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What It's All
About |
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Most people / archaeologists /
historians / religious believers / cultures / governments tend to see history a
bit warped. Many Chinese, for example, are certain that everything of interest
has been invented or discovered in China. Plenty others would debate if
anything existed more than roughly 6000 years ago (when some God created the
earth etc.). The consensus among Western people is that civilization in the
form of big cities, writing, beer making etc. started in Mesopotamia (including
a bit of Turkey and Egypt); a view that was influenced to some extent by
Christian feelings - Jesus was born, raised an killed there, after all. |
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Fortunately, modern Western scientists were able
to look at the matter objectively and without any cultural bias. They
determined unambiguously that everything of interest has been invented or
discovered in Suebia or at least nearby - somewhat
down the river Danube that originates in Suebia. |
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Seriously now: There is no doubt
anymore that some "high cultures" existed from about 6000 BC to 4000
BC (and partially longer) in the general region west of the Black Sea (nowadays
parts of Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine). There is some doubt, however,
if we should see these people as one
culture and how "high" it actually was. Did these "Old Europeans", as they are sometimes
called, actually discover or invent advanced pottery, writing, city forming,
metal smelting, wine making (I'm not sure about beer brewing) long before the
usual suspects?
The linguist Harald
Haarmann thinks so. He presented his reasoning in a
book, nicely written in the
true language,
that is all but ignored by true archaeologists but gathering an increasing
number of disciples among normal people. |
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Harald Haarmann is not a crackpot
but a real scientist who knows his stuff (linguistics). In his "Danube
culture" hypothesis he goes beyond linguistics and not everything he
states is an iron-clad scientific fact. He doesn't know the first thing about
metal smelting, for example. Not only does he routinely mix up
"smelting"
with "schmelzen = melting but really believes that the copper is
indeed melted out of the ore since it is contained in there as pure metal.
We must therefore take his view with several grains of salt. Nevertheless, some
part of the "Danube culture" may have invented smelting, one of the
more momentous discoveries of humankind. It is fun to look at that a bit more
closely, if only because theVarna culture" that
definitely can boast the very first use of gold (so far), is part of the Danube
Culture. |
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Some Hard
Facts |
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First let's look at
places, times and names. The Danube culture thrived essentially to the West of
the Black Sea in what is now Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and so on. Look at the
map below to get an idea. |
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The different symbols in the map
refer to the locations where artifacts of some particular culture (like Vinca
or Cucuteni) were found. The Danube has been high-marked so you can see why
it's called "Danube culture". |
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There were several Danube Cultures
with typically weird names, spanning the time range from about 6000 BC to 3000
BC. Here is a rough outline of who, when and where. The cultures outlined in
the map above are shown in red. |
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Time line of Danube Cultures plus some other
cultures for reference |
Source: A somewhat modified and augmented
version of the picture given in Harald Haarmann's
book |
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The relation of these cultures to
present-day states is somewhat disputed, however. You might exchange Bulgaria
for Romania in some cases, for example, or perceive the cuiltures Starcevo and
Cris as just one Starcevo - Cris culture located in Romania. Present-day states
with their presnet-dfay bouindaries ,. however, have nothingh whatsoever to do
with these old cultures so it does not matter much. Years ago it would all have
been in the Soviet Union or in the Osmanic empire, or.... |
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Highlights
of the Danube Cultures: Ceramics |
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The most conspicuous
remains are the thousands of ceramic figurines, mostly female and always rather
abstract, that have been found all over the place. Their context must be some
religious / ceremonial / ritual purpose we can only guess at.
Here is an
article with great pictures and one kind of guess. Some are rather
spectacular and timeless pieces of art. |
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Figurines from Cernavodã; Hamangia
Culture.
Large version |
Source: Internet at large |
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Would you have guessed that the
couple above is about 6700 years old? Here is another one: |
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Figurine from Karanova |
Source: Internet at large |
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There are wonderful
ceramics from all Danube cultures, below is a small selection of Cucuteni
stuff; some more can be seen
here.
This
article has breathtaking pictures of more figurines; some are shown
here in large format.
