> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Theories of the origin of the Karakachans and the view of Aris Poulianos
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/mnogie-iz-grecheskikh-pastukhov-otnosiatsia-k-nekogda-mnogochislennomu-etnosu-karakachanov-ili-sarakatsanov-rasselennomu-ot-epira-i-peloponnesa-do-severnoi-makedonii-serbii-bolgarii-i-r/
- Published: 2021-03-23T08:37:51.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:59:15.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Science, Ethnography

Many of the Greek shepherds belong to the once numerous Karakachan or Sarakatsani people, settled from Epirus and the Peloponnese to North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. There are several versions of the origin of the Sarakatsani. Their history is traced back to the Middle Ages and linked with a group of Hellenised Thracians, or even with the Pechenegs and Cumans. At the same time, some Greek scholars insist that the Sarakatsani descend from an originally pastoralist Greek ethnic group. Aris Poulianos, for instance, a Greek anthropologist who lived and worked for a long time in the USSR, goes so far as to call the Sarakatsani proof of the indigenous origin of the Greek tribes and of the groundlessness of the Indo-European theory. But not all of Poulianos's theories about the origin of mankind in general and of the Greeks in particular, it must be said, highly original, even in many of their datings, which go back, for example, as far as 12 million years, are widely accepted and supported by academic circles

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_4068@23-03-2021_11-37-51.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_4069@23-03-2021_11-37-51.jpg)