Were the Greeks indigenous?

The greek civilization of the 5th century B.C.,the Golden Age of Pericles and Athens,it all begun back in the 12th-11th century B.C. That was the time wenn the ionian,aeolian and dorian "tribes" came from the north and settled into the mainland and the aegian isles.

The former civilizations were indigenous indeed,but not realy greek. The ancient greek language we learn in our schools is not the one of the Minoan and Micenean civilizations,but of the latter greek tribes. 

We can say however that there is a great connection between the 2 mentioned ethnic groups,as there are many common customs,such as the burial proccess,the weapons and the religion,but we cant say that the populations before the coming of the Dorians in 1100 B.C. were "greek".We know them as aegean civilizations.

Maju,

the Iberian civilisation is off the point.

Augustus,

the Dorians weren't the first Greeks who lived in Greece but the Ionians and Acheans from the beginning of the 2nd millennium.

The Egyptians told Solon that the Greeks of the classic times didn't know or remember their own past because after the earthquake the people who survived were peasants without a high level of education. So, how could the Egyptians know something like that and what' the reason for not telling the truth? Maybe the Pelasgians and Aegeans were a relative nation with the Greeks. But in my opinion the decipherment of the Linear A will give answers. Don't forget that before the decipherment of Linear B the Myceneans, Ionians and Acheans were not considered Greeks.

By whom, the Ionians were certainly considered Greeks in the classical and archaic classical periods.  If by Acheans you mean the Achaeans in the Peloponnesian peninsula they were certainly Greeks or if you mean Homeric Acheans than they essentially collapse to Ionians.

Very interesting subject. The migration theories in the distant antiquity seem to be crumbling down really fast, and the current trend seems to be to accept only fairly documented migrations and not those that are based on extremely scarce and fragmented evidence.

Having said that, I want to address a couple of issues 

Maju, archeological findings in the Iberian area do not indicate that any significant (in the large scale, every culture is significant at its own) civilization was present there in the early antiquity. So, your assumption that Plato talks about an Iberian civilization is not supported by any kind of evidence.

 Also, the Greeks considered the Pelasgians Greek and I really have difficulties understanding why we can�t accept it? Why would anyone � and especially people as strong-opinioned and proud of their heritage, not to mention purists and quite chauvinist at that, like the Greeks � in antiquity claim an ancestry that�s not theirs?  It�s not like today, when some ethnic groups need to facilitate claims on land or other benefits � they had the land and nobody could drive them out. Why state, in the most profound and decisive way, that the Pelasgians (as in: the pre-Mycenaean inhabitants of Greece) are Greek. Certain city states, like the Athenians, claim direct ancestry from the Pelasgians and pride over the purity of the Pelasgic blood!

Augustus,

The first culture of we have written records from in the Greek area, is the Mycenaean. So, we just do not know if the previous cultures were Greek-speaking (whatever Greek was back then) or not. We just have nothing to base any sort of assumptions on this.

What we do have though is this: the archaeological findings. Those point out in the most decisive manner that there is no great, earthshaking discontinuity in the development of the culture in the Helladic area, at least not after the Mesolithic area. From 6.000 BC on we have a more or less consistent continuity, culminating in the Mycenaean culture and then we have a drawback (mostly we assume its a drawback because there is lack of adequate written sources) for 2-3 centuries, before the city-states picked up the rabble of the Palace culture and continue into what we've learned to be the Greek culture.

The archaeological evidence for this is extremely concise and decisive. The chance to have a mass-scale invasion (or "invasion") of Greek-speaking tribes in a non-Greek speaking land (as the migration theories suggest) are very, very slim in the times past Mesolithic.

Abyssmal Fiend

The Doric migration has more recently been recognized as a shifting of population from parts of the Helladic area into other parts of the same land. The Dorian have not descended from somewhere far north, but as every piece of evidential material tells us, they were living among the Myceneans in the same timeframe. Probably, the "Doric invasion" should be more accurately described as "the Doric uprising". They did cause the fall of the palace culture by this uprise and established their supremacy at areas formerly Achaean (Peloponese, Crete, Doris).

 Maju

In the near East, there are cities (not towns in the Iberian fashion, of 600-800 inhabitants tops, but actual cities, maybe even up to 5.000 people large) dating 30.000 years back. They had metallurgy 30.000 years back too. So if there is one single contestant for the Myth of Atlantis being real it is located in that are. Nowhere else (at least not anywhere we can find it right now). If we accept the "beyond the Iraklian pilars" argument, we would probably have to go to the Americas, as the only really ancient ruins outside the middle east lie in Peru.

BTW there is clearly a very strong argument in favour of the cataclysm  whatever that was. Cultures from all over the world have a tradition of a cataclysm and they are really not connected to each other (Greeks, Hebrew, Hopi Indians, Indians  of India  aboriginal cultures in the south-eastern Asia, south Africa and many, many more). Most scientists date the cataclysm to the period of the ice melting, 10.000 years ago. Thats pretty concise with Plato's (actually: the Egyptians) dating.

damn, just saw how the text appeared, with all those smilies and stuff... is this a problem with text formulated on word?

Originally posted by Maju In your dreams: The oldest town of the World may be Jericho and dates to about 8000 years BCE.