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Ceramic artifacts form the Cucuteni
culture
"The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, also known as
Cucuteni culture (Romania) or Trypillian culture (Ukraine), is a Neolithic
archaeological culture which existed from approximately 4800 to 3000 BC, from
the Carpathian Mountains to Moldova and Ukraine, encompassing an area of more
than 35.000 square km", says the source |
Source: From the Internet
(https://romaniadacia.wordpress.com) |
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Note that there are also models of
things like ovens. The Cucuteni (and others) also made rather spectacular
pottery often decorated with intricate geometric designs: |
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Highlights
of the Danube Cultures: City dwellers without an upper class |
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The Danube Cultures did not produce
large stone buildings or other long-lasting big stone monuments like pyramids
or menhirs. Nor did they produce large stone sculptures. Maybe they were simply
unable to master the technical and logistic difficulties, or maybe they just
didn't feel like it. A normal, hard-working family / clan did not need a stone
palace, and Gods and Goddesses close to nature did not need large stone temples
either. In other words: monumental stone buildings are more or less a sign of a
stratified society with a non-working upper class that ruled and robbed the
lower classes as kings and high priests of some sort.
There are indications that Danube Culture societies may have been rather
egalitarian, granting equal rights even to women for example. |
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What we know is
that rather large settlements existed: |
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Trypillian city plans
Red numbers give estimated population
Large picture of
Maidanetskegeomagnetoc survey |
Source: Trypillian Civilization Journal,
2011-2. Archaeology. TRYPILLIA CULTURE PROTO-CITIES: AFTER 40 YEARS OF
INVESTIGATIONS |
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While a population of 5000 or so
doesn't seem to be all that spectacular from todays point of view, these towns
were probably the largest cities in the world in their own time. That is quite
remarkable - but even more noteworthy might be that all the buildings people
used for living (as opposed to religious or cultural purposes) were
"equal". No big houses or palaces were found, or houses with more
"pots and pans" than what was the general standard.
There is, however, a well-known clay model of a large three story building:
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Model of a three story temple (?)
building
About 4500 BC |
The model was discovered near Cascioarele ,
Calarasi county, Romania |
Source: Internet at large and private
communication |
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And now we also
have an "original". In 2014 a team of archaeologists (led by Dr
Mykhailo Videiko of the Kyiv Institute of Archaeology) has discovered the
remains of a 6,000-year-old temple at a Trypillian culture village near
modern-day Nebelivka, Ukraine.
Here is a picture |
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So up to 10 000 people lived in a
city without kings or high priests that enjoyed various privileges. They made
lots of female figurines using advanced ceramic technologies. Not much warfare
or violence seem to have taken place. Sounds almost to good to be true. |
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Highlights
of the Danube Cultures: Writing? |
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One might argue that the Danube
culture was ahead of others in ceramics - technologically and artwise - but I
can't tell. Contrariwise, if they would have had a system of writing well
before the first proto cuneiform emerged in Ur,
sometime around 3000 BC, there would be no doubt about their superior status as
"high culture". There are a few (ceramic) finds that show symbols
that might indicate a writing system - but there is not enough to be sure. It
goes without saying that anything written on something less durable than
ceramics - pretty much everything else people used to write on - would not have
survived 5000 years or so. |
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What do we have? Stuff like
this: |
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Top: Tartaria tablets, discovered in 1961 and
dated to around 5300 BC
Bottom: Stamp seal found in Karanovo, dated to around 4,800 BC |
Source: Internet at large |
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There are a few more
"inscriptions" like that on other objects but not a lot more. Is this
an early set of symbols used for communicating via what one could call writing?
Maybe - what else could it be? On a stamp seal? But we simply don't know for
sure. |
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Highlights
of the Danube Cultures: Copper Smelting |
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There are very well-known and serious
archeometallurgists who believe that copper smelting was discovered by the
"Danube Culture" and not by Anatolians, Iranians, Mesopotamians and
so on. I've covered
that. If you look at the self-explaining maps below that show were copper
things have been found for three different time horizons, you see that there
are very good reasons to subscribe to that point of view. |
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Distribution of Cu things for three different
time horizons
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Source: The very long, very learned and
very German article of Eva Rosenstock, Silviane Scharl and Wolfram
Schier: "Ex oriente lux? Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Stellung
der frühen Kupfermetallurgie Südosteuropas", publihed in: VON
BADEN BIS TROIA RESSOURCENNUTZUNG, METALLURGIE UND WISSENSTRANSFER, Oriental
and European Archaeology, Volume 3, Series Editor: Barbara Horejs,
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH . Rahden/Westf. 2016, pp. 59 -
122 |
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Small things are
for example beads as shown here and
here. They could all
have been made from native copper, not requiring smelting (and / or casting).
The German names above for "heavy things" indicate all kinds of axes,
adzes, chisels and daggers like these: |
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To summarize: if the old Europeans of
the Danube Culture did not invent the smelting of metals but the
"Anatolians", they were at least not far behind and apparently used
it on a far large scale that the others after the technology was
established. |
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© H. Föll (Iron, Steel and Swords script)