summary of the chief conclusions to be drawn from the four seasons can be made. ... MH settlement is established on two summits overlooking the plain (Al, A10), one of which, Panakton (Al), becomes the most substantial LH site in the area. A fortified MH settlement is also established on a peak in rugged country beyond the NE edge of the plain (Jl), between the Mazareika and Vountima valleys, in which other settlements are established in the LH era (B21, 52 also B33 in the Tsoukrati valley). The remoteness of this NE sector, and the great natural strength of the MH site and a nearby LH IIIC citadel (J2), suggest that the inhabitants of these glens and crags sought to protect and separate themselves from peoples beyond the peaks that surrounded them, perhaps because they were ethnically distinct and economically more or less independent of the Myc Greeks who dominated the plains. Traditions of Pelasgians in these mountains at the end of the BA raise the possibility that these may have been Pelasgian sites. Once abandoned, in the LH IIIC or PG eras, most of these sites in the NE sector are not again inhabited for well over a millennium. Elsewhere, within the more accessible expanse of the Skourta plain itself, LH settlements are established on many sites which are later again important in the C era (Al, B4, B7, B11, B18, C17, cf. A50, C3).''</ref>

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 The connection between the Pelasgians and the Tyrrhenians, which began with Hellanicus, Herodotus and Sophocles, becomes confusing in the 3rd century, when the Lemnian pirates and their Attic kinsmen become plainly styled as Tyrrhenians, and early fortress-walls in Italy (like those on the Palatine Hill in Rome) appear as "Arcadian" colonies. The character of the ancient citadel wall at [[Athens]] has given the name "Pelasgic masonry" to all constructions of large, unhewn blocks fitted together with mortar, from [[Asia Minor]] to Spain, the massive character that has also been called "[[cyclopean]]".
 ==Modern theories==
-Modern theories about Pelasgians are sometimes colored by myths of national origin, notably (in alphabetical order) Albania, [[Greece]] and Turkey. Popularizations tend to be more colorful. The history and character of justifications of present rights to territory by demonstrating the presence of an ancestral population in deep history— ''Urrecht''— are discussed at Revanchism. In all the following theories there is a mainstream, supported by philology, [[archaeology]] and toponymy, and there are divergent fringe theories with specific appeals.
+Modern theories about Pelasgians are sometimes colored by myths of national origin, notably (in alphabetical order) Albania, [[Greece]] and Turkey. Popularizations tend to be more colorful. The history and character of justifications of present rights to territory by demonstrating the presence of an ancestral population in deep history— ''Urrecht''— are discussed at Revanchism. In all the following theories there is a mainstream, supported by philology, archaeology and toponymy, and there are divergent fringe theories with specific appeals.
 ===Pelasgians as pre-Indo-European people===
-From an undefined, perhaps tribal name, both Classical historians and archeologists have come to use the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants in the lands around the [[Aegean Sea]] and their descendants before the arrival of the waves of proto-Greek-speaking invaders during the [[2nd millennium BC]]. Though [[Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff|Wilamowitz-Moellendorff]] wrote them off as mythical, the results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart ([[1955]]) and F. Schachermeyr ([[1979]]) led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the [[4th millennium BC]]. Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-[[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians:
+From an undefined, perhaps tribal name, both Classical historians and archeologists have come to use the name "Pelasgian" to describe the inhabitants in the lands around the [[Aegean Sea]] and their descendants before the arrival of the waves of proto-Greek-speaking invaders during the [[2nd millennium BC]]. Though Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote them off as mythical, the results of archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük by James Mellaart ([[1955]]) and F. Schachermeyr ([[1979]]) led them to conclude that the Pelasgians had migrated from Asia Minor to the Aegean basin in the [[4th millennium BC]]. Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians:
 *Groups of non-Indo-European loan words in the [[Greek language]], borrowed in its prehistoric development
 *Non-Indo-European roots for many Greek place names in the region, containing the consonantal strings "-'''nth'''-" (e.g. [[Corinth]], Probalinthos), or its equivalent "-ns-" (e.g. [[Tiryns]]); "-'''tt'''-", e.g. in the peninsula of [[Attica]], Mounts [[Hymettus]] and [[Penteli|Brilettus/Brilessus]], [[Lycabettus]] Hill, the [[deme]] of [http://www.vollmer-mythologie.de/gargettus/ Gargettus] etc, or its equivalent "-'''ss'''-", e.g. [[Larisa|Larissa]], Mount [[Parnassus]], the rivers [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles19/greece-8.shtml Kephissus] and [http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_wsd_sec171.htm Ilissus] etc.
