 Herodotus also says or implies that 80 Xanthian families were away at the time, perhaps with the herd animals in alpine summer pastures (pure speculation), but helped repopulate the place.However, he reports, the Xanthians of his time were mainly descended from non-Xanthians.Looking for any nuance that might shed light on the repopulation of Xanthos, Keen interprets Herodotus' "those Lycians who now say that they are Xanthians" to mean that Xanthos was repopulated by other Lycians (and not by Iranians or other foreigners).