page_title: Illyrians
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Illyrians / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Prehistoric Illyrians, Sitesa and Cultures, by Wilkes
context_page_description: The Illyrians were a group of Indo-European tribes, who inhabited the western Balkans in classical antiquity. They formed one of the three main groups of Indo-European populations in the Balkans prior to 2000 BC, along with Thracians and Greeks.
  The territory the Illyrians inhabited came to be known as Illyria to later Greek and Roman authors, who identified a territory that corresponds to most of Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, much of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, western and central Serbia and some parts of Slovenia 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 dates back to the 6th century BC, in the works of the ancient Greek writer Hecataeus of Miletus.
  The name "Illyrians," as applied by the ancient Greeks to their northern neighbors, may have referred to a broad, ill-defined group of peoples. The Illyrian tribes never collectively identified as "Illyrians," and it is unlikely that they used any collective nomenclature at all.
context_section_description: Scholars have long 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. According to linguist Robert Elsie, "the term 'Illyrian' probably referred initially to the tribe with which the ancient Greeks first had contact, but it was later used as a collective term for a wide range of tribes in the region, although they may not have been culturally or linguistically homogenous at all."
  Older Pan-Illyrian theories which emerged in the 1920s placed the proto-Illyrians as the original inhabitants of a very large area which reached central Europe. These theories, which are now generally dismissed by scholars, were used in the political of the era and its racialistic notions of Nordicism and Aryanism. The main fact which these theories tried to address was the existence of traces of Illyrian toponymy in parts of Europe beyond the western Balkans, an issue whose origins are still unclear 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 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. Čović. 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 impact from the northern Urnfield cultures, however "these movements had neither a profound influence on the stability.. of the Balkans, nor did they affect the ethnogenesis of the Illyrian ethnos".
  Aleksandar Stipčević raised concerns regarding Benac's all-encompassing scenario of autochthonous ethnogenesis, raising the following questions: "can one negate the participation of the bearers of the field-urn culture in the ethnogenesis of the Illyrian tribes who lived in present-day Slovenia and Croatia" or "Hellenistic and Mediterranean influences on southern Illyrians and Liburnians?". He concludes that Benac's model is only applicable to the Illyrian groups in Bosnia, western Serbia and a part of Dalmatia, where there had indeed been a settlement continuity and 'native' progression of pottery sequences since the Bronze Age. Following prevailing trends in discourse on identity in Iron Age Europe, current anthropological perspectives reject older theories of a longue duree (long term) ethnogenesis of Illyrians, even where 'archaeological continuity' can be demonstrated to Bronze Age times. They rather see the emergence of historic Illyrians tribes as a more recent phenomenon - just prior to their first attestation. The proto-Illyrians during the course of their settlement along the Adriatic coast and its hinterland likely merged with populations of a pre-Illyrian substratum – like Enchelei might have been –, leading to the formation of the historical Illyrians who were attested in later times. It has been suggested that the myth of Cadmus and Harmonia may be a reflection in mythology of that historical era.
  The impetus behind the emergence of larger regional groups, such as "Iapodes", "Liburnians", "Pannonians" etc., is traced to increased contacts with the Mediterranean and La Tène 'global worlds'. This catalyzed "the development of more complex political institutions and the increase in differences between individual communities". Eme
caption: Sites from prehistory in Illyria.
exif: {}