-*Certain [[mythology|mythological]] stories or deities (usually goddesses such as [[Artemis]]) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, [[Celts]] or Indians.
+*Certain mythological stories or deities (usually goddesses such as [[Artemis]]) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians.
 *A small number of non-Greek inscriptions, the best-known found on [[Lemnos]] (the [[Lemnos stele]]). These inscriptions use a version of the western Greek alphabet similar to that used in the [[Old Italic alphabet]] employed for Etruscan inscriptions.
-Not all of these features belong to the same people. In western Anatolia, many "-ss-" placenames derive from the adjectival suffix also seen in cuneiform Luwian and some Palaic; the classic example is Bronze Age Tarhuntassa (loosely, "City of the Storm God Tarhunta"), and later [[Parnassus]] may be related to the Hittite word ''parna-'' or "house". Because of insufficient evidence from the [[2nd millennium BC]], no consensus exists on the relationship of these "Pelasgian" elements to their neighbors &ndash; although much speculation has taken place, sometimes fueled by a desire for association with some of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe.
+Not all of these features belong to the same people. In western Anatolia, many "-ss-" placenames derive from the adjectival suffix also seen in cuneiform Luwian and some Palaic; the classic example is Bronze Age Tarhuntassa (loosely, "City of the Storm God Tarhunta"), and later [[Parnassus]] may be related to the Hittite word ''parna-'' or "house". Because of insufficient evidence from the 2nd millennium BC, no consensus exists on the relationship of these "Pelasgian" elements to their neighbors &ndash; although much speculation has taken place, sometimes fueled by a desire for association with some of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe.
 But much is not known about the Pelasgians, and may never be known. As Donald A. Mackenzie, wrote in 1917:<ref>Mackenzie, ''Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe,'' (1917), p 75.</ref>
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 The poet and mythologist Robert Graves, in his works on [[Greek Mythology|Greek mythology]], asserts that certain elements of that mythology originate with the native Pelasgian people &mdash; namely the parts related to his concept of the White Goddess, an archetypical Earth Goddess &mdash; drawing additional support for his conclusion from his interpretations of other ancient literature: Irish, Welsh, Greek, Biblical, Gnostic and medieval writings. Mainstream scholarship considers Graves' thesis at best controversial, although certain literary circles and  many neo-pagan groups have accepted it.
