Talk:Dorian invasion

Comments

It would be cool if 142.173.109.116 could provide a citation for his expansion of this article, for the benefit of the curious. Also, please don't use the first person or a conversational style in writing Wikipedia articles. Thanks - Nat Krause 16:06, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dorians and the "Dorian invasion"

These two articles essentially belong together at Dorian, supporting one another until some subsection is overwhelmingly complicated and might stand on its own, represented at the main article by a concise paragraph. Perhaps there are three subsections to this part:

1. "The Greek view"
2. "Race and Historians: the 19th century view"
3. "Archaeology and the modern view"

If you see other natural subdivisions, please insert them, and then let's get going with this interesting big article. --Wetman 06:43, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I rewrote the text (the previous writers had badly structured it). It still needs to be expanded and further rewritten. Whoever wants to expand it, feel free, because I'm booked. Alexander 007 06:32, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I hope the author of the previous version does not decide to treat us to more of his/her work. The Dorian Hexapolis wasn't even mentioned, and the whole text was a wreck that reeked of "nationalism" and extreme anti-migrationist, autochthonic views that most scholars reject outright, and for good reason. Alexander 007 06:39, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Article creation

I just created this article by breaking it out from Dorians. The commentary above this comment is legacy discussion addressed months ago and no longer relevant. My reason for breaking it out is size. The reason for the size is that commentators not copied over to here were struggling with the many issues and seeming contradictions, which needed more explanation than a few paragraphs. The 1911 EB was a major source, but of course this whole field has practically developed since 1911. I'm done with this article for now but Dorians still needs some work. Ciao.Dave (talk) 13:04, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess it still needs work. It is an important topic. I will be going through here albeit slowly addressing my sins of omission and essayism. Anyone else can jump in you know. No need to put all the heat on me.Dave (talk) 12:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I rather hamfistedly added two links after the first paragraph, intending to point people to maps showing the dialect pattern before and after the 'Dorian Invasion' or whatever one wants to call it. I would prefer that someone with the appropriate skill just put them side by side in the article itself. This would make it clear that the Dorians (or at least their dialect) were not really present throughout most of the Greek speaking area before the classical period, but by classical times varieties of Dorian were spoken throughout most of the south half of that area as well as in the north west. Whether invasions or decent or uprising...this is the main, clear data point that the various theories are trying to address, and I think a visual would help greatly to make that clear. If I have time, I'll try to see if I can figure out how to do it myself, that is, of course, if there are no objections. Johundhar (talk) 22:34, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I see my links have vanished mysteriously. Too hamfisted, I guess. My request stands that someone post before and after dialect maps that make clear the essential nature of the issue. ThanksJohundhar (talk) 14:54, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Reading skills

Someone whose large-print dictionary, as they confess, omits relict has reverted "a classical theme of relict populations existing in pockets among the Greek speakers" to replace it with the ignorant "relic [sic] populations". Simply reverted my edit. Now an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." is by its very definition a constant compromise with mediocrity, and I'm perfectly aware of the general cultural level, but this doesn't rise to that level. I just can't think of anything to say that won't be judged as condescending. Are we to have adult vocabulary limited to a sixth-grade level? There is a Simple Wikipedia: but if you mention it, the simple are highly insulted. What's to do? "Relic population' is ignorant and just wrong. But I have no patience with this and so am dropping another page from my Watchlist. --Wetman (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

First. You didn't read Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Behavior_that_is_unacceptable, I guess?

Second. It was "Webster's Clear Type Dictionary", one of the 2 on my shelf - not a "large print dictionary". I guess that if I did really use a "large print dictionary", that would make me some sort of mental degenerate.

Third. Wow, you'd think I'd have heard of the word relict before today. Unfortunately, I hadn't, and thought the word intended was "relic". Unfortunately, it seems Wikipedia also hasn't heard of the word relict being used to describe human populations, according to the article on the word. Well, silly me, I ended up politely asking if there was some other word, or phrasing, that could be used to make the article more accessible. The response was the above.

Wetman, I know I'm wrong now, but you make me want to revert you again, just to see how much it'll take to make you snap and go on a killing spree. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

. . .

Nevertheless— protestations to the contrary notwithstanding— the following call of "Hep hep" to raise a vigilante posse had at that moment just been posted by User talk:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad at the talk page of Lugnuts. Wetman re-posts it here because the call was for a "straw poll", and surely you should all have a chance to raise the hue and cry:

So, reading the article Dorian invasion, I came across this sentence:

Toward the end of the 19th century the philologist Paul Kretschmer made a strong case that Pelasgian was a pre-Greek substrate, perhaps Anatolian,[6] taking up a classical theme of relict populations existing in pockets among the Greek speakers, in mountainous and rural Arcadia and in inaccessible coasts of the far south.

So I never saw the word relict before, so I changed it to relic.

So I get reverted by User:Wetman, who considers it vile and inhuman that I even suggest simplifying the language in the article.

So, straw poll: am I a moron, or do people generally not use the word relict? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wetman made the following reply which will be his only remark on this subject:

Wetman never uses "vile" and "inhuman", and did not in this case, which AllGloryToTheHypnotoad must agree is the truth, because honesty is what civility is built upon, and a dishonest report is deeply insulting and fraudulent. So now, after AllGloryToTheHypnotoad reverted Wetman, attacking him with the club of WP:CIVILITY on his own talkpage, the article Dorian invasion now reads

"... a classical theme of relic populations..."

which, being a naïve misuse of relic, does give an appearance of "ignorance" to the reader of ordinary reading skills. Will you call together your fellows, as AllGloryToTheHypnotoad proposes, and lobby to get me blocked for incivility, after having edited Wikipedia since September 2003 without such a threat? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad says on his userpage "I'm an information sponge". Under the circumstances, this might give an appearance of disingenuousness: in the interests of frankness, might that be re-edited and another virtue substituted? (This page is not on my Watchlist, so I shall not return to spar with the posse you may call up.) --Wetman (talk) 02:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC) Reposted here by Wetman (talk) 03:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Having frequently come across the term relict in the context of palaeontology etc, it never occurred to me that its meaning was not self evident to anyone who knows the word relic. If this is not so it can be found in the Concise OED, ie the very short one, not the 20 volume version . Pterre (talk) 09:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Wetman, I wonder how this can be worth your time. Note that my post on a random person's page was a straw poll as to whether I'm dumb for not having come across the word relict, and not an attempt to raise a posse to attack you personally, nor to start any process to have you blocked for incivility. I am sorry if you misread it as a personal threat.

