The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans

[alanarchae]

Herodotus wrote that the Hellenes were originally few in number:

Hdt. 1.56.2
He found by inquiry that the chief peoples were the Lacedaemonians among those of Doric, and the Athenians among those of Ionic stock. These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far.

Hdt. 1.57.3
If, then, all the Pelasgian stock spoke so, then the Attic nation, being of Pelasgian blood, must have changed its language too at the time when it became part of the Hellenes.

Hdt. 1.58.1
But the Hellenic stock, it seems clear to me, has always had the same language since its beginning; yet being, when separated from the Pelasgians, few in number, they have grown from a small beginning to comprise a multitude of nations, chiefly because the Pelasgians and many other foreign peoples united themselves with them.

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex...99.01.0126

The crazy thing about this is, if true, would be the only historical source referring to EEFs as an ethnic group.

the Pelasgians are fascinating. It’s a pity the records are rather garbled with regards to them. However the idea they were pre IE substrate feels plausible. It’s interesting that they are sometimes compared with the Etruscans who were of course a non IE group (though I don’t think they literally derive from each other).