-A [[Turkish people|Turkish]] scholar, Polat Kaya, has recently offered a translation of one of the [[Lemnos stele|inscriptions on Lemnos]], based on his theory that it reflects a language related to Turkish. However, in the period of the putative date of the inscription the Turkish people lived several thousand miles away in southeastern Siberia. They began to migrate westward only about [[300 AD]], a fact that has hindered acceptance of Kaya's translation. This theory is almost unanimously ignored by scholars.<ref>The only references found on [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Polat+Kaya%22 a scholar.google.com search] are self-published, and one article dismissing Kaya's further theory that Sumerian is a form of Turkish. Dr. Kaveh Farrokh "[http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/NoveDec05/Azerbaijan-Text%5Bnopict%5D.pdf "Pan-Turanianism takes aim at Azerbaijan: A Geopolitical Agenda]" ''Rozaneh'', Nov, December 2005. A [[JSTOR]] [http://www.jstor.org/search/BasicSearch?si=1&hp=25&Query=Polat+Kaya&Search=Search search] on "Polat" and "Kaya" shows no references to the names used together at all. Searches conducted on [[December 19]], [[2006]].</ref>
+A Turkish scholar, Polat Kaya, has recently offered a translation of one of the [[Lemnos stele|inscriptions on Lemnos]], based on his theory that it reflects a language related to Turkish. However, in the period of the putative date of the inscription the Turkish people lived several thousand miles away in southeastern Siberia. They began to migrate westward only about [[300 AD]], a fact that has hindered acceptance of Kaya's translation. This theory is almost unanimously ignored by scholars.<ref>The only references found on [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Polat+Kaya%22 a scholar.google.com search] are self-published, and one article dismissing Kaya's further theory that Sumerian is a form of Turkish. Dr. Kaveh Farrokh "[http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/NoveDec05/Azerbaijan-Text%5Bnopict%5D.pdf "Pan-Turanianism takes aim at Azerbaijan: A Geopolitical Agenda]" ''Rozaneh'', Nov, December 2005. A [[JSTOR]] [http://www.jstor.org/search/BasicSearch?si=1&hp=25&Query=Polat+Kaya&Search=Search search] on "Polat" and "Kaya" shows no references to the names used together at all. Searches conducted on [[December 19]], [[2006]].</ref>
-Some [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] scholars (including  M.G. Tseretheli, R.V. Gordeziani, M. Abdushelishvili, and Dr. [[Zviad Gamsakhurdia]]) connect the Pelasgian with the Iberian-Caucasian cultures of the prehistoric Caucasus, known to the Greeks as [[Colchis]]. This may sound plausible since there were many autochthonic Caucasian peoples dwelling in [[Anatolia]] such as the [[Hattians]] before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans.
+Some Georgian scholars (including  M.G. Tseretheli, R.V. Gordeziani, M. Abdushelishvili, and Dr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia) connect the Pelasgian with the Iberian-Caucasian cultures of the prehistoric Caucasus, known to the Greeks as [[Colchis]]. This may sound plausible since there were many autochthonic Caucasian peoples dwelling in [[Anatolia]] such as the [[Hattians]] before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans.
 The Bulgarian linguist Vladimir Georgiev claimed that the Pelasgians were Indo-Europeans, with an Indo-European etymology of ''pelasgoi'' from ''pelagos'', "sea" as the Sea People, the PRŚT of Egyptian inscriptions,<ref>V. Georgiev, ''La toponymie ancienne de la péninsule balkanique et la thèse mediterannée'' Sixth International Onomastic Congrees, Florence-Pisa, April 1961 (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), 1961, noted in M. Delcor, "Jahweh et Dagon (ou le Jahwisme face à la religion des Philistins, d'après 1 Sam. V)" ''Vetus Testamentum'' '''14'''.2 (April 1964, pp. 136-154) p. 142 note.</ref> and related them to the neighbouring [[Thracians]]. He even proposed a soundshift model from Indo-European to Pelasgian. Another Bulgarian scholar, Alexander Fol, defends the theory that in fact the name Pelasgians is not just ethnic, but cultural and religious definition for the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of  Greece.
-The Austrian linguist Johann Georg von Hahn attempted to connect the pre-Indo-European [[Pelasgian language]] with Albanian.{{Fact|date=September 2007}} Today, the Albanian language is universally classified as an Indo-European language by linguists.  This hypothesis, therefore, has attracted little general support.<ref>[http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Eteocretan/Pelasgians.html Pelasgians and others]</ref>
+The Austrian linguist Johann Georg von Hahn attempted to connect the pre-Indo-European [[Pelasgian language]] with Albanian. Today, the Albanian language is universally classified as an Indo-European language by linguists.  This hypothesis, therefore, has attracted little general support.<ref>[http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Eteocretan/Pelasgians.html Pelasgians and others]</ref>
 A. J. Van Windekens (1915—1989) offered rules for an unattested hypothetical Indo-European Pelasgian language in ''Le Pélasgique'' (1952) and ''Études pélasgique'' (1960); selecting vocabulary for which there was no Greek etymology, Van Windekens claimed to find Pelasgian etymologies in many place names and other vocabulary of ancient Greece, in names of heroes, animals, plants, garments, artifacts, social organization.