My reminders of WP:CIVIL were simply reminders. I can be uncivil with the best, but here on Wikipedia I do try to be nice, to show respect to the people who contribute to an online encyclopedia that I enjoy reading. I certainly appreciate those who contribute to articles on ancient history. I hope that you never get banned for incivility.

However, you did aim the words "ignorant" and "childish" at me. Also, above, you seemed to insinuate that anyone using a "large print dictionary" (a complete misreading on your part) is inferior - which is an insult to anyone with, say, a visual impairment (which I don't have). I am confident that an impeccably-bred Harvard-educated gentleman with a distaste for mediocrity would be quick to apologize. He knows his excellence comes from being held in high regard.

So, I was ignorant of the term relict. I don't think that this means I'm ignorant. I do have a University education, I work in a technical field, and I do read books. I'm fairly certain that I have expertise in fields where you don't, but wouldn't call you ignorant for that. My suggestion was that there may be simpler language that could be used. The suggestion was only made because I thought if I was unfamiliar with the word, probably at least 90% of Wikipedia readers would also be unfamiliar with it. (One of my own dictionaries was unfamiliar with it.) If the contributors to this page disagree with me, or care less than I, then I'll let it go. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's relict, not relic. Please stop crying. 153.2.247.30 (talk) 01:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Another wiki-tempest in a wiki-teapot. Impressive, as usual.JGC1010 (talk) 01:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Folks please. I wrote relict. That is a perfectly good word. You can use relic as an adjective - you can do anything in English - but its meaning is wrong for the context. Relict is fine. The current choice also is fine. I don't really think it is worth the trouble to change it. Someone has to write these things you know and no matter what they say someone else won't like it. Unless a perceptible improvement in English can be achieved, I always leave the previous. But, it is done now.Dave (talk) 04:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

article issues

For some reason, the article appears to be hell-bent on dismissing the Dorian invasion as unhistorical. As is heralded by section titles such as "Greek origin in Greece" and "Invasion or migration?". These are complete red herrings. Whether you want to call it an invasion or a migration is a matter of preference. Whether the Dorian migration "originated in Greece" depends on the arbitrary question of modern country borders. The point is that Doric Greek proper is intrusive to southern Greece and Crete, and must have got there by means of a migration during the Greek Dark Ages. Ths migration is termed "the Dorian migration". Whether it originated in northern Greece or in the Balkans just beyond the Greek border is a moot question.

The current article style is that of an {{essay-entry}} setting up strawmen so it can shoot them down and dismiss the migration as legendary instead of examining what can be said about this prehistoric event. --dab (𒁳) 09:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I could not disagree more with your take. The article as it stands does synthesize the most current sober views, and the debunking of the German school's racialist mistakes, which need to be cleared out of several Wikipedia articles (as does a still amazing number of reliance on Evans debunked conclusions).Carwon (talk) 16:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Carwon. I see you are in fact an expert or at least cognizant of the prevailing issues. I should probably tip you off, this discussion is not an objective critique. Maybe you have noticed the tags were put on by dab. I see you are new here. Dab is a German. In my opinion he takes the German party line. He is so predictable on that score you can almost mouth his reponses beforehand. I don't want to be unfair to anyone. The only answer to this problem is to respond to all the criticisms. That is why WP articles are so terrible. You spend all your time on questions such as these. Meanwhile the place fills up with uncontrolled junk. Naturally any student questions anything and everything. That is the nature of a student, and so do amateurs. We are so to speak taking the heat for the entire educational and publishing establishment. "Why does 2 and 2 have to be 4? I disagree with that! I want it to be something else!" Education is a tough game. I'll be going through this albeit very slowly. You probably don't have time to follow it but thanks for the support.Dave (talk) 11:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The uncivility, arrogance, POv and obnoxiousness of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Botteville (Dave) is noteworthy. What does an editors (inferred!) nationality have to do with their edits? Are you a nationalist or a racist?

Dave has taken it upon himself to create the Dorian and Dorian invasion pages himself. With no regard for anyone else’s input. Just read the talk pages on both articles and do a search for “Dave”. The arrogance is near comical when you do the search. One cannot be absolutist on wikipedia. 2A02:A445:79E2:1:F8E9:4B4A:2FF9:EDFB (talk) 00:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Cheap iron in 1000 BCE?

I have tagged the following phrase: Families were so poor that they gave up bronze as a metal of jewelry and took to wearing simple iron rings and pendants

To my knowledge, iron was an expensive material in that era's Greece. For contrast:

Throughout the 7th to 6th centuries BC, iron artifacts remained luxury items reserved for an elite. - here

Thanks for the ref. It ain't my opinion of course; however, WP articles are not sources. You can't fix everything in every article. You assert that iron was actually a precious metal. It certainly sounds like a matter of opinion that should have been referenced. Eventually I will check it. Meanwhile if you find it all that offensive, remove it. When in doubt, leave it out! The lack of a ref gives you the priviledge of doing that.Dave (talk) 11:43, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Reply by the main author

My goodness what a storm! Well, first of all let me say that on the charge of writing in the essay style, more guilty than not. However, that has an unfortunate side effect. Most of those opinions, or "straw men," are not mine, they belong to someone else. We do have a comment by an expert that the article reflects the prevailing opinions. I should have put in more sources. As a result everything is now being questioned. There really is no other course of action at this point than to go through it again objectifying it. You critics removed some material you thought was essayist and irrelevant, but you didn't get them all; moreover, some of the material you removed contained some points of view that should be in there better identified and more objectively.

