It is impossible to determine who were the inhabitants of the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras in the territory of Albania, as everywhere else the communities of these eras were nomadic, that is, they moved from time to time, changing their place of residence. The ethnic groups of the inhabitants begin to be identified when they became sedentary. Due to the lack of written sources, their identification can be investigated by observing the material culture of the archaeological objects and the indirect results that emerge from the ethnographic and linguistic studies of the later inhabitants of these settlements.
Based on this method, some scientists think that the inhabitants who became sedentary in the Albanian lands at the end of the Neolithic (in the fourth and third millennium BC), were part of the ethno-linguistic group called Mediterranean, which included many populations that they lived around the Mediterranean Sea. It is believed that the inhabitants of this group had medium build, brown eyes and black hair. They knew how to decorate ceramics with colors and used the twenty-one counting system (twenty, forty, thirty, four, etc.).
During the Eneolithic (second half of the third millennium BC), the first populations of the Indo-European ethno-linguistic group came from the Northeast to the Balkan Peninsula. These proto-Indo-Europeans, who came before the migration of the Greeks, Thracians and Illyrians to the Balkans, were in the stage of primitive society’s debauchery, knew the decoration of ceramics with engraving (scratching) and used the first decimal numbering system (ten, twenty, thirty, forty etc.). He is thought to have been tall, blue eyes, yellow hair.
Proto-Indo-European populations settled mainly in the southern half of the Balkan Peninsula, including the territory of Albania. Over time they assimilated the previous Mediterranean inhabitants, but took quite a few elements of their culture. Some historians think that these Proto-Indo-European populations are called Pelasgians.
Herodotus (5th century) says that the language of the Pelasgians was not Greek. He writes that “What language the Pelasgians then spoke is a matter about which I can say nothing.” Relying on some barbarian tribes still living in his time, who formerly resided in Athens, we conclude that the Pelasgians had five barbarian languages. So if that was the language of the Pelasgians, it turns out that the population of Attica (Athens district – K.F.) of Pelasgian origin, forgot their language, turning to the Hellenes from whom they also learned the language.” But, he adds, “the speech of the Crestonians and the Plakieans, which is the same speech, has nothing in common with that of their neighbors (the Hellenes), a clear proof that these two Pelasgian tribes preserve even in our days the language that they brought to this country when they settled there.
Based on these reports, some historians think that the Pelasgians, not being Greeks, were ancestors of the Illyrians, who inherited their language and from them the Albanians inherited it. There are scientists who, relying on some linguistic and cultural elements, think that their civilization is connected with the advances made by human society in the Balkans during the second millennium BC, when the Pelasgians moved to the production of tools, weapons and ornaments from bronze. From the first part of the Bronze Age, agriculture, animal husbandry and pottery had a qualitative progress. Metallurgy became a unified branch of production. In the middle of the Bronze Age, exchange also took place with distant lands: with the Aegean world, with the Italian Peninsula and with Danubian Europe. The family of Pelasgian society had a patriarchal character. They were polytheists, so they had many gods.
During the Bronze Age, other non-European populations arrived in the Balkans from the North. At the beginning of the era came the Achaeans (Greeks), then the Thracians, then the Dorets and then the Illyrians.
The Achaeans settled in the south of the peninsula and here, after assimilating the previous inhabitants, formed the Hellenic ethnos (nationality). The hands also spread to the Hellenic lands and merged with them. Around the middle of the Bronze Age came the Thracians, who settled in the eastern part of the peninsula. After them came the Illyrians, who settled to the north of the Hellenes, in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, from the Gulf of Istria to the Gulf of Ambracia. It seems that the great Illyrian tribe of the Dardanians, after settling in the Central Balkans, a part of them continued their journey along the Eastern Balkans and settled on the north-western coast of Asia Minor by the Sea of Marmara. In an Egyptian papyrus written in the hieroglyphic alphabet at the time of Pharaoh Ramses II (1298-1232 BC), the Dardanians, who lived around Troy, are mentioned as allies of the Hittites in the fight against the Egyptian invasion. These are thought to be related to the Dardanians, the ancient Illyrian inhabitants of the Central Balkans. Later, detached Illyrian tribes moved from the Southwestern coasts of present-day Albania to the Southeastern coasts of the Italian Peninsula and settled in the Italic lands in front of present-day Albania.
In their Balkan settlements, the Illyrians mixed with the local inhabitants. but these were not the same everywhere. In the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula, they found ancient populations of the Balkan-Danubian group (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia). In the southern part (in today’s Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Western Macedonia and Epirus), the Illyrians mixed with the Pelasgians. Both in the north and in the south, after hundreds of years of coexistence, the Illyrians assimilated the previous populations. At the end of this process, which continued throughout protohistory (XIII-VIII centuries BC), the Illyrian ethnos was formed with special ethnocultural features from those of their Hellenic and Thracian neighbors.
Thus, the Southern Illyrians differed to some extent from the Northern Illyrians, due to the different cultural elements they acquired from the previous inhabitants. This difference was also noticed by the ancient authors, because in contrast to the populations of Northern Illyria, they called the Southern Illyrians “properly called Illyrians” (illyrii proprie dicti). The Illyrians of the South or “properly called Illyrians” are the direct ancestors of the Albanians. (https://treasuresofalbania.com/pelasgians-and-illyrians/)
