pelabas

Pelabas, also known as Pelasgians, is a historical term used by ancient Greek writers to describe various populations who inhabited the Aegean region and adjacent lands before the spread of Hellenic Greek culture. The term serves more as a geographic-ethnographic label than as a description of a single, unified people.

Ancient sources place Pelabas in a broad area that includes Thessaly, Epirus, parts of Boeotia and Attica, the Aegean islands, and coastal regions of western Anatolia. Some accounts extend the label to areas such as Crete and the western coast of Asia Minor. Because the sources are fragmentary and laterly mythologized, the exact identity, origins, and connections of these groups are unclear and frequently debated.

Language and culture are poorly attested. Descriptions in antiquity often characterize Pelabas as speakers of a non-Greek language, but there is no definitive linguistic evidence, and inscriptions that could be linked to a Pelasgian language are scarce and contested. Archaeological evidence shows continuity with Bronze Age Aegean cultures, making it difficult to draw firm lines between Pelabas and neighboring populations. Consequently, Pelasgians are typically viewed as a label for diverse, pre-Greek communities rather than a single ethnos.

In Greek myth and later historiography, Pelasgians are sometimes portrayed as ancient autochthonous ancestors or as founders of early cities, but such portrayals mix tradition with ethnographic speculation. In modern scholarship, the concept of the Pelasgians is treated as a complex, heterogeneous category used to discuss pre-Greek populations, emphasizing diversity and cautioning against a single, unified origin. See also Pre-Greek languages and Pelasgian archaeology.