Old Europe (archaeology)

Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age cultural horizon or civilisation in Southeastern Europe and part of Central-Eastern Europe, centred in the Danube River valley. Old Europe is also referred to in some literature as the Danube civilisation.

The term 'Danubian culture' was earlier coined by the archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe to describe early farming cultures (e.g. the Linear Pottery culture) which spread westwards and northwards from the Danube valley into Central and Eastern Europe.

Old Europe

Old Europe, or Neolithic Europe, refers to the time between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, roughly from 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) to c. 2000 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia). The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place: in Southeastern Europe it is approximately 4000 years (i.e., 7000−3000 BCE); in parts of North-West Europe it is just under 3000 years (c. 4500−2000 BCE).

Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale communities, more egalitarian than the city-states and chiefdoms of the Bronze Age, subsisting on domestic plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and hunting, and producing hand-made pottery, without the aid of the potter's wheel. There are also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe living in heavily fortified settlements of 3,000–4,000 people (e.g. Sesklo in Greece) whereas Neolithic groups in Britain were usually small (possibly 50–100 people).Reissued as

Marija Gimbutas investigated the Neolithic period in order to understand cultural developments in settled village culture in the southern Balkans, which she characterized as peaceful, matristic, and possessing a goddess-centered religion. In contrast, she characterizes the later Indo-European influences as warlike, nomadic, and patrilineal. Using evidence from pottery and sculpture, and combining the tools of archaeology, comparative mythology, linguistics, and, most controversially, folkloristics, Gimbutas invented a new interdisciplinary field, archaeomythology.

In historical times, some ethnonyms are believed to correspond to Pre-Indo-European peoples, assumed to be the descendants of the earlier Old European cultures: the Pelasgians, Minoans, Leleges, Iberians, Nuragic people, Etruscans, Rhaetians, Camunni and Basques. Two of the three pre-Greek peoples of Sicily, the Sicans and the Elymians, may also have been pre-Indo-European.

How many Pre-Indo-European languages existed is not known. Nor is it known whether the ancient names of peoples descended from the pre-ancient population actually referred to speakers of distinct languages. Gimbutas (1989), observing a unity of symbols marked especially on pots, but also on other objects, concluded that there may have been a single language spoken in Old Europe. She thought that decipherment would have to wait for the discovery of bilingual texts.

The idea of a Pre-Indo-European language in the region precedes Gimbutas. It went by other names, such as "Pelasgian", "Mediterranean", or "Aegean". Apart from marks on artifacts, the main evidence concerning Pre-Indo-European language is in names: toponyms, ethnonyms, etc., and in roots in other languages believed to be derived from one or more prior languages, possibly unrelated. Reconstruction from the evidence is an accepted, though somewhat speculative, field of study. Suggestions of possible Old European languages include Urbian by Sorin Paliga, and the Vasconic substratum hypothesis of Theo Vennemann (also see Sigmund Feist's Germanic substrate hypothesis).

Indo-European origins

According to Gimbutas' version of the Kurgan hypothesis, Old Europe was invaded and destroyed by horse-riding pastoral nomads from the Pontic–Caspian steppe (the "Kurgan culture") who brought with them violence, patriarchy, and Indo-European languages. More recent proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis agree that the cultures of Old Europe spoke pre-Indo-European languages but include a less dramatic transition, with a prolonged migration of Proto-Indo-European speakers after Old Europe's collapse due to other factors.

Colin Renfrew's competing Anatolian hypothesis suggests that the Indo-European languages were spread across Europe by the first farmers from Anatolia. In the hypothesis' original formulation, the languages of Old Europe belonged to the Indo-European family but played no special role in its transmission. According to Renfrew's most recent revision of the theory, however, Old Europe was a "secondary urheimat" where the Greek, Armenian, and Balto-Slavic language families diverged around 5000 BCE. Three genetic studies in 2015 gave partial support to the Steppe theory regarding the Indo-European Urheimat. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia) would have expanded from the steppes north of the Pontic and Caspian seas, along with at least some of the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.

