Old Europe

[SlimJim22]

What a fascinating period of ancient history? Earliest forms of writing, Goddess councils, just lots of interesting stuff really. Anyone have an opinion on them? How did they reach this seemingly advanced state with smelting and writing, ceramics, etc and what happened to them?

In 1972 after a tractor accidentally unearthed a stunning Chalcolithic cemetery near Bulgarias port city Varna, archaeologists discovered the oldest gold treasure in the world c. 4,500-4,000 BC. If the size of his burial trove and the scepter in his right hand are anything to judge by, this 5,000-year-old skeleton was once an important ruler in the ancient Pelasgian Balkans. His grave site was excavated along with about 300 other burials, stocked with over 3,000 gold artifacts: bracelets, beads, pectorals and appliques - the oldest hoard of gold ever found in the world. The Necropolis at Varna is an important site in understanding this culture. The impressive richness of the tombs discovered there made it possible to recognize a powerful hierarchal social organization.

http://www.romanianhistoryandculture.com/thedanubianculture.htm

Any DNA findings on this culture to see what cultures they were directly related to?

Is there a connection to the Dispilo script that is from roughly the same time of 5,250bce?

Edited August 25, 2010 by SlimJim22

[Piney]

Trypillian culture interests me also. But the Ukraine and Romania both get a little possessive and the "multiple identification ego trip" between both groups of archaeologists reminds me enough of the same crap that goes on with Northeast U.S. lithic i.d.s to annoy me into not getting too deep in it.

Lapiche

[TheSearcher]

Trypillian culture interests me also. But the Ukraine and Romania both get a little possessive and the "multiple identification ego trip" between both groups of archaeologists reminds me enough of the same crap that goes on with Northeast U.S. lithic i.d.s to annoy me into not getting too deep in it.

Lapiche

Actually, not only Ukraine and Romania. They can't even agree on one unified name lol. This culture is known as Cucuteni culture in Romania, Trypillian culture in Ukraine or Tripolie culture in Russia. If I remember correctly the consensus is to call it the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. I'm sure the Moldavians will still have another name for it.

It flourished between ca. 5500 BC and 2750 BC, from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions in modern-day Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine, encompassing an area of more than 35,000 km2 (13,500 square miles).

One particularity that has always struck me about this culture, is that every 60 to 80 years the inhabitants of a settlement would burn their entire village. The reason for the burning is still a bit of a mystery, but it turns out that many of the settlements were reconstructed several times on top of earlier ones, preserving shape and orientation of the older buildings. For example, in Poduri, a Romania site, a total of thirteen habitation levels were constructed on top of each other over a period of many years.

[The Puzzler]

Don't forget to include the Cucuteni aspect Slim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture

Long ago on here when I first started studying Atlantis there was a person called shemTov who swore blind this area was Atlantis and that the Pannonian Plain was a sea or lake until rather recently, siting the Jason story as travelling to the Pannonian Basin. There is some stuff on the net. shemTov knew a lot about the Cucuteni-Trypillian cultures and was from there themself, all seems very, very intriguing and what I got from it at the time was that Crete seemed to have something in common with them. I think shemTov is banned these days...I must spend more time again checking them out.

I think it's in my Atlantis in Hyperborea thread, shemTov has added countless posts on this intriguing culture, he/she knew them very well, as it was his/her own culture.

Note in that link the Tartaria Tablets.

I'll just go into the OLB for a sec - The Tartars are a brown tribe of Finda’s people, who are thus named because they make war on everybody. They are all horsemen and robbers. This is what makes the Twisklanders so bloodthirsty. The Twisklanders who had done the wicked deed called themselves Frijen or Franken. There were among them, my brother said, red, brown, and white men. The red and brown made their hair white with lime-water—but as their faces remained brown, they were only the more ugly.

http://oeralinda.angelfire.com/#ah (near the end)

Notice the Tartars make war on everyone, ride horses and are robbers...but they also wash their hair in lime-water.

From Wiki Celts:

According to Diodorus Siculus:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

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

So, what I get from it is that the Tartaria Tablets are related to these Tartar people who are warring robbers on horseback that have the appearance of Satyrs, Pans and Centaurs because they wash their hair in limewater...apparently the limewater also bleaches the hair, making reddish hair blonder and brown hair lighter so they looked like stiff coarse horse manes. This sort of imagery gives rise to myths of Centaurs. There were no men who robbed, raped and had the body of horses, these 'Centaurs' were nothing more than people of Tartaria imo. Part of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture area.