I am quite sorry to burst your bubble, but in parts of modern Turkey and Mesopotamia and also in India, there have been discovered ruins dated (using very precise methods) from 20.000 to 30.000 BC. And I find the reference "in your dreams" to be quite offending... why do you have to insult? Did I say "you are insane if you think Iberian cities are older"?

Los Millares is considered the oldest town on the Iberian peninsula. It is quite an impressive finding, nevertheless, but it is waaaaaay too young to have anything to do with our quest for "the oldest city" or a culture that could be attributed the Atlantic myth with. Los Millares was not nearly "several thousand people large", the site nowadays is a couple acres large, including the burial ground! Maybe a couple thousand people at best. Last but not least: Its prime (the time when the megalithical tombs were created) was close to 2.200 BC (it's history seems to beging around 2800 BC). That's 1.000 years after Knossos (a city of more than 20.000, by the more modest estimations) was build and about 4.000 years after several settlements in the area that is now Greece came into existence.

And these are only settlements in Europe and we all (should) know that the civilization came last in Europe - Asia developed civilization looooong before Europe. And urban culture as well.

Alkiviades, would you please provide references for those cities in Turkey, Mesopotamia and India which supposedly existed 30000 years ago? And which supposedly had metallurgy.

The oldest cities that I've ever heard about are �atal huyuk in Turkey and Jericho in Palestine, neither of which is older than 9000BC. How cities could have existed before the agricultural revolution is beyond me, but I'm curious to see if you can prove otherwise. Oh, and what are these very precise dating methods that you are talking about? C14 dating starts to get quite tricky beyond 20000 years and cannot be used beyond 50000. As far as metallurgy, I'd be extremely amazed if such techniques existed 10000 years ago, let alone 30000.

Maju, the Iberian civilizations are not the only possible explanation for Atlantis. And yes indeed, just because the Basque oral tradition does not have any mention of a cataclysm, that does not mean that other civilizations don't.

While we're on the topic of cataclysms though, I'd like to point out that various cataclysms are common enough. The memory of them has been preserved for the most part orally, which is a very inaccurate way to preserve the date, and even the scale of the  cataclysm. So just because many cultures have memories of cataclysms, that does not mean that these cataclysms were simultaneous or related in any way. Also, if we examine these myths in more detail, we'll see that in fact there are huge differences between these myths. Enthusiasts will be pressed to find similarities between various myths, but they are only too quick to gloss over the differences.

The statement implies that the Egyptians had records about the "Greek nation" 9000 years before Solon.  This would mean that Egyptian civilization itself was at least in existence by about 9600 BC.  Egyptian hieroglyphic writing only existed from about 3250 BC - "King Scorpion inscription", and from this time until about 1500 BC concerned itself with immediate neighbors.  Any references to the Aegean (Keftiu, "Crete") and to Europe (Haunebu, "Greece") only date from about 1550 BC and afterward. 

Another problem with this statement is that it is relatively late (Plato) compared to other Greek authors such as Herodotus who had no doubts that Egyptian civilization was older than Greek civilization.  He, too, had spoken with Egyptian priests, but never gained any knowledge of any Atlantis or of some disaster in Greece. 

The third problem with this statement, is that even if it was based on some kernal of truth, but not necessarily as remotely ancient as it is so stated, "Greek nation" could mean just about anything.  From the Egyptian point of view, any people from Greece at such a remote period could be viewed by more recent Egyptian authority as being "Greek", only because they inhabited "Greece", without regard to ethno-linguistic origin.  Despite the fact that the Egyptians knew that the tribal configuration of Nubia kept changing, they kept the name Wawat for the name of the land, and referred to all its inhabitants as Nehasiu. 

Cutting? Why, are we having an intimacy here and you consider yourself oblidged to be cutting in your remarks about me?

How much is an "acre" in metric system?

A tad more than 4000 m2 I think

Don't dig Spanish, but I take your word on it... so, the several thousands were in reality 1.000? A village, perhaps? And... what do you mean "you" are positive it had more? What are you, some sorts of archeologist with highly esteemed credentials? It's not about your estimations here, is it?

I had seen a "2.800 BC" as starting date... are there varied estimations?

So, let's recap this: You are not taking literaly the "9.000 year" mark, but you are taking literaly they "beyond the pillars of Herakles"? Picky, ain't we? And, is Andalucia "beyond the pillars of Herakles"?

You [i[know? Yet you speak adamantly about "only christian myths"? You confuse me . Also, I never said ALL people have such traditions, I specifically mentioned people from around the globe having such traditions. What excactly did you fail to comprehend with?

Cywr and others

I have been unable to locate any relevant data on the internet but I'll keep trying. I've seen a couple of documentaries about those sites a few years ago and I also read about them in a couple newspapers. But you shouldn't take my word on it, so I'll keep looking until I find some reference. I don't even remember the names of the sites. The Indian one was a rather recent finding and I should get some reference of it sooner or later. Do our Turkish and Iranian friends here have no data about them? One site was in modern Turkey and the other in modern Iran.

Also, the C dating method is not - to my knowledge - used directly to determine the antiquity of buildings and such. Layers, fossils etc. are used. Am I wrong?