The Serboi, much like the Hallstatt Illyrians, migrated to the Balkans from the north & established themselves as the ruling caste over the Romanized Pannonian & Dalmatian Illyrians they found living in the Western Balkans. This population adopted the language and tribal identity & leadership of the Serboi. In the case of the Illyrians, they found the Western Balkans inhabited by proto-Dinaric, Mesolithic "Bell Beaker" people. In the case of the Serboi, they found the Romanized Illyrians who were a hybrid of the Meslolithic proto-Dinaric Bell Beaker people & the Nordic/Dinaric Hallstatt Illyrians.

Here are what several ancient historians and geographers have left us about the Serboi centuries before they migrated to Europe, while they still dwelt in the North Caucasus:

            1. "The river Ksant is called Serbika by the natives..."

            63 BC  

            Strabo

            Quoted from:

            Strabonis Rerum Geographicum

            Page 673

            V Basileza 

2. "Beside the Cimmerians live the Meotics, Valians, Serbs (Serboi), Zingians & Psesians..."

            69 AD

            Pliny the Elder

            Natural History

            Book: V, section 7

3. "Between the Keraunian mountains & the river Pa, live the Orineans, Valians & Serbs..."

            150 AD

            Claudius Ptolomei

            Geographica

            Book 5, section 9

            [/QUOTE]

From 63 BC to 150 AD, a period of less than a century, ancient geographers track the Serboi moving slowly northward from the Caucasus into eastern Europe.

It has been suggested by some Serbian scholars that Herodotus' account of the Budini & Neuri tribes of the Caucasus in 65 AD is an account of Serb tribes on account of the fact that Bodin was the name of a 10th century Serb king; while Uros was also one of the royal names held by every single Nemanjic ruler.

The Budini are a large & powerful nation: they have all deep blue eyes & bright red hair. There is a city in their territory called 'Gelonus' which is surrounded with a lofty wall, 30 furlongs each way, built entirely of wood. All the houses & temples are of the same material. Here are temples built in honor of the Greek goods with images, alters & shrines all in wood. There is even a Dionysian festival held each year at which the natives fall into Dionysian furry ... the Geloni were ancient Greeks, who, being driven out of the (cities) along the coast fled to Budini & took up their abode with them.    The Geloni still speak a language half Greek / half Scythian.

The Budini, however, do not speak the same language as the Geloni, nor is their mode of life the same. They are the aboriginal people of the country and are nomads. Their country is thickly planted with trees of all kinds. In the woodiest part is a broad, deep lake, surrounded by marshy ground. Here otters & beavers are caught with another sort of animal with a square face...

The Neurian cusoms are like the Scythian. One generation before the attack of Darius, they were driven from their land             by a huge multitude of serpents...from the deserts of the north. Suffering grievously beneath this scourge, they...took refuge with the Budini ... the Scythians & the Greeks who dwell in Scythia say that once a year every Neurian becomes a wolf.

            Herodotus

            The Persian Wars

            65 AD

If the Budini were connected with the Serboi, then these facts stand out:

(a) they had typically Nordic features & thus most probably spoke an Indo-European language,

(b) they worshipped Greek gods, had a prolific Dionysian cult,

(c) they spoke a non-Greek, non-Scythian language,

(d) they were nomads.

The Neuri were evidently a small Scythian tribe from the Central Asian deserts who took refuge with the Budini.

================================================

The Sorbs, Slavs and the Wends

of Eastern Germany

Here is the Gothic historian Jordanes writing in the 5th century AD:

The Serbs (Sorabi) are so great a people that all Slavs (Sklavus) are known by this name...

            551 AD

            Johannes Jordanes

            The Origin and Deeds of the Goths

Sometime between 150 AD & 600 AD, the Serboi migrated into North-Eastern Europe. In this section, we will examine the relationship between the Serboi & the Slavs in greater detail.

Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogentus, writing in 950 AD, describes the Serboi before they migrated to the Balkans in the early 7th century AD. He calls them the White Serbs and their homeland in southern Poland & Western Ukraine, White Serbia:

The Serbs are descended from the unbaptized Serbs, also called 'white', who live beyond Turkey in a place called by them Boiki, where their neighbour is Francia, as is also Great Croatia, the unbaptized, also called 'white': in this place, then, these Serbs also originally dwelt. But when two brothers succeeded their father in the rule of Serbia, one of them, taking a moiety of the folk, claimed the protection of Heraclius, the emperor of the Romans, and the same emperor Heraclius received him and gave him a place in the province of Thessalonica to settle in, namely Serbia, which from that time has acquired this denomination. 'Serbs' in the tongue of the Romans is the word for 'slaves', whence the colloquial 'serbula' for menial shoes, and 'tzerboulianoi' for those who wear cheap, shoddy footgear. This name the Serbs acquired from their being slaves of the emperor of the Romans. Now, after some time these same Serbs decided to depart to their own homes, and the emperor sent them off. But when they had crossed the river Danube, they changed their minds and sent a request to the emperor Heraclius, through the military governor then governing Belgrade, that he would grant them other land to settle in. And since what is now Serbia and Pagania and the so-called country of the Zachlumi and Terbounia and the country of the Kanalites were under the dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled from those parts the Romani who now live in Dalmatia and Dyrrachium), therefore the emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries, and they were subject to the emperor of the Romans; and the emperor brought elders from Rome and baptized them and taught them fairly to perform the works of piety and expounded to them the faith of the Christians.         

            950 AD

            Constantine Porphyrogenitus

            De Aministrando Imperio

            Chapter: 32 of the Serbs and the country they now dwell in

All of the Serboi did not migrate to the Balkans in the early 7th century AD at the request of Byzantine Emperor Hearcleus. Some of them stayed in Lusatia, Germany in North-Eastern Europe where the overwhelming majority of them were assimilated into Germans. The Germans call these people ‘Wends’ but in their own tongue, they call themselves Sorbi and their language Sorbski:

The Sorbs are a Slavic minority indigenous to the region known as Lusatia in the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg (in former GDR territory). They are or were also known as Lusatians, Wends Lusatian Serbs or Serbs of Luzice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs

Most of the 'Germans' who surround the Sorbs are actually ancestral Germanized Sorbs (see: Section 6).  What is most interesting here is that the Germans call the Sorbs "Wends". The name "Wend" is an exonym, like the name "Albanian" and possibly (but not conclusively) "Illyrian" (see: section 3). This means that the people who are referred to by these names do not use these particular names to identify themselves in their own language.

Here is Wilkes for more information about the connections between the Illyrian Venets and the Wends:

We may begin with the Venetic peoples, whose language set them apart from the rest of the Illyrians. The Veneti, from whom were named Venice and Venetia, were known to the Greek poet Alkman in the late 7th century for their love of             horses ... according to Polybus, the Veneti were an ancient people, but how they were connected ewith the Veneti of southern Brittany or with the Slavic Veneti or Venedi (Wends) located by Tacitus in the southern Baltic is          unknown.

            John Wilkes

            The Illyrians

            Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians

            Page:   183

            Blackwell Publishers

            1992

The connections between the lllyrian Venets, Wendish Serbs and the Venedi are still up for debate. There is not enough evidence to positively explain the connection between these people but the Sorbs are the only surviving people to be identified by the Venetic exonym that disappeared long ago. It also wouldn't make sense that this exonym would be applied to a people who are supposedly 'unrelated' to the same other people whom this exonym is exclusively thought to identified.

Coon analyzes the direction, migration & impact of the Wendish Serboi. Coon calls the Wendish Serboi "the most important single people in this southern expansion" which took the Serboi as far south as Northwestern Albania:

A few islands of Slavic speech and culture survived...notably the Wends. The movement of the South Slavs took them to             the Dinaric mountain chain, which certain bands crossed to the Istra Peninsula and into Northern Italy itself. The main body moved south-eastward along the Adriatic coast, following the Dinaric mountain chain to Montenegro and to the Gore region of Northwestern Albania.

