[daniel_tanevski]

Macedonia had previously been settled by the original European peoples during the Neolithic age, these people created the Old European civilizations, which were some of the most advanced in Europe at the time.

Macedonia's origins lay in an invasion of the area by a Nordic tribe some time during the great Nordic migrations which occurred from around 5000 BC onwards, at first conquering but then integrating with these original Old European peoples. This massive influx of peoples brought about the fall of these Old European civilizations - and in their place arose a great civilization which have come to epitomize the classical world: Macedonia!


Archaeological investigations have revealed just how Nordic the Macedonians were - particularly in contrast to the peoples who, by the time of the first Macedonian expeditions, made up the majority of the inhabitants of southern Greece.


Macedonians were not "Hellenic-speaking" people. From historic writtings we have available it is clear that macedonians were "barbarians" in the eyes of Greeks and they spoke a totally different language which obviously Greeks couldn't understand.


The Greeks never saw the Macedonians as Hellenes; they were excluded from the Olympics and from social gatherings - this is one of the reasons why it wasn't uncommon for a Macedonian to be able to speak Greek.


The Macedonian kings, however, knew that Greece was the centre of European civilization, culture and learning at the time and they wanted to be part of it. They adopted much culture of the Greeks in the South. Alexander the Great conquered most of greece and then went on to spread Macedonian culture and language throughout the known world.


If one would ask Plato if Macedonians were Greeks, he'd say they were not. One of the greatest philosophers of all time, Aristotle, was also a Macedonian (by his father), and he too would argue on the subject-matter.


With the arrival of the Slavs in the 5th or 6th centuries AD, the Macedonian culture began to decline, and when the Slavs conquored the region - the Macedonians began to adopt many cultural facets, one of these being the Slavic dialects (of which the Macedonians formed their own).
Today's Macedonians are the very descendants of the Ancient Macedonians, making a distinct ethnic group - they are one of the few White people remaining in the Balkans - due to the mixing of Albanians with Turks, and Greeks with Ethiopians.