Now a special message for you dab. Perhaps the rest of you are not acquainted with dab. He's an editor/administrator who lives in Germany and does not pull any punches. In many cases he likes to shock without any trace of civility. I can't really understand why he has not been removed as administrator. But here you are, dab, big as life as usual. I think you love it. However, I have my usual objections. First of all, your backing the original Dorian Invasion is nothing less than Germanist. Apparently we can't say anything without passing your Germanist criteria. That invasion as such has been out for a long time now. I have referenced that part pretty thoroughly. There are no "straw men." I don't know what you mean there. YOU might be a straw man as you appear to back some pretty strange ideas on WP. Here I find you are about as accurate as you usually are, not very. How do we defend ourselves against you? Well, I say this, but actually there is a lot you have done I have agreed with. So, you aren't all that bad. I find you are a very emotional man; to wit, "oh dear." Frankly if you think some of us are not objective, by that standard you need to drill a hole through your tongue and put a rein on it, and I wouldn't put the reins in your hands. I suggest those of your wife's, but it is only a suggestion. All in good clean fun, dab.

So, there is nothing for it but to go through here repenting of my sins and trying to answer all these objections. The article is basically correct. You do have an expert opinion on that in the topic before last. All experts are welcome to pitch in at any time. This is going to take a while. It will be very slow as I do not have all the time in the world, certainly not the time dab seems to have. I hope you are not neglecting more important matters, dab. When I get through here I am taking off dab's tags. Dab, if you have further objections I insist you be very specific. Exactly what do you find a straw man or essayist? I will be removing any unspecified tags. I know you are an administrator. You are also a bully. I think it is time to face you right to the end, whatever that is. I see that in this article I have to justify everything. I think it is only fair for you to have to do so also. Do you think you are above the law, so to speak? A man must know his limitations.Dave (talk) 11:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Survey of recent changes

I looked this over. Sorry, but it seems to me you recent editors have some sections pretty well messed up both in formatting and in content. Rich, you put a request for a citation on. I think you are hardworking and credible but if you look above the last ref covers it. I went to check these refs and discovered to my surprise I had not done them. Well thank you very much for your work on the refs. I can use that by doing a little more work to fix them. I'm using the Harvard ref system now and these refs do not look much like it. The recent editor on the meaning of invasion part, well, you are removing vital material. The ref asked for on that had already been given. I will have to put that material back, but I will re-edit it for objective language. The part that is my fault, well, I should have larded the refs on more thickly. To expect you to know that a statement was covered by a ref four sentences back is too much. Some removals I applaud. I will be leaving those out, such as the biographical comment on Chadwick. I don't know what got into me. That used to be my field I suppose. Attilios, I think you are credible also. I suppose I can bear a little ridicule from you. I have to check your changes more carefully. If I may evaluate myself - well, I did this article halfway between being experienced and non-experienced. Overall it is well-written. I'm good writer. I did have a tendency to use essay-type language here and there. You have taken those statements mainly out. In the definition of invasion section you took out too much. I will have to put it back. For accuracy and classical validity - well, I'm a good classicist and this is good classics. I do have a discussion comment backing me up. Dieter, well, he's off the wall. He's obviously letting his dislike of me pollute his job. Well, the rule is, you don't remove properly cited material without a good reason. When I finish here everything will be properly cited. You will have no reason to remove it. I was going to take Dieter's tags off right now on the strength of your corrections. However, I see your corrections aren't so correct so it still has multiple issues. I'm on this now. Don't take anything else out. Mark it if you want. I'm going to give it my painstaking treatment. I will be glad to discuss. You may offer some jovial ridicule. You may not offer any hate.Dave (talk) 02:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

On-line Britannica

"* Myres, John Linton (1910-19-11). "Dorians". The Encyclopedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Vol. 8 (11 ed.). Cambridge, England and New York (printed): Cambridge University Press, Online Encyclopedia. pp. Pages 425–428. Retrieved 2008-01-04. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Note that the online edition omits the critical bibliography, which features works only in German, and includes Müller but not Kretschmer. Also the online version runs paragraphs and section headings together. The paragraph division is not the one of the article."

Whew. Someone has someone too cowed to act. The editor has written everything that is wrong with it into the ref! Moreover, the editor is right. I never did like that site. We should just take it out! We don't have to live with that stuff. If they want to be used by us let them get their act togther. WP does have an EB template pulling up the WP version of the EB article: "EB1911|The Dorians" But, no one has put any such article in. It takes a lot of work to put those in. My suggestion is, until someone has the time and inclination to do it, let's leave EB 1911 out. There is a Google Books duplication we could put in. But, this whole article in here because the 1911 article is too obsolete even to consider. What do we want that for? Let's leave it alone.Dave (talk) 15:44, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

can this article be more properly named please?