Also, I mentioned that c. 1200BC or earlier the Villanovan culture has contact with the Gaul people, (Hallstat) the Villanovan culture is said to be the precursors of the Etruscans.

Speaking of Etruscans...

Like most suspected undeciphered writing systems, the Vinča symbols have attracted the attention of fringe authors. The Serbian archaeologist Radivoje Pešić proposes in his book The Vinča Alphabet (ISBN 86-7540-006-3) that all of the symbols exist in the Etruscan alphabet, and conversely, that all Etruscan letters are found among the Vinča signs. Both views are rejected by mainstream archaeologists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_script

Fringe writers always seem to come to similar conclusions as me but the idea is often rejected but I believe Pesic hasn't come to this conclusion for no reason.

Edited August 26, 2010 by The Puzzler

[The_Spartan]

Check out the Karanovo Zodiac from the same culture

The Karanovo Zodiac

Vinca Scripts

Dispilio Tablet Script

similarity?? well....almost all are geometric shapes.

[Abramelin]

Actually, not only Ukraine and Romania. They can't even agree on one unified name lol. This culture is known as Cucuteni culture in Romania, Trypillian culture in Ukraine or Tripolie culture in Russia. If I remember correctly the consensus is to call it the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. I'm sure the Moldavians will still have another name for it.

It flourished between ca. 5500 BC and 2750 BC, from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions in modern-day Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine, encompassing an area of more than 35,000 km2 (13,500 square miles).

One particularity that has always struck me about this culture, is that every 60 to 80 years the inhabitants of a settlement would burn their entire village. The reason for the burning is still a bit of a mystery, but it turns out that many of the settlements were reconstructed several times on top of earlier ones, preserving shape and orientation of the older buildings. For example, in Poduri, a Romania site, a total of thirteen habitation levels were constructed on top of each other over a period of many years.

Maybe the burnings were a radical way to get rid of bugs?

[The Puzzler]

Here's the Archaic Etruscan alphabet c. 7th to 5th century BC:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/etruscan.htm

Edited August 26, 2010 by The Puzzler

[TheSearcher]

Maybe the burnings were a radical way to get rid of bugs?

If they had to burn an entire village, because of bugs, then by the gods, I don't want to see the bugs in question. They must have been either huge or extremely dangerous

[Abramelin]

If they had to burn an entire village, because of bugs, then by the gods, I don't want to see the bugs in question. They must have been either huge or extremely dangerous

LOL, but what about MANY, instead of huge and-or dangerous??

[TheSearcher]

LOL, but what about MANY, instead of huge and-or dangerous??

Pfffft you're no fun.....

But on a more serious note, you have a point.

[lightly]

for what it's worth.. i immediately thought cleansing/purification when burning the village was mentioned... maybe it was learned when villages accidentally burned to the ground that there was much relief from bug bites and itching .. maybe molds too.. maybe even serious disease?

[Oniomancer]

One particularity that has always struck me about this culture, is that every 60 to 80 years the inhabitants of a settlement would burn their entire village. The reason for the burning is still a bit of a mystery, but it turns out that many of the settlements were reconstructed several times on top of earlier ones, preserving shape and orientation of the older buildings. For example, in Poduri, a Romania site, a total of thirteen habitation levels were constructed on top of each other over a period of many years.

Clearly this is a ritual honoring the legendary goddess Olea-Ry and her Red Cow.

[The Puzzler]

lol

Slim, I would just research, research, research and follow links and such to other cultures that had contact with them and see where that takes you.

The Vinca script does have a swastika and to me they seem to have had contact with another culture with a swastika on their art as I mentioned already, if you are looking to follow links, that's what I would do.

[SlimJim22]

lol

Slim, I would just research, research, research and follow links and such to other cultures that had contact with them and see where that takes you.

The Vinca script does have a swastika and to me they seem to have had contact with another culture with a swastika on their art as I mentioned already, if you are looking to follow links, that's what I would do.

The best stuff I have come across is the Alekseev manuscript. What is the academic opinion on this body of work? It all sounds really reasonable stuff to me, it talks about the illusion of race and all the Old Eurasian groups and how they interacted. Just wanted to know the view of the debunkers before I start posting from it.

