Old European Culture

Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age culture or civilisation in Southeast Europe, centred in the Lower Danube 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

Neolithic Europe refers to the time between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, roughly from 7000 BC (the approximate time of the first metal processing societies in Bosnia and Serbia, and first farming societies in Greece), to c. 2000 BC (the beginning of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia). Its peak period is estimated as 5000–3500 BC, during which its population centers exceeded the first Mesopotamian cities. A high level of craft skill and trade is evident from tons of recovered copper artifacts and a small amount of gold, as well as pottery and carved items. These include the period's signature female figurines which have raised interest in the role of the society's women, as well as suspected proto-writing.

Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale communities, being 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 studied 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" (linguistic homeland) where the Greek, Armenian, and Balto-Slavic language families diverged around 5000 BC. 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

Artifacts

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: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:Керамичен съд от с. Слатино, ранен халколит 009.jpg, Karanovo culture ceramic vessel
File:NeolithicVessel B&W 1.jpg, Karanovo culture ceramic vessel
File:Hotarani bowl 5500-5000 vadastra culture nrim.jpg, Vadastra culture ceramic bowl
File:Tisza1.jpg, Tisza culture ceramic altar
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: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:Journal.pone.0278116.g008.png, Tiszapolgár culture, copper ornaments
File:Museum of History Kardzhali 2011 PD 015.JPG, Jade pendant, Karanovo culture
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:Alba Iulia National Museum of the Union 2011 - Petresti Culture Pottery Belonging to a Ritual Complex from Ghirbom.JPG, Petresti culture pottery
File:MuzeuldeistorienaturalavienaCucutenitripolieartefacts.JPG, alt=, Cucuteni-Trypillia ceramic and copper artefacts
File:Neolithic Pottery (28650540752).jpg, Cucuteni-Trypillia ceramics

Settlements

File:Sesklo DSC 2020a.jpg, alt=, Sesklo, Sesklo 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:Solnitsata 4700 - 4200 B.C..jpg, Solnitsata, Varna culture
File:Talianki 1c.jpg, Talianki, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
File:ScaleRepoductionOfaCucutenivillage.JPG, alt=, Village model, Cucuteni culture
File:Cucuteni houses 1.jpg, alt=, Houses, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture
File:Maidanetske ground plan.jpg, Maidanetske ground plan, Ukraine
File:Trypillia house.png, House with raised platform at Maidanetsk, c. 3700 BC
File:Nebelivka megastructure, reconstruction.jpg, Nebelivka temple, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture.
File:TellYunatsite.jpg, Tell Yunatsite, Karanovo culture.
File:Magura - Pietrele, Neolithic - Chalcolithic tell site, Romania.png, Magura tell site, Gumelnița culture
File:White Hill in Vinča, profile and approach.jpg, Vinča-Belo Brdo, Vinča culture
File:LBK house 1.jpg, Longhouse model, Linear Pottery culture
File:Smac Neolithikum 122.jpg, Linear Pottery culture settlement
File:Neolitic houses reconstruction 01.JPG, Neolithic house reconstructions, Karanovo culture.

See also

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

References

Further reading

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Bellwood, Peter. (2004). ''First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies.'' Blackwell Publishers.
*
* 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
Prehistory of Southeastern Europe