Is there a way for an editor to rename this "Dorian Invasion Theory"? It could then be put in it the context all the current work puts it in, not as an historic fact, but what it really is: a reflection of prejudices within early archeology. In archeology journals and schools today the "Dorian invasion" is not about any invasion of "Dorians" but about pitfalls and errors and bias in early archaeology. IE it is taught and seen as a case study in mistakes made, not as an actual occurrence. This article needs to reflect that. And I am not talking about a distinction between migration and invasion since there is no evidence whatsoever that the Dorians were not simply there all along. 68.45.42.194 (talk) 02:39, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I can give you some good reasons why the article should keep its current name, but also I want to say,I don't think you are drawing valid conclusions. This is NOT - I repeat NOT a debunking of the Dorian invasion. For all we know there might have been one. We can't totally discard that view, which is like our concept of Homer. Maybe there was a Homer, maybe not, but the poems are probably not the work of a single poet. What we are presenting here are various explanations of the cultural change in southern Greece. There is no right or wrong. Each theory has its strength and weakness. Scholarship followed a certain course of acceptance but that does not mean it is the RIGHT one. Ive known that course to run the gamut of criticism and then suddenly snap back to the original view in other topics. Kretschmer may well be coming back in some areas. These scholars, you know, they like to argue with each other. That's what they do. This article only presents the main line of arguments. If anyone knew, they wouldn't have to argue. It is a question of who is in and who out at the moment. Maybe Kretschmer will return to claim his true inheritance! I don't see any predjudice of early archaeology, and I don't see this as being about pitfalls and errors. If archaeologists are trying to discover pitfalls they sure are doing a good job but hat aspect continues right on in the present. I never saw the Dorians as any sort of case study of pitfalls and you can't use lack of evidence as any proof that the Dorians were there. There was a linguistic and cultural change. We said that. The Dorian invasion is a possible explanation. We said that. There are problems with it. We said that. What we did NOT do is present any of it as the scientific truth according to which it can be pronounced bunk. So, what do you say we leave it as it is? Most of ancient history is larded with the recent concepts of scholars - in some quarters it has been a standing joke - but we don't usually invent names declaring the concept to be phony. This article is about the concept of the Dorian Invasion, right or wrong, or no matter how anyone sees it. I say we should just leave it.Dave (talk) 04:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

No offense, Dave, but it seems to me you are missing the central point of the original post. The poster was primarily arguing for a simple name change, whereas your counterarguments almost entirely deal with his claims about the credibility of the Dorian Invasion Theory. You yourself seem to recognize that the Dorian Invasion is one of several theories, so why exactly are you opposed to renaming the article? An alternative, of course, would be to rename it "Post-Mycenaean Dialect Shift in the Peloponnese" or some such, since that seems to be the only relatively certain event here. (I say relatively, since all we really know is that the dialect spoken by the common people after the dark age was different from the dialect written by palace scribes in the Mycenaean period and as we all know the written language of the upper class does not necessarily bear much resemblance to that spoken by the commoners.) To get back to the point, however, your reply to the original post actually seems like a ringing endorsement of a name change to me, so unless you do in fact have some arguments against it, why don't we change it? Maitreya (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Could the title e changed? Being Greek, I know it by two terms: Κάθοδος τῶν Δωριέων ("Descent of the Dorians" - much better than "Invasion" as the latter may imply that the Dorians were of a totally different ethnicity than the Mycemnean populations they subdued)and Ἐπιστροφὴ τῶν Ἡρακλειδῶν ("Returhn of the Heracleids (descendants of Hercules". I would clearl;y opt for "Descent of the Dorians" or "Dorain Descent"! Apostolos Vranas (talk) 07:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Tag removal

{{Multiple issues|essay=January 2010|expert=Classical Greece and Rome|date=January 2010}}

I think the problems in the discussion have been addressed by all the editors, myself included. I don't see any essay-type material any more. For the expertise, well, some of us are classicista and we have a few comments and ratings asserting the accuracy. Bachman is not an expert or he would not have called for an expert. This article asserts the current view of the Dorian invasion. I'm not done with it yet - more reference checking and reference-formatting. I must say, there is certainly more that could be added. I'm not saying saying the article is perfect at this point, only that it does not need these tags. I feel I should point out, this is not the place to air your personal views on the Dorians or whether you agree or disagree with this or that scholar. If you have evidence of additional theories or explanations I would say, throw your hat in the ring. By now it should be plain that this sort of liberal arts article needs references on just about every generalization. And I must say, if you look at some of the sources - most are available online - you will see that this really is just a general overview of the main theories. The sources go into detail, chapter after chapter, book after book. One has to admire the command of language and detail of the early German scholars. About all we can do in this sort of article is introduce the topic.Dave (talk) 03:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Done with my revisit for now. If you want further clarification put specific requests on, AFTER you already have checked the links. I would not expect to see any more general tags without clarification in the discussion of some very good reasons. If you got more material you want to add or can improve the article in any way go right ahead. The accepted courtesy is not to rewrite it unless it is wrong. There is a certain tendency to think that just because you write different you write better. Do your English comp homework.Dave (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Worse than ever

The article is more problematic than ever following the edits of early August and will need extensive tagging and rewrite. No offence to editor Botteville/Dave but it seems clear they are not relying on current work but older works. This is a wikipedia affect of older works being accessable. I think the recent editor is unaware that the supposed linguistic shift is now seen as much less pronounced, that there is zero evidence for different pottery style, and that the return of sons of Heracles is now seen as unrelated to the supposed Dorian invasion. Even the main Dorian article is getting poor edits spilling over from the amatuer work on this and that is a shame. 68.45.42.194 (talk) 04:52, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Section tagged -- Jan 2012

I tagged the conclusion, which has no refs at all and largely ignores other possibilities. Chadwick posits an indigenous population of Dorians in a prosperous region overthrowing their palace masters, for which there is essentially no evidence and few parallels. The section concludes that a well-armed invader would leave better archaeological remains, but a mass movement of desperate people from the north, driven perhaps by the progressive dessication of the region, might well have disrupted the established civilization to the point that nearly everyone starved. So the "Dorian Uprising" is hardly the last man standing. -- Elphion (talk) 21:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Dates?

