PELASGI

also called Pelasgians, the people who occupied Greece before the 12th century BC. The name was used only by ancient Greeks. The Pelasgi were mentioned as a specific people by several Greek authors, including Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, and were said to have inhabited various areas, such as Thrace, Argos, Crete, and Chalcidice. In the 5th century BC the surviving villages apparently preserved a common non-Greek language. It is uncertain whether any ancient people actually called themselves Pelasgi. In later Greek usage their name was applied to all aboriginal Aegean populations.