The Greeks are not indigenous to the land that came to be called Hellas in antiquity. Their ancestors, Indo-European pastoralists, extended their presence from the northern Balkans into Greece in the course of the third millennium BCE (before common era). Here as in the Balkans—then still forming part of the wider landscape of Old Europe—the newcomers encountered the indigenous Old Europeans, the Pelasgians, themselves descendants of the ancient Europeans, whose culture and language differed markedly from the newcomers, later known as Greeks (of Indo-European affiliation). Interaction between the two (ethnically distinct) groups, indigenous ancient Europeans and Indo-European migrants settling in Hellas, resulted in a prolonged process of fusion when the cultural traditions, the linguistic systems and mythologies experienced contact-induced interferences. This fusion process had the character of a true hybridization of two very different culture systems. The newcomers absorbed much of the knowledge of the Old European population and the impact of the culture of the ancients on Greek civilization became manifested in the transfer of advanced technologies and of markers of high culture. Key technologies of crafts such as pottery, weaving, metallurgy, architecture, ship-building and others were adopted by the Greeks together with pertinent elements of their terminologies, e.g. anchor, aroma, ceramics, metal, psyche, theater, wine. Ancient Greek civilization was not the “cradle of western civilization” but a “turntable” for the transmission of values and achievements that the ancient Greeks themselves had adopted from the much older civilization.