I'll get to it Puzz don't worry but I have a tendency for spinning too many plates. And they all fll to pieces.

http://www.drummingnet.com/alekseev/TableofContents.html

Edited August 26, 2010 by SlimJim22

[TheSearcher]

for what it's worth.. i immediately thought cleansing/purification when burning the village was mentioned... maybe it was learned when villages accidentally burned to the ground that there was much relief from bug bites and itching .. maybe molds too.. maybe even serious disease?

Good point, like Abe said before. Although you'd think they would do it more often than only once very 60 years.

[The_Spartan]

The best stuff I have come across is the Alekseev manuscript. What is the academic opinion on this body of work? It all sounds really reasonable stuff to me, it talks about the illusion of race and all the Old Eurasian groups and how they interacted. Just wanted to know the view of the debunkers before I start posting from it.

I'll get to it Puzz don't worry but I have a tendency for spinning too many plates. And they all fll to pieces.

http://www.drummingnet.com/alekseev/TableofContents.html

That is a good link - i am reading chapter by chapter.

The Azykh cave in Karabagh in Azerbaijan is considered to be the earliest habitats of proto-humans in Eurasia.

The Azykh Cave (alternatively known as Azikh or Azokh; Azeri: Azıx mağarası) is an impressive six-cave complex known as a living site of stone-age man. It lies about 3km northeast of Tugh village village in southern Karabakh, an area within the Fizuli district of the Republic of Azerbaijan but under the control of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since the Nagorno-Karabakh War of the early 1990s.

Extensively examined by archaeologists in the 1960s, the cave is considered to be the site of one of the most ancient proto-human habitations in Eurasia. A Neanderthal-style jaw bone found here by Mammadali Huseynov in 1968[1] and now kept at the Academy of Sciences in Baku is thought to be over 300,000 years old and thus one of the oldest proto-human remains found in this part of the world. Its discovery gave rise to the term Azykh Man.

Archaeologists have suggesed that the finds in the lowest layers of the cave are of a pre-Acheulean culture, one of the world's oldest (730,00-1,500,000 years)[1] and in many ways similar to the Olduwan culture in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge and the culture which produced the famous Lascaux cave in southeastern France[2].

The poor quality of the 1960s excavations led to uncertainty over the chronological position of the layers. [3] Excavations resumed in the mid 1990s. In 2002 an international research team headed by Tanya King discovered undisturbed entrances to the cave as well as fauna and stone tools [4]. The cave is now considered to have housed some of the earliest habitats of proto-humans in Eurasia. While little in the way of human remains have been discovered, evidence shows that the area was occupied by hominids over a period of nearly two million years [5].

Source

The Azykh Cave

Very interesting!!

I will post as i read on!!

Edited August 27, 2010 by The Spartan

[SlimJim22]

Excellent. I thought it looked good but wanted to check with you academic fellows. Thanks for posting an excerpt from it too. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on what is presented.

If the opinions of the author are respected then there will be some quality infomration on all the periods leading up to civilization.

[SlimJim22]

Celts apparently do not originate in Germany, Austria and France as commonly thought but are descended from spanish fishermen known as Osin.

He said: “In the last couple of years there have been a number of genetic studies of human DNA indicating that the population of much of the western part of the British Isles is related to other communities along the Atlantic seafront. These include Brittany, northern Spain, Portugal and the French Atlantic coast. That’s their genetic origin.”

http://www.bethnesaf.net/MegalithicCelts.php

To quote from Professor Sykes as reported in "Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds:

"Britain's indigenous population is descended from a tribe of Iberian fishermen who crossed the Bay of Biscay 6,000 years ago.

DNA analysis has revealed the Celts have an almost identical genetic "fingerprint" to the inhabitants of coastal regions of Spain, whose own ancestors migrated north between 4,000 and 5,000BC, a team from Oxford University has found.

[NOTE: This genetic "fingerprint" in Britain does not have a mutation that developed millenia later in coastal Spain showing that Celts are NOT descended from Spanish Armada sailors - another myth busted]

The discovery, by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, will herald a change in scientific understanding of Britishness.

People of Celtic ancestry were thought to have descended from tribes of central Europe. Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "About 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel. Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe... The majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."

Earlier than that, we all seem to have migrated from Anatolia between 11,000-7,000bce.