A southern Slavic nucleus was formed in the Kingdom of Old Serbia centered around Prizren & Skoplje. From this nucleus, they expanded into the Kosovo plain, which they were soon to lose in great part to the Turks & Albanians. The Serbs, the most important single people in this southern expansion still speak a language closely allied ot that of the Wends of Germany.

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter VI, section 7)

            The Slavs

            Macmillam Press

            1939

The Slavicist O. Pritsak, mentions Samo, as the ruler of the Wendish Serbs and implies that they were a ruling stratum over other Slavs:

It was probaly in this period that Slavic became an attractibe lingua franca in the area populated by Slavs, Serbs & Croats ... In the former Noricum, the realm of Samo emerged (623 AD - 658 AD). This had two social strata: the ruling Wends and the inferior stratum of the Slavs...     

            O Pritsak

            The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

            Volume 3, pages: 1916 - 1918

            1991

The only thing left is to identify the physical, sub-racial type to which the Wendish Serboi belonged. We turn again to the fossil record:

The most important series (of skulls) is that studied by Asmus of the ancient Wends.These form a reasonably homogenous group of high dolicocephals & low mesocephals with a moderate vault height, a sloping, narrow forehead, long narrow faces, leptorrhine or mesorrhine noses, high orbits and a strongly built jaw. These Old Wends...fall very close metrically to the Celts & Scythians. We have, unfortunately no data with which to trace the further progress of the southern Slavs into the Dinaric mountain chain and thence into Old Serbia & Kosovo.

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter VI, section 7)

            The Slavs

            Macmillam Press

            1939

In the period between the 8th to 12th centuries, at the time of the maximum Slavic expansion westward, and before the Germanic counter-thrust eastward, the Wends occupied much of present-day Mecklenburg. They were a long-headed people, with a mean cranial index of 76.6, mostly Nordic, but rather short-faced and mesorrhine. They resembled the contemporary Slavs in Bohemia, West Prussia, and Pomerania, and in subsequent centuries underwent a parallel brachycephalization.

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter XII, section 8)

            The Living Slavs

            (a) Czechs and Wends 

            Macmillam Press

            1939

Where, we ask, are the descendants of the Danubians, the Aunjetitz Nordics, and their Iron Age successors in eastern and central Europe? Only in the mesocephalic belt across eastern central Russia, and the region immediately north of the Caucasus, and again in the central and eastern Balkans, do traces of the original head form of these peoples appear, emerging as that of a population bound to the soil.

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter VIII, section 4)

            Distribution of Bodily Characters

            Macmillam Press

            1939

The Serboi were mostly Nordic when they migrated to the Western Balkans - just as the Hallstatt Illyrians were, when they, too, migrated to the Balkans (see: Section 5) 2 500 years before the Serboi.

These Serboi bestowed their tribal name & leadership among the descendants a linguistically Romanized hybrid of Nordic Slavs, Dinaric Beaker folk and Mediterranean groups of cultivators & craftsmen. Coon adds insight:

The Balkan peoples change their languages and ethnic identities with difficulty and only after bitter oppression; it is easier to transplant than to alter them; once converted, however, they become as ardent partisans of the new allegiance as of the old. The Serbs have been subjected to these disturbances as much as have the others. Their position as the dominant people of Yugoslavia has only been won through centuries of retrenchment and struggle…

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter XII, section 12)

            The Living Slavs

Macmillam Press

1939

Coon concludes:

Among the Yugoslavs, religion as well as language forms a source of division; the Croats and Slovenes are Catholics, the Serbs are mostly Greek Orthodox. Under the term Serb are included, however, such diverse peoples as the Serbs Proper, the Montenegrins, the Bosnians, the Herzegovinians, and the Dalmatians. The Bosnians and Herzegovinians include large minorities of Moslems and Catholics, and the latter are particularly numerous in Dalmatia. Aside from the Serbs Proper, only the Montenegrins, whose religion served for centuries as a symbol of resistance to the Turks, are almost to a man Greek Orthodox.

