236 Angela Ganter, née Kühr
methods and convictions differ from theirs. During the last decades, the commonly
accepted view on ethnogenesis has undergone a fundamental shift. In contrast to the
primordial view that the historically manifest tribes such as the Boiotians invaded the
areas, where they settled later, during the Bronze Age or the Dark Ages, recent schol-
arship has emphasized the view that ethnogenesis took place within the later phases of
settlement, and that ethnic group formation was bound to the growing consciousness of
becoming or actually being a group (Wenskus 1961; Bourriot 1976; Roussel 1976; Funke
1993; Ulf 1996; Hall 1997; for Boiotia, see Kühr 2006; Larson 2007; Kowalzig 2007:
328–91; for primordial and instrumental approaches, see Chapter 3, “Mediterranean
Archaeology and Ethnicity,” and Chapter 5, “Ancient Ethnicity and Modern Identity”
in this volume). Accordingly, foundation myths played a fundamental part in defining,
that is to say, in constituting these groups. Ethnogenesis in this sense is what we can
grasp from our sources. The sources mirror the process of defining the essence ofethne
by telling tales of epic ancestry.
Nevertheless, ethnogenesis is more than a process of mere invented traditions. There
were other elements, shared by various groups, that can contribute to the growing aware-
ness of what we might call “ethnic commonness.” For example, the participation in
common cults or the geographical conditions of the region where theethnosfinds its
homeland in historical times can foster the sense of peoplehood that is necessary for
an ethnic identity. Furthermore, the foundation story of Boiotian immigration, set in
a dimly remembered past—the past of “once upon a time”—is paralleled by cult tradi-
tions, other myths, and the Boiotian dialect, which in fact hint at ties with north-western
Greece, mainly with Thessaly. This is a strong argument for supposing that there were
indeed various and multiple ethnic groups entering the region during the Dark Ages or
before. In fact, many Greek regions probably experienced a period of transhumance, a
phase during which social groups remained on the move before they finally settled. How-
ever, these groups were not identical with the laterethneof historical times, who took
shape in Archaic times. The tales of a common homeland, the stories of nativeethne,
and immigration as transmitted in Pausanias may reflect a remote memory of the epoch
between the palace culture of the Bronze Age and thepolisculture of historical times.
However, they do not mirror what exactly happened. As with the ancients, we only have
a hazy idea of this period of Greek history. We only vaguely know that there were several
ethneemerging and fading, forming new groups, mingling with others, staying, or mov-
ing to form new groups until the regionalethnecame into being as we know them from
historically lighter periods of Greek history.
Significantly, the eponymous hero Boiotos as the common ancestor of the Boiotians is
not attested before the sixth centuryBC, another indication confirming the theory that
the historical Greekethnetook shape during the Archaic age. Boiotos always remained
a pale figure in contrast to the widely known myths of the Minyai and the Kadmeioi,
theethnelinked to Orchomenos and Thebes as the main palaces of the region during
the Bronze Age and the main opponents in Archaic times. This opposition is evident
in several myths and also appears in theCatalogue of Ships, where the contingent of
the Boiotians excludes the Minyai from Orchomenos and Aspledon, as described in the
preceding text. Though probably of later provenience, there are myths explicitly encod-
ing this opposition, myths on the Orchomenian king Erginos and Heracles, who was
a native Theban and the most prominent promoter of Theban expansionism. It is not