DNA Trail of domesticated animals and plants such as goats and wheat brought from Anatolia to the Atlantic Celtic shores by early Celtic speakers: On the map you can see the rapid (10-20 km per year) sea-borne trail westard by cwch/curragh toward the Atlantic Ocean along the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea taken by the agricultural/pastoral early Celtic speech/speakers (shown in various shades of gray) that Dr. Oppenheimer mentions. This early Celtic culture is called the Impressa-Cardium culture because of their characteristic pottery impressed with cockle (Cardium) shell imprints as decoration. It must be emphasised that this same route is an ancient fisherfolk trading route pre-dating agriculture connecting the ice-age refugium peoples of the Atlantic with those of the Mediteranean during the Epi-Mesolithic era where fishing people typically lived in caves near the sea or rivers. The DNA evidence shows the goats carried on the boats originated in the south-east Anatolia region (Byblos culture). From that same region wheat was first cultivated on the slopes of the Karaca shield volcano just 20 miles from the world's the oldest Megalithic structure at Göbekli Tepe. There is also a trail of early Celtic speech/speakers into Greece, the southern Balkans and lower Danube which acted as a new centre of spread (after Anatolia) westwards.

[cormac mac airt]

Hopefully Slim, you do realize that the above is talking about Celts in the context of the indigenous peoples of Britain, and NOT about those on the continent, don't you. Also, to clarify, Bryan Sykes is the one who named the celtic clan "Oisin". It is not a name those people went by.

A good book on the subject, by Stephen Oppenheimer, is "The Origins of the British", Carroll and Graf Publishers.

cormac

[SlimJim22]

Hopefully Slim, you do realize that the above is talking about Celts in the context of the indigenous peoples of Britain, and NOT about those on the continent, don't you. Also, to clarify, Bryan Sykes is the one who named the celtic clan "Oisin". It is not a name those people went by.

A good book on the subject, by Stephen Oppenheimer, is "The Origins of the British", Carroll and Graf Publishers.

cormac

Indeed on both counts. Oisin is a convneint term from an irish legend and celts are meant as the original inhabitants. Them being short and olive skinned with a high propensity of R1b, strongly related to Basque apparently.

http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/R1b::sub::Popular_Culture

http://asianheritage.info/SteveJones.php

The whole area does still confuse me somewhat. Hence the reason for starting this thread. Tell me if I am close.

PIE speakers moved out from Anatolia. One branch moved west along the Mediterranean coast and up into Wales eventually. Another branch moved across land becoming the germanics and PIE spekers took the north eatsern course into Asia. All these groups being caucasoid but all having slightly different ethnicities. Correct where I am going astray if you please.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/general/IE.html

[cormac mac airt]

Indeed on both counts. Oisin is a convneint term from an irish legend and celts are meant as the original inhabitants. Them being short and olive skinned with a high propensity of R1b, strongly related to Basque apparently.

http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/R1b::sub::Popular_Culture

http://asianheritage.info/SteveJones.php

The whole area does still confuse me somewhat. Hence the reason for starting this thread. Tell me if I am close.

PIE speakers moved out from Anatolia. One branch moved west along the Mediterranean coast and up into Wales eventually. Another branch moved across land becoming the germanics and PIE spekers took the north eatsern course into Asia. All these groups being caucasoid but all having slightly different ethnicities. Correct where I am going astray if you please.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/general/IE.html

Jaylemurph would be a better choice to discuss language and linguistics in this case, but there are a few problems with the above and specifically PIE, IMO.

1) Proto-Indo-European is both unattested and reconstructed as having existed c.4000 BC, yet CANNOT take into account the existance of languages that would have existed prior to that date by various other cultures. How can it be the original language/language group if others existed before that date in the same areas it became associated with? It's not even the oldest language family, IIRC. Afro-Asiatic is.

2) Your link doesn't say the speakers moved out from Anatolia, which would be Turkey, but from "the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea and east to the Caspian".

3) PIE is supposed to date to c.4000 BC from the Pontic Steppe area, yet the ancestral British are supposed to have already spread from the Pontic Steppe through the northern Mediterannean to Spain, finally to wind up in Britain BY EXACTLY THE SAME TIME. I'd say something isn't right with the PIE timeline.

cormac

[SlimJim22]

Jaylemurph would be a better choice to discuss language and linguistics in this case, but there are a few problems with the above and specifically PIE, IMO.

1) Proto-Indo-European is both unattested and reconstructed as having existed c.4000 BC, yet CANNOT take into account the existance of languages that would have existed prior to that date by various other cultures. How can it be the original language/language group if others existed before that date in the same areas it became associated with? It's not even the oldest language family, IIRC. Afro-Asiatic is.