This article needs approximate dates of when this supposed invasion/shift happened (even if it did not happen). There's nothing there for casual readers to bite on to get a sense of time. Walrasiad (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Invasion or migration: The Doric delusion

It is generally accepted that the Dorians established themselves in Peloponnesus in the middle of the 11th century BC. In the section is mentioned 950 BC, which is wrong. C.Mossè, speaks for "The doric illusion", e.g the theory that the Mycenaean centres were destroyed by the Dorians, or that a Doric civilization substituted the Mycenaean. It seems that the destruction of the palaces was due to large population movements in the East Mediterranean at the end of the 13th century BC. However there was a Dorian migration, allthough it was not the main cause of the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces. C.M.Bowra believes that "nature protects Greece from any swift attack by a huge army by land, but Greece is convenient for a gradual penetration. Immigrants can settle between the mountains without even notice, until they make their next move". In that regard, it is possible that the Dorians moved southward organized in small bands until they established themselves in the land. Anyway, we cannot say that the Dorians were invented.

jest 16:43, 29 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jestmoon (talk • contribs)

"Return" of the Heracleidae

The article talks about "The Return of the Heracleidae", but then seems to imply that "return" is a bad translation of what ought to be "descent". Is "The Return of the Heracleidae" the well-established English name of this supposed event? Is so, this should be stated, and if not should "return" be replaced with "descent"? On the other hand, the criticism of "return" seems confused - if as stated "return from exile" is one of the accepted meanings of the Greek, then "return" would be a reasonable translation, and the lines about "they're not returning home because they are homesick" seem rather irrelivent as no-one has claimed they were. Iapetus (talk) 12:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The phrase being translated is Ἐπιστροφὴ τῶν Ἡρακλειδῶν. The first word does in fact connote returning, and the legend has the descendants of Heracles returning from exile. Several non-native-English-speaking editors have added passages obsessing about "return" vs "descent", but the latter makes no sense in English in this context, and these passages in the article are largely unintelligible. -- Elphion (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Quote from Mossè

I've removed the following paragraph from the section "Closing the gap". Whoever added this has mangled the quote sufficiently that Mossè's point is not clear. (And what I take to be the point has already been made.) Someone familiar both with Mossè's book and with English may want to add this back in some form.

C.Mossè suggests that there is not any archaeological evidence that a "Doric civilization" substituted the "Achaean civilization, and that the Dorian methods of a war-society, was a myth created by the scientists who were based on the "Spartan delusion". The Dorians who spoke a different dialect were mixed with the local population, when they migrated to the new lands

-- Elphion (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

References

Doriens = Serbs ?

If we consider Vinca culture, it would be quite logical to know that Doriens were Serbs. But, someone has hidden all facts linked to Serbs! Please, can anybody spread and clear this hypothese? Serbs still use chyrilics letters - similar to Greecs that were all copies of Vinca symbols (=Serbs culture) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.244.217 (talk) 08:28, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

That's just nationalist rubbish. The Slavs were nowhere around the area at this period in time.50.111.62.84 (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Coming from Carpathian basin 1200 BC "najprawdopodobniej z Kotliny Karpackiej" (Z. Bukowski 1981, s. 114, 140-141; zob. też H.-G. Hiittel 1982, s. 39 nn. oraz M. Gedl 1985, s. 30).pdf page 92 line[-10 . Vinca culture is much older, but lay in the center of Carpathian basin. The continuity (in wider theater) seem most reasonable assumption, those on margins must play doubts to feel the actors of this stage. 99.90.196.227 (talk) 06:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

No original research. Especially such cruft as this.50.111.62.84 (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

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Contradictions

A lot of information in the article is contradictory. Of course there are different theories, but we cannot say that the Dorians were invented. An area in west Greece near Peloponnese is still called "Doris" and a city nearby "Lidoriki". If someone reads the article, he gets the impression that the Dorians were an historical myth. However it seems that their homeland in Greece was mountainous Epirus (Encyclopedia Britannica) and they moved gradually to the south. Aristotle (Meteorogica), places the "old Greece" in the area between Dodona and river Achelos. There are two oracles in the region, the "oracle of the dead" near the river Acheron, and the oracle of Dodona. There is not any archaelogical evidence that a "Dorian civilization" substituted the "Mycenean civilization" because the Dorians were uncivilized, and they preferred to live in mountainous areas. The Ancient Greek tradition insists on the "descent of the Dorians" and this can explain the general disorder and destructions after the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The "Achaean dialect" includes the Cypriot, the Arcadian and the Aeolic, and it had great differences with the Doric dialect.(S.Ya.Lurye (1957):"Kultura Mikenoskoi Gretsi" Academy USSR, Moscow, Lenigrad). We don't know if the Dorians caused the destruction of the Mycenean palaces, however they were destroyed during one generation with a direction west to south. This cannot be attributed to internal fights (Mylonas Andronikos), because the palaces were not rebuilt. The theory of Chadwick that the Dorians lived together with the Myceneans (doreo:slave) is not generally accepted, because the Dorians established themselves in Peloponnese in the middle of 11th century BC. New theories reject the "Dorian invasion", but they don't give a satisfactory alternative for the displacement of the Greek dialects. New findings suggest that a new type of pottery appears in these areas and that the walls of Mycenea were reinforced before the final destruction.Jestmoon(talk) 17:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Horrible. How is this article tolerated on WP at all?

This article doesn't give a sourced summary of what modern scholars believe about the Dorian invasion. It consists of a covert attempt at a rebuttal of the notion that there ever was one, presented as a history of the concept, its allegedly flawed origins and alleged disproving by later data. If most scholars don't believe such an invasion ever happened, this should be stated. If they do, the article should start by explaining clearly and in detail what they do believe. It should only consist of a 'history of the failed concept' like Phlogiston theory if it can be demonstrated that most historians do view the Dorian invasion as a failed concept.

Some of the remarks seem clearly motivated by Greek nationalism - stuff to the effect of 'how dare anyone suggest that some Greeks could 'invade' other Greeks? All Greeks are brothers, have always been and shall always been so!' 87.126.21.225 (talk) 10:51, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

False representation of the Dorian invasions as a discredited myth

This article is, as many have noticed, problematic, and - I would say - built as a conspiracy theory: for example, while it's true that the US government used the 9/11 attacks to justify wars, claiming that the planes that crashed into the WTC were holograms is complete nonsense! This is what this article does: it lists the very bad instrumental uses of the Dorian invasions theory, and it deduces that there were no invasions at all!

