Minyans

In archaeology, the term "Minyans" has been applied to the Minyan ware excavated from Orchomenus, and is used to refer to an autochthonous group of Proto-Greek speakers inhabiting the Aegean region, though the degree to which the material culture in the prehistory of the area can be securely linked to the legendary people or language-based ethnicity has been subjected to debate and repeated revision.

John L. Caskey's interpretation of his archaeological excavations conducted in the 1950s linked the ethno-linguistic "Proto-Greeks" to the bearers of the Minyan (or Middle Helladic) culture.

Greek mythographers gave the Minyans an eponymous founder, Minyas, perhaps as legendary as Pelasgus (the founding father of the Pelasgians), which was a broader category of pre-Greek Aegean peoples.

[4] Heracles, the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to Thebes, one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle (a hecatomb) each year to Erginus, king of the Minyans.

Erginus made war on Thebes, but Heracles defeated the Minyans with his fellow Thebans after arming them with weapons that had been dedicated in temples.

[11] Caskey also stated that Lerna (along with settlements at Tiryns, Asine in the Argolid, Agios Kosmas near Athens, and perhaps Corinth) was destroyed at the end of Early Helladic II.