2) Your link doesn't say the speakers moved out from Anatolia, which would be Turkey, but from "the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea and east to the Caspian".

3) PIE is supposed to date to c.4000 BC from the Pontic Steppe area, yet the ancestral British are supposed to have already spread from the Pontic Steppe through the northern Mediterannean to Spain, finally to wind up in Britain BY EXACTLY THE SAME TIME. I'd say something isn't right with the PIE timeline.

cormac

Cheers Cormac, I have looked into the Kurgan hypothesis vs the Anatolian and Out of India. The view I was coming around to was the Anatolian that would account for PIE moving into the Pontic steppes but was already in use for much of Europe. I understand there is no hard proof for it but I'm just trying to work out what fits best. Maybe the Old Europeans spoke an afro-asiatic dialect I really do not know but it seemed like a reasonable enough proposition to suggest that Anatolia was the starting point from where farmers spread east and west and the language changed a little as it went.

I don't see the Pontic steppes as the start of anything except horse domestication and from what I have read, Anatolian farmers seem to be the best bet for the PIE speakers.

[cormac mac airt]

Cheers Cormac, I have looked into the Kurgan hypothesis vs the Anatolian and Out of India. The view I was coming around to was the Anatolian that would account for PIE moving into the Pontic steppes but was already in use for much of Europe. I understand there is no hard proof for it but I'm just trying to work out what fits best. Maybe the Old Europeans spoke an afro-asiatic dialect I really do not know but it seemed like a reasonable enough proposition to suggest that Anatolia was the starting point from where farmers spread east and west and the language changed a little as it went.

I don't see the Pontic steppes as the start of anything except horse domestication and from what I have read, Anatolian farmers seem to be the best bet for the PIE speakers.

Considering that the spoken language (whatever the original one actually was) has likely been around for several tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of years before the date for PIE and that all peoples (HSS) originated from Africa, it stands to reason that the earliest languages were Afro-Asiatic in origin.

As to Anatolian being the best bet for PIE speakers, then what about peoples from Mount Sandel, Ireland from c.7010 BC; Cramond, Scotland c.8500 BC; the Broom Hill Site, Hampshire, England c.6500 BC, just to name a few from your neck of the woods. Or Kunda, Estonia c.8500 BC; the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site, Siberia from c. 26,250 BC; or even the Ust-Karenga 12 Site, Siberia, Russia c.10,180 BC? Surely all these CAN'T be thrown together and classified as PIE out of convenience?

cormac

[SlimJim22]

Considering that the spoken language (whatever the original one actually was) has likely been around for several tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of years before the date for PIE and that all peoples (HSS) originated from Africa, it stands to reason that the earliest languages were Afro-Asiatic in origin.

As to Anatolian being the best bet for PIE speakers, then what about peoples from Mount Sandel, Ireland from c.7010 BC; Cramond, Scotland c.8500 BC; the Broom Hill Site, Hampshire, England c.6500 BC, just to name a few from your neck of the woods. Or Kunda, Estonia c.8500 BC; the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site, Siberia from c. 26,250 BC; or even the Ust-Karenga 12 Site, Siberia, Russia c.10,180 BC? Surely all these CAN'T be thrown together and classified as PIE out of convenience?

cormac

The oldest statues are found in Germany dating from 33,000 BP. There were funerary rites going on in my neck of the woods about the same time. Just because they did not build stone structures does not mean these guys were not advanced.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1064619,00.html

They surely had language and were most likely afro-asiatic at this time. The finno-ugric people were quite widespread over Europe but where did the PIE speakers come from? Most likely they developed out of the people already there. Doesn't this make indo-european a derivative of afro-asiatic language so when the distinction between the two language families is made it is really only relative because they must both have a common source at some point. I don't really get it.

Where is Jaylemurph to put me straight? Did dialects just evolve into separate languages over millenia or what?

Edited August 29, 2010 by SlimJim22

[Piney]

One particularity that has always struck me about this culture, is that every 60 to 80 years the inhabitants of a settlement would burn their entire village. The reason for the burning is still a bit of a mystery, but it turns out that many of the settlements were reconstructed several times on top of earlier ones, preserving shape and orientation of the older buildings. For example, in Poduri, a Romania site, a total of thirteen habitation levels were constructed on top of each other over a period of many years.

I agree with Abe. I was going to say "insect infestation" and "trash build up" before I even read his post. Some Algonquians had a similar practice and set fire to entire areas before moving to their next seasonal villages.

Lapiche