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 ==Classical Greek uses==
 ===In Homer===
-The [[ethnonym]] ''Pelasgoí'' (Pelasgians) is of unknown [[etymology]]. It first occurs in the poems of [[Homer]]: the Pelasgians in the ''[[Iliad]]'' appear among the allies of [[Troy]]. In the section known to scholars as the ''Catalogue of Ships'', which otherwise preserves a strict geographical order, they stand between the [[Hellespont]]ine cities and the Thracians of south-east Europe, i.e. on the Hellespontine border of [[Thrace]] (2.840-843). Homer calls their town or district "[[Larisa]]" 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 Teutamus. ''Iliad'', 10.428-429, describes their camping ground between the town of Troy and the sea.
+The ethnonym ''Pelasgoí'' (Pelasgians) is of unknown etymology. It first occurs in the poems of [[Homer]]: the Pelasgians in the ''[[Iliad]]'' appear among the allies of [[Troy]]. In the section known to scholars as the ''Catalogue of Ships'', which otherwise preserves a strict geographical order, they stand between the [[Hellespont]]ine cities and the Thracians of south-east Europe, i.e. on the Hellespontine border of [[Thrace]] (2.840-843). Homer calls their town or district "[[Larisa]]" 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 Teutamus. ''Iliad'', 10.428-429, describes their camping ground between the town of Troy and the sea.
-The ''[[Odyssey]]'', 17.175-177, places the Pelasgians in [[Crete]], together with two apparently indigenous and two immigrant peoples ([[Achaeans]] and [[Dorians]]), but gives no indication to which class the Pelasgians belong. [[Lemnos]] (''Iliad'', 7.467; 14. 230) has no Pelasgians, but a [[Minyans|Minyan]] dynasty. Two other passages (''Iliad'', 2.681-684; 16.233-235) apply the epithet "Pelasgic" to a district called Argos about [[Mount Othrys]] in southern [[Thessaly]], and to the temple of [[Zeus]] at [[Dodona]], in [[Epirus (region)|Epirus]]. But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans specifically people the Thessalian Argos, and Dodona hosts Perrhaebians and Aenianes (''Iliad'', 2.750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if "Pelasgian" was used in Homeric epic connotatively, to mean either "formerly occupied by Pelasgians" or simply "of immemorial age."
+The ''[[Odyssey]]'', 17.175-177, places the Pelasgians in [[Crete]], together with two apparently indigenous and two immigrant peoples ([[Achaeans]] and [[Dorians]]), but gives no indication to which class the Pelasgians belong. [[Lemnos]] (''Iliad'', 7.467; 14. 230) has no Pelasgians, but a [[Minyans|Minyan]] dynasty. Two other passages (''Iliad'', 2.681-684; 16.233-235) apply the epithet "Pelasgic" to a district called Argos about [[Mount Othrys]] in southern [[Thessaly]], and to the temple of [[Zeus]] at [[Dodona]], in [[Epirus]]. But neither passage mentions actual Pelasgians; Hellenes and Achaeans specifically people the Thessalian Argos, and Dodona hosts Perrhaebians and Aenianes (''Iliad'', 2.750) who are nowhere described as Pelasgian. It looks therefore as if "Pelasgian" was used in Homeric epic connotatively, to mean either "formerly occupied by Pelasgians" or simply "of immemorial age."