It also fails to represent the scholarly consensus. I'm writing a scientific paper on the history of the Ancient Greek dialects. 90% of my sources believe that there were Dorian invasions, and clearly they are right! It is the simplest explanation of the following facts:

1. From a dialectological point of view, "Normal Mycenaean" Greek is a "Southeastern Greek" dialect. "Special Mycenaean" is a Southeastern Greek variant too. The two are attested in the Peloponnese, Crete and Thebes, between the 15th and the 13th century BC (there is also a single example from 11th-century Cyprus, from a site known to have been colonized by Arcadians).
2. In the above mentioned regions, in the archaic and classical age, "Doric Greek" is attested. From a dialectological point of view, "Doric Greek" is a set of "Northwestern Greek" dialects. While it is still Greek, it is at the opposite end, compared to Mycenaean. There are only two exceptions: Arcadia (a mountainous region in the Peloponnese) and Cyprus. Here a "Southeastern Greek" dialect survives.
3. The ancient Greek historians remember Dorian invasions of exactly the same regions that underwent a change in dialect.
4. Having said that, it's almost superfluous to add that the last Mycenaean tablets often speak about refugees and about the need to defend the coast, or that the Mycenaeans tried to build a wall on the isthmus of Corinth.

The last paragraph of the article, Current views of the Late Bronze Age collapse, is not completely wrong, but I want to comment two passages:

Where movements of people are believed to have occurred, they seem to have resulted in net migration away from Mycenaean centres; the population of the areas previously considered to have been settled by Dorians appears to have declined sharply.

How would you react if I asserted that there was no Langobardic invasion of Italy, because the population of Italy in the 6th century declined sharply? You would correctly call me a fool. In fact, this is a proof that very violent wars took place.

The archaeological evidence is not compatible with a single large-scale migration.

That's true. The invasions took place in around two centuries (between 1200 and 1000 BC ca.). This is stated by the ancient Greek historians themselves, not just by me. It is also confirmed by archaeology. Someone correctly quoted C. M. Bowra: "Nature protects Greece from any swift attack by a huge army by land, but Greece is convenient for a gradual penetration."

One more thing that I would like to clarify: Dorian Greeks invaded the Peloponnese from Northwestern Greece, not from Scandinavia. Anaxicrates (talk) 03:05, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

I apologise for not engaging directly with the argument here -- however good our own research is, Wikipedia isn't the place for it. We have to go with what's published in reliable, up-to-date scholarship. Moreover, regardless of the truth of it, I notice that you're mostly using what Wikipedia would call primary sources -- direct evidence from ancient historians and Linear B tablets. Although this would be the foundation of any academic article, it can't be used directly in a Wikipedia article.

On Wikipedia, we have to follow the consensus of the field as it stands. We currently have Papadopoulos, Middleton and Cline from the last decade, all cited as saying that the hypothesis is now discredited. Further examples can be multiplied. It does still come up in popular narratives, but I found no scholarly work at all from the last decade or so advancing it as fact, or anything other than a fringe narrative. Your quotation at the end inadvertently makes the point -- Bowra died in the 70s, when there was still a reasonably large cohort among Greek (pre)historians who believed in the invasion. However, that was more than half a century ago: the picture has changed.

Again, none of this is to say that these scholars necessarily have it right, and scholarship changes all the time, but Wikipedia has to lag behind the academy rather than leading it. To change "discredited" into "controversial", we would need to cite a significant body of expert, contemporary scholarship saying that there is a significant body of academic belief behind it.

I'd be interested to read your paper, once it's written, if you could send me a copy? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:25, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Let me be clear: What I exposed is, more or less, the consensus among the linguistic scholars. Anyway, I checked it: I have read again the relevant passages from the most reliable, recent, up-to-date linguistic sources (those I'm using in my research). Among six authors, no one rejects the Dorian invasion theory. Out of them, four accept it and two are more cautious, but eventually use it to explain linguistic facts. Some dub it "migration", even if there is no reason to think it was peaceful, quite the contrary. All agree that the Dorians did not come from Germany, but most probably from Western Greece north of the Corinthian Gulf. Some mention an unproven minority theory (that of Chadwick), according to which the Dorians were already present in Southern Greece in the Bronze Age as Mycenaean subjects.

The most up-to-date source (Janko: 2017) seems to me to provide also the best synthesis:

“If the [dialectal] system in Table 2 forms a square, it is a square with the middle missing; for no features are shared by Doric and Mycenaean only, nor by Ionic and Aeolic only. This suggests that there was little early intercourse between Ionic and Aeolic speakers, and that Ionic and Aeolic emerged through different, non-contiguous admixtures of the same two polar opposites, Doric and Mycenaean. If the difference between Doric and Mycenaean does not depend on barriers of social class, in that the Dorians were a subjected group extra muros, as Chadwick proposed, then it ought to depend on barriers of geography. The zones of the Greek world that were furthest removed from Mycenaean palatial culture lie north and west of the Corinthian Gulf. Hence North Greek should have evolved in the parts of the peninsula most remote from the palaces, i. e. north-west Greece, including Phocis, Western Locris, inland Aetolia, Acarnania, Epirus, the Pindus, Pieria, western Thessaly, inland Phthia and the mountain redoubt of Doris itself.”

“This treatment of syllabic ṛ as ar/ra at Mycenae is shared between Doric and Ionic. It is certainly not sufficient proof that there were Dorians in the palace at Mycenae; for that we would need evidence of specifically Doric forms.”

Conclusions: “This scenario exactly matches the ancient but unfashionable traditions that, long after the supposed date of the Trojan War (which should be equivalent to the 13th c. BC), Dorians migrated from central Greece into the Peloponnese, and that there were movements across the Aegean by Aeolians and Ionians in around 1000 BC.”

Bakker 2010 presents Chadwick's theory as minor:

[According to] Chadwick [...] the Dorians did not invade, but were already present in the Peloponnese as the subjects of East Greek, Mycenaean overlords. They stepped into the vacuum left by the collapse of the palaces. The theory has not found general acceptance.

Presumably the Arcadians were the descendants of speakers of a Mycenaean-like dialect who took to the hills when the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese, while the Cypriots were émigré cousins.

