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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ancient Greek writers used the name "Pelasgian" to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean as neighbors of the Hellenes. Pelasgians spoke a language different from the Greeks. 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 it may refer to the indigenous, pre-Indo-European peoples of Anatolia as we
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 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-" in the peninsula of Attica, or with "-ss-" (e.g. Larissa), or "-en-" (e.g. Athens, Mycenae, Cyllene).
Certain 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. 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.
The poet and mythologist Robert Graves, in his works on 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.
The French author Zacharia Mayani (1899 - ) put forth a thesis that the Etruscan language had links to the Albanian language. The Albanian régime of Enver Hoxha embraced this theory for propaganda reasons, and extended it to include the Pelasgians in this association. Mainstream scholars have paid Mayani's arguments little serious attention.
A Turkish scholar, Polat Kaya, has recently offered a translation of one of the 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 AD 300, a fact that has hindered acceptance of Kaya's translation.
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.
The question awaits a definitive resolution. 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 Kuretes, the Kaukones, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyantes, the Telchines, the Bœotian Thracians, the Teleboæ, the Ephyri, the Phlegyæ, &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."
HG21 -17% ПЕЛАСГИ
North African HG21 (Y-chromosome), as well as J, T1, U3 and certain H and W subclusters (mtDNA). Note the uneven distribution of these below, with paternal ancestry differing greatly between SE and SW Europeans despite close racial ties, and maternal ancestry being higher in N and C Europeans than in S Europeans.
Y Haplogroup J
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A recent study by Semino et al is one of the best sources of information about haplogroup J. Of special interest are the maps that show the geographical distribution of several J subgroups. In general, the J's are more common in Europe as one looks farther south and east, with the maximum concentrations near the Mediterranean coast. Some examples from Semino's study: Greece 22% (of the total population), Italy 20-30%, Spain 3-9%, the Ukraine 7.3%, Dutch 0%.
According to Al-Zahery et al both J1 and J2 expanded out from the Fertile Crescent about 7000-9000 years ago. The J2's seem to have started in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent and expanded west towards Europe (perhaps by way of the Balkans). As a result, almost all European J's belong to J2. The presence of the J2 subgroups in India, Pakistan, and Nepal means that they must also have expanded towards the east. However, at present, little is understood about the timing or dynamics of that eastward J2 dispersal.
Al-Zahery et al thought the J1's originated in the southern part of the Fertile Crescent and spread in a migration that happened after (and may have been triggered by) the earlier migrations from the north. However the J1 migrations were in more southern directions - towards the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and east and north Africa.
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Произход на пеласгите?
