Where did the ancient Greeks come from?

The territory of ancient Greece had been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, according to archaeological excavation findings, before it was colonized by the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The result of multiple waves of migration, which included the Ionians and Aeolians, the Proto-Greeks were present on the territory of Greece at the end of the third millennium BC.

Much of the information about pre-Classical Greece is based on ancient literary and historical texts. These sources are heavily based on myths, so much of the information is not reliable. The Ionians and other tribes that first colonized the territory of Greece came from Anatolia and other areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.