Colvin 2010 accepts the theory without discussing it:

When the Dorians became dominant in coastal regions of the Peloponnese (Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, Corinthia) they did not penetrate the mountainous interior, with the result that Arcadia formed an isolated linguistic community, surrounded by states speaking a different dialect from its own.

Horrocks 2010 discusses the theses of different scholars, without taking position:

Finally, the Dorians (c.1200 BC) allegedly swept into Greece in turn, with each successive invasion leading to displacements of the established population.

In this way the overthrow of the Mycenaeans and the isolated position of Arcadian in historical times could be explained as the result of a massive influx of Dorians into the Peloponnese which left only a small pocket of the earlier population in the remote central mountains.

This approach, however, has now been shown to entail quite serious archaeological and linguistic difficulties. First, it soon became clear that there was little or no evidence in the archaeological record for the influx of Dorians that the theory required. Indeed, the whole notion of hordes of invading Indo-Europeans occupying vast expanses of territory across Europe and Asia has been seriously called into question […], and many archaeologists now argue instead for more gradual movements of Indo-European peoples.

Mycenaean [...] is, however, a dialect which is already clearly of East Greek type. […] Furthermore, Mycenaean was apparently in use in large parts of central and southern Greece, as established by the Linear B archives from Thebes and Pylos, in which either West Greek (the Peloponnese and Crete) or Aeolic (Boeotia and Thessaly) were spoken in later times. Clearly, then, dialects ancestral to West Greek and Aeolic must have co-existed with Mycenaean and other East Greek varieties in the Mycenaean period, and the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization must have entailed considerable population movement if we are to explain successfully the changes of dialect involved in several areas of the mainland. One obvious possibility is that Mycenaean central and southern Greece were ‘East Greek’-speaking [...], while non-Mycenaean northern, and more specifically north-western, Greece was ‘West Greek’ in speech [...].

West Greek speakers from the north might then have moved gradually into the power vacuum as the Mycenaean civilization failed, leaving pockets of East Greek speakers in the Attic peninsula and the mountains of Arcadia. This remains the standard view, but in the continued absence of convincing archaeological evidence for large-scale Dorian incursions into southern Greece in the late Bronze Age, Chadwick (1976b) suggested that many West Greek speakers were already living in the south as a working class to serve the Mycenaean aristocracy.

This interpretation was, however, rejected by Risch (1979), and it is certainly true that the absence of clearly Dorian names is striking, given that non-Greek names of indigenous peoples appear in some numbers.

More recently, therefore, the whole theory of class-based dialect variation in the Linear B tablets has been seriously challenged, most notably by Thompson (1996/7, 2002/3), who argues that most of the observed variation is simply evidence of language change in progress.

Whatever the truth of the matter, much of the dialect diversity of the classical age is now widely taken to be of post-Mycenaean origin.

Also Miller 2013 does not take position, while using the invasion theory to explain facts:

Dorians emerged with no clear evidence of migration.

According to Thucydides, two generations after the fall of Troy the Dorians crossed the Corinthian Gulf from Naupactus to Rhion […]. The Dorian migration (or emergence) is generally dated c.1150.

The general idea is that Aeolic was originally a [si] dialect but that invading Dorians imposed [ti].

East Argolic seems to be more closely related to Corinthian-Megarian than to the Argolic of the Inachus valley, and the differences between these two major areas may reflect a distribution from prior to the arrival of the Dorian tribes in the Peloponnese.

Vokotopoulos 2007 discusses the archaeological evidence, and is persuaded by the "migrations" theory. He thinks (correctly in my opinion) that the "displacement of populations" was a secondary symptom of a primary cause, e.g. repeated droughts.

At the beginning of the twelfth century BC a series of disasters struck the great states of the eastern Mediterranean.

The catastrophes in Greece were probably the outcome of earlier developments (Shelmerdine 2001,372-6). The decline of exports to the East, for example, and the extension of fortifications in the thirteenth century BC may indicate the functional difficulties of the palatial administration, as well as a more intense feeling of insecurity. In any case, the disasters were part of the generally disturbed conditions in the eastern Mediterranean and it may well be that they were exacerbated by coincidental events, such as earthquakes or droughts.

Contemporary sources and later tradition link the catastrophes of 1200 BC with movements of peoples (“The Return of the Heraclidae,” “the Sea Peoples”) from which arose the later distribution of language groups in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean [..]. The chances of confirming such phenomena are limited or uncertain.

Be that as it may, it would certainly appear that the destructions led indeed, in the twelfth century BC, to widespread displacement of populations, either from the hinterland into the larger setdements or towards peripheral zones (like the Ionian islands, Achaea or Crete), the economies of which were, perhaps, less affected by the collapse.

The migrations [...] were not the cause but rather a secondary symptom of, or contributory factor to, the developments. Moreover, their role in forming the linguistic map of the first millennium BC is far from clear. A major problem is the location of the Dorians (Coulson 1990,14-17), i.e., the group that tradition claims was responsible for the destruction, although it must be said that their supposedly simple material culture would not be easy to identify in the archaeological evidence. Features of Balkan or Italic origin, such as the so-called “barbarian” pottery, do not appear in numbers great enough to attest the presence of relevant compact groups. Besides, they appear well before the catastrophes. Disturbance of population was therefore confined to the Mycenaean world and its periphery, as regards both the place of origin and the destination of the migrating groups.

Yes, I can send you a copy of my work, when it will be published. Anaxicrates (talk) 02:41, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

This is very interesting -- thank you. It won't surprise you that I still have a couple of worries -- in particular, the dates (we can't really use a 2007 source to discredit a statement about the consensus in the early 2020s) and the fields of the people cited -- Richard Janko, for instance, is a specialist on Archaic literature, so is working at second hand when talking about Bronze-Age archaeology. We also need to be carefully to distinguish sources which discuss a historical point of view from those which endorse it: my reading of Horrocks, for instance, is that he's does take a firm position against the Dorian invasion in the material you quote, and indeed elsewhere. I do see his comment that it "remains the standard view", but even if that were true in 2010, we can hardly use it to overrule sources from the 2020s categorically saying the opposite.