 ===Post-Homeric===
-[[Strabo]] quotes [[Hesiod]] as expanding on the Homeric phrase, calling [[Dodona]] "seat of Pelasgians" (fragment 225); he speaks also of the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians, [[Pelasgus]] ([[Ancient Greek]]: Πελασγός), the father of the culture-hero of [[Arcadia]], [[Lycaon]]. After Hesiod, a number of early authors flesh out his brief statement. An early [[genealogist]], [[Asius|Asius of Samos]], describes Pelasgus as the first man, literally born of the earth to create a race of men. An early poet, [[Hecataeus]], makes Pelasgus king of Thessaly (expounding ''Iliad'', 2.681-684); [[Acusilaus]] applies this Homeric passage to the ''Peloponnesian'' [[Argos]], the Argolid, and engrafts the Hesiodic Pelasgus, father of Lycaon, into a Peloponnesian genealogy.
+Strabo quotes [[Hesiod]] as expanding on the Homeric phrase, calling [[Dodona]] "seat of Pelasgians" (fragment 225); he speaks also of the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians, [[Pelasgus]] ([[Ancient Greek]]: Πελασγός), the father of the culture-hero of [[Arcadia]], [[Lycaon]]. After Hesiod, a number of early authors flesh out his brief statement. An early genealogist, [[Asius|Asius of Samos]], describes Pelasgus as the first man, literally born of the earth to create a race of men. An early poet, [[Hecataeus]], makes Pelasgus king of Thessaly (expounding ''Iliad'', 2.681-684); [[Acusilaus]] applies this Homeric passage to the ''Peloponnesian'' [[Argos]], the Argolid, and engrafts the Hesiodic Pelasgus, father of Lycaon, into a Peloponnesian genealogy.
 [[Hellanicus]] repeats this identification a generation later, and identifies this Argive or Arcadian Pelasgus with the Thessalian Pelasgus of Hecataeus. [[Aeschylus]] regards Pelasgus as earthborn (''Supplices'' I, sqq.), as in Asius, and ruler of a kingdom stretching from Argos to Dodona and the Strymon; but in ''Prometheus'' 879, the "Pelasgian" land simply means Argos. [[Sophocles]] takes the same view (Inachus, fragment. 256) and for the first time introduces the ethnonym ''[[Tyrrhenoi]]'', apparently as synonymous with "Pelasgians". Euripedes calls the inhabitants of Argos Pelasgian [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0116&query=card%3D%2330&layout=&loc=866 ''Orestes'' 857], and [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0116&query=card%3D%2333&layout=&loc=898 933], if genuine.

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−	Ancient Greek writers used the name '''"Pelasgians"''' ([[~~Ancient~~ Greek\|Gk.]] ''Pelasgoí'', s. ''Pelasgós'') to refer to groups of people who preceded the [[Hellenes]] and still dwelt in several locations in mainland [[Greece]], [[Crete]], and other regions of the [[Aegean Sea\|Aegean]], as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The Greek references to Pelasgians are unanimously in agreement that they spoke a language or dialect that was different enough from Greek dialects so as not to be intelligible to Hellenes. Whether Pelasgian was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which Pelasgian was a single language are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the [[Greeks]], and in recent times some may apply "Pelasgian" to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of [[Anatolia]] as well.	+	Ancient Greek writers used the name '''"Pelasgians"''' ([[Greek language\|Gk.]] ''Pelasgoí'', s. ''Pelasgós'') to refer to groups of people who preceded the [[Hellenes]] and still dwelt in several locations in mainland [[Greece]], [[Crete]], and other regions of the [[Aegean Sea\|Aegean]], as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The Greek references to Pelasgians are unanimously in agreement that they spoke a language or dialect that was different enough from Greek dialects so as not to be intelligible to Hellenes. Whether Pelasgian was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which Pelasgian was a single language are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of these lands before the arrival of the [[Greeks]], and in recent times some may apply "Pelasgian" to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of [[Anatolia]] as well.

	== Classical Greek uses of "Pelasgian" ==		== Classical Greek uses of "Pelasgian" ==