The Serbs, who live for the most part to the north and east of the main Dinaric Alpine chain, and immediately east of the Bosnians and Montenegrins, founded a kingdom, alter their invasion from the north in the seventh century, in the country drained by the headwaters of the Lim and White Drin rivers, in what is now the Ipek region of eastern Montenegro, and the Mitrovitza country.¹²⁰

The previous occupants were Romanized, Latin-speaking descendants of Illyrians and Thracians, and of colonists from other parts of the Roman Empire planted there by the emperors.

During the twelfth century the Serbs expanded southward onto the plain of Kossovo, whence they made further conquests. Old Serbia, which arose as an important kingdom during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, had as its centers Skoplje and Prizren, which, for the last five centuries, have been mostly inhabited by Turks and Albanians.

The Serbs expanded, during the period of their efflorescence, into Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly; the arrival of the Ottoman Turks, however, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, terminated this period of expansion, and many of the Serbs fled northward, while others became Turkicized and Albanized.

The Albanians, many of whom were converted to Islam, worked with the Turks rather than against them, and after the flight of the Serbs from the plain of Kossovo, this region was soon colonized by Albanians, many of whom still remain there.

The once important Serbian influence in Albania has left few vestiges, other than Slavic place names, and the presence of a few islands of Moslem Serb speakers in the mountains, as in the Gora district of Luma.

            Carleton Stevens Coon

            Races of Europe

            (Chapter XII, section 12)

            The Living Slavs

            Macmillam Press

1939

This is possibly the most lucid, clear and accurate analysis of Serb history ever presented by a Western scholar. In his book, ‘Moc Argumenata,’ (The Power of Arguments, 1999) Vojislav Seselj (in translation), picks up where Coon left off and continues to sum up Serb history right up to the Balkan Wars of the 90s:

The tragedy of our people is a great historical tragedy: five centuries under occupation. The Great Powers have always had the last word in the Balkans. The Serbs were always subjected to horrific blows from the West and the East and the thing that traumatized our people the most, what caused us the greatest harm is that throughout those historical circumstances, all those historical tribulations, there developed a great rapture within our national being, so that social perception, the people's consciousness - views only those of the Orthodox faith, as Serbs.

With us, Serbs - religious conversion brought on the rapture of ethnic being. Then, whoever converted to Islam under the conditions of the occupation became synonymous with the Turks in the national consciousness, and that chasm has endlessly widened even though we know exactly from which tribes, clans groups of people these people descend. Sometimes, whole clans converted to Islam. The chasm widened instead of closing in these modern times.

On the other hand, croatization was underway in Croatia, during the Illyrian Movement and with the blessing of the Catholic Church. During the Illyrian Movement, Croats accepted the Serbian language as their own so that they would ease the process of including Serb Catholics into their national corpus. Anyway, Croats originally spoke differently than Serbs. Kajkavian-Cakavian is the original Croatian language; they accepted Stokavian during Vuk's Reforms specifically for that reason. That hatred was created by religious differences and at times, it was consciously enforced,

In the Second World War, Serb Catholics from Western Hercegovina showed them selves to be the most awful, that are where the most terrible Ustase were from. They were the most terrible. Many of their most evil people were slaughtered, though - especially in Eastern Slavonia & on other battlegrounds, because the (real) Croats always put them on the front lines. But the real Croats don't have a high opinion of them. For example, someone from Zagorje can't stand a Western Hercegovinian even within a kilometer of himself and he has the worst opinion of him. But when they need him for the most risky endeavors, then he's very welcome.