With all that said, there may well be something very interesting happening here -- if linguists are invoking migration from the north to the south of Greece as an explanation for change over time, when archaeologists have largely abandoned doing so, that's worth talking about. We need to be very careful about the citations for that, however: it's not enough (under WP:PRIMARY and WP:SYNTH) to simply cite any number of linguists who say "I believe in the Dorian invasion". Instead, we really need a synthetic source to come out and say "many linguists believe in the Dorian invasion", or something more naunced. Anaxicrates 2025, perhaps? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:27, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

"Among six authors, no one rejects the Dorian invasion theory. Out of them, four accept it and two are more cautious, but eventually use it to explain linguistic facts." These two are Horrocks and Miller.

My reading of Horrocks, for instance, is that he's does take a firm position against the Dorian invasion in the material you quote, and indeed elsewhere.

My apologies for quoting just some sentences, that left alone may be misunderstood. Therefore, I am going to provide an exegesis. Evidently, there are two different "Dorian invasion" theories. One from '800 Germany, that said that the Dorians were Aryans who invaded the Peloponnese from Germany. This racist theory is now completely discredited. This one is the theory that Horrocks rejects when he discusses historiography on the subject. The new "Dorian invasion" theory says that the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese from Western Greece north of the Corinthian Gulf. In other words, the theory has evolved over time. The modern theory is now the scholarly consensus, at least among linguists (but also archaeologists like L. Vokotopoulos endorse it). We can quote Horrocks about that: "This remains the standard view". Even if Horrocks does not take a firm position, he uses the "standard theory" to explain linguistic facts, e.g.:

The division into East (South) and West (North) Greek varieties had clearly taken place by the late Bronze Age, as the dialect of the Linear B tablets shows, perhaps as a simple function of geographical and political separation.

Cretan is a major exception, perhaps because of Mycenaean/East Greek substrate influence.

If Horrocks takes a different stance in different works, please let me know.

Horrocks is still considered the reference work on the subject. I'm not aware of any big news since 2010. Anyway, Horrocks also quotes a "competing theory" ("competing" is too generous, however, since it is unsubstantiated and discredited, and not even worth mentioning, in my opinion). However, since Horrocks does briefly mention it, I can briefly explain why it is counterfactual:

Let's start from the undisputed, hard facts: Mycenaean is a "Southeastern Greek" dialect, while Dorian is a "Northwestern Greek" dialect. Another hard fact is that the centers of the Mycenaean world (Mycenae, Argos, Pylos, Cnossus, Thebes) did not speak "Southeastern Greek" anymore in the Iron Age: "Northwestern Greek" (its opposite) had replaced it. How to explain this?

• The standard theory is that Northwestern Greeks invaded these regions. This is supported by the enormous evidence of destruction.
• Chadwick's "competing theory" is that Northwestern Greeks were already a majority in Argolis and Crete, as subjects of the Mycenaean. Their language wouldn't be attested in the Bronze Age because they were slaves. This is impossible for the following reasons: if the Dorians were an enslaved majority, the Mycenaeans would have needed to invade and subjugate them. However, in order to find evidence of invasions, we have to go back to 1900 BC, when the Proto-Greeks invaded Greece! Even if we assumed (ad absurdum) that those of 1900 BC were not Proto-Greeks who invaded Pre-Greeks, but instead Mycenaeans who invaded Dorians, how would it be possible for this Mycenaean minority to continue speaking their Southeastern dialect for another 700 years? And how could the Dorian dialect emerge again 700 years later? The two dialects would have certainly creolized during such a long time! Not to mention that Minoan Crete did not speak Greek at all (let alone Dorian!) until the Mycenaean invasion of around 1470 BC. Are we supposed to think that the Mycenaean conquerors populated Crete with Dorian slaves, and not with themselves? Why should they have brought Dorian slaves, if they had just enslaved the Minoans themselves? As you can see, this "competing theory" is not competitive at all. What is worst, it is not based on any facts, it's pure speculation! Indeed it was easily refuted by Thompson and others.

I'm not aware of any third option. The standard theory is therefore the only defensible one. This is the reason why it is the standard, after all. Let me know if you know another possible explanation of the facts.

P.S.: Before reading this article, I did not even deem it necessary to justify the adoption of the Dorian invasion theory in my paper. I simply considered it self-evident, as most of my sources. After this discussion, I think I will add a short demonstration. Anaxicrates (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't see even those quotes from Horrocks as saying "there was an invasion". In fact, The division into East (South) and West (North) Greek varieties had clearly taken place by the late Bronze Age, as the dialect of the Linear B tablets shows, perhaps as a simple function of geographical and political separation. is saying the opposite -- that there is no need to posit an invasion or indeed anything particularly interesting, because we would expect people who live in different polities far apart from each other to diverge in their dialects.

Likewise Cretan is a major exception, perhaps because of Mycenaean/East Greek substrate influence.: it is fairly widely suggested that "Mycenaeans" (that is, people from Mycenae, Pylos, etc) invaded or otherwise took power in Crete around the LM II/LM III transition (that is, c. 1500 BCE). That need not be what Horrocks is saying here (only that people from Crete widely spoke to people who spoke East-Greek dialects) but even if we go with the invasion theory here, it doesn't have any bearing on whether some other people ("Dorians") invaded and took power in Mycenae, Pylos and Crete c. 1200 and/or c. 1000 BCE, several centuries later. There's certainly no coherent narrative that makes that first invasion into a "Dorian" one, since by any reckoning it has to spread the very cultural forms (Linear B, Mycenaean-style visual culture, "palace" political organisation) that are supposed to have been wiped out by the Dorian invasion.

It's an interesting question, in any case, though I think we're slightly veering into WP:NOTFORUM in this particular discussion. I'll be interested to read your paper. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:19, 12 March 2025 (UTC)