Título: Illyrians
Seção: Origins
Background: The Illyrians (Ancient Greek: Illurioi, Illyrioi; Latin: Illyrii or Illyri) were a group of Indo-European tribes in antiquity, who inhabited part of the western Balkans.  The territory the Illyrians inhabited came to be known as Illyria to Greek and Roman authors, who identified a territory that corresponds to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, part of Serbia and most of central and northern Albania, between the Adriatic Sea in the west, the Drava river in the north, the Morava river in the east and the mouth of the Aoos river in the south. The first account of Illyrian peoples comes from the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, an ancient Greek text of the middle of the 4th century BC that describes coastal passages in the Mediterranean. The name "Illyrians", as applied by the ancient Greeks to their northern neighbors, may have referred to a broad, ill-defined group of peoples, and it is today unclear to what extent they were linguistically and culturally homogeneous.

Conteúdo: Even before the advent of post-modernism, scholars recognized a "difficulty in producing a single theory on the ethnogenesis of the Illyrians" given their heterogeneous nature. Modern scholarship is unable to refer to the Illyrians as a unique and compact people and agrees that they were a sum of ill-defined communities without common origins that never merged to a single ethnic entity.  On the other hand, some past Pan-Illyrian theories have been dismissed by scholars, based as they were on racialistic notions of Nordicism and Aryanism. The specific theories have found little archaeological corroboration, as no convincing evidence for significant migratory movements from the Luzatian culture into the west Balkans have ever been found. Rather, archaeologists from the former Yugoslavia highlighted the continuity between the Bronze and succeeding Iron Age (especially in regions such as Donja Dolina, central Bosnia-Glasinac, and northern Albania (Mat river basin)), ultimately developing the so-called "autochthonous theory" of Illyrian genesis. The "autochthonous" model was most elaborated upon by Alojz Benac and B. Covic. They argued (following the "Kurgan hypothesis") that the 'proto-Illyrians' had arrived much earlier, during the Bronze Age as nomadic Indo-Europeans from the steppe. From that point, there was a gradual Illyrianization of the western Balkans leading to historic Illyrians, with no early Iron Age migration from northern Europe. He did not deny a minor cultural im

user: What is the origin of the Illyrians?

assistant: Even before the advent of post-modernism, scholars recognized a "difficulty in producing a single theory on the ethnogenesis of the Illyrians" given their heterogeneous nature.

user: What was their ethnicity?

assistant: The specific theories have found little archaeological corroboration, as no convincing evidence for significant migratory movements from the Luzatian culture into the west Balkans have ever been found.

user: Where were they located?

assistant: From that point, there was a gradual Illyrianization of the western Balkans leading to historic Illyrians, with no early Iron Age migration from northern Europe.

user: Who investigated their origins?

assistant: Aleksandar Stipcevic raised concerns regarding Benac's all-encompassing scenario of autochthonous ethnogenesis.

user: What is an interesting fact regarding their origins?

assistant: They argued (following the "Kurgan hypothesis") that the 'proto-Illyrians' had arrived much earlier, during the Bronze Age as nomadic Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

user: What was their culture like?

assistant: They were competing fiercely through either alliance or conflict and resistance to Roman expansion. Thus, they established more complex political alliances,

user: Why did they resist the Roman expansion?

assistant: Thus, they established more complex political alliances, which convinced (Greco-Roman) sources to see them as 'ethnic' identities."

user: What was an observation made about how they lived?

assistant: Contemporary perspectives again highlight that the term "Illyrian" was a 'catch-all' exonym used by the Greeks and Romans to denote diverse communities