Gallery

Artefacts

File:Female figurine with child small painted terracott neolithic, NAMA 5937 080804.jpg, Sesklo culture figurine
File:Ancient Greece Neolithic Pottery - 28171056730.jpg, Sesklo and Dimini culture ceramics
File:Clay vase with polychrome decoration, Dimini, Magnesia, Late or Final Neolithic (5300-3300 BC).jpg, Dimini culture ceramic vessel
File:Prishtina Goddess on the Throne (cropped).jpg, alt=Vinca culture figurine, Vinča culture figurine
File:Serbia, Vinça culture, Neolithic Era - Vinca Idol - 2000.202 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, alt=Vinca culture figurine, Vinča culture figurine
File:Винча — Бело брдо 2.jpg, alt=Vinca culture ceramics, Vinča culture ceramics
File:Tartaria2.jpg, alt=Vinca culture, Tartaria tablet, Vinča culture, Tartaria tablet
File:Karanovo4.jpg, Karanovo culture ceramic vessel
File:Керамичен съд от с. Слатино, ранен халколит 009.jpg, Karanovo culture ceramic vessel
File:Tisza1.jpg, Tisza culture ceramic
File:Gumelnita1.jpg, Gumelnița culture ceramic vessel
File:Gumelnita 31.jpg, Gumelnița culture copper axe
File:思想者塑像.JPG, Hamangia culture figurine
File:Durankulak-Golemija ostrov-Hamangia IV vessels.jpg, Hamangia culture pottery
File:Human-sized clay head found at Varna necropolis.png, Hamangia culture ceramic sculpture
File:Bodrogkeresztur gold.jpg, Bodrogkeresztúr culture gold idol
File:Boian culture 2011 12 (edited angle).jpg, alt=, Boian culture ceramic
File:Butmir1.jpg, Butmir culture ceramic vessel
File:Zivotinjski riton.jpg, Danilo culture ceramic vessel
File:Bull pendants from Grave 36 (Varna Necropolis) (36756066545).jpg, alt=, Varna culture gold pendants
File:Grave 43 (Varna Archaeology Museum) (36755886415).jpg, alt=, Varna culture burial reconstruction
File:Cucuteni3.jpg, alt=, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture ceramic vessel
File:Goddess figurine with Tattoos.jpg, alt=, Cucuteni-Trypillia figurine
File:MuzeuldeistorienaturalavienaCucutenitripolieartefacts.JPG, alt=, Cucuteni-Trypillia ceramic and copper artefacts

Settlements

File:Sesklo DSC 2020a.jpg, alt=, Sesklo, Sesklo culture
File:Dimini DSC 2062a.jpg, Dimini, Dimini culture
File:Dimini 3.jpg, Dimini walled acropolis
File:Okoliste. Neolithic settlement 5200 BC. Bosnia and Herzegovina (cropped).jpg, Okoliste, Butmir culture
File:Durankulak-Tell Golemija ostrov.JPG, alt=, Durankulak, Varna/ Hamangia culture
File:Sgrada 5 VII 96.jpg, alt=, Durankulak stone foundations
File:Solnitsata 4700 - 4200 B.C..jpg, Solnitsata, Varna culture
File:Talianki 1c.jpg, Talianki, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
File:Maidanetske 3D model.jpg, Maidanetske, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture.
File:ScaleRepoductionOfaCucutenivillage.JPG, alt=, Village model, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
File:Cucuteni houses 1.jpg, alt=, Houses, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
File:Nebelivka megastructure, reconstruction.jpg, Nebelivka temple, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture.
File:Smac Neolithikum 010.jpg, alt=, Longhouse model, Linear Pottery culture
File:Smac Neolithikum 009.jpg, Longhouse model, Linear Pottery culture
File:Smac Neolithikum 122.jpg, Linear Pottery culture settlement
File:Neolitic houses reconstruction 01.JPG, Neolithic house reconstruction, Topolnica, Bulgaria

See also

*Prehistoric Europe
*Early European Farmers
*Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
*Vinča script
*Petrești culture
*Tell Yunatsite
*Proto-Indo-European language
*Proto-Indo-Europeans
* Indo-Iranian migration
* Pre-Greek substrate
*Germanic substrate hypothesis
*Goidelic substrate hypothesis
*Anatolian hypothesis

References

Further reading

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* Bellwood, Peter. (2004). ''First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies.'' Blackwell Publishers.
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* Gimbutas, Marija (1982). ''The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: 6500–3500 B.C.: Myths, and Cult Images'' Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Gimbutas, Marija (1989). ''The Language of the Goddess.'' Harper & Row, Publishers. .
* Gimbutas, Marija (1991). ''The Civilization of the Goddess.'' San Francisco: Harper. .

External links

The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, exhibition video (2010)
The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC
Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, exhibition video, 2010
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World : Neolithic and Copper Age
further links

{{Neolithic Europe

Pre-Indo-Europeans
Archaeological theory
Neolithic Europe