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Official history tells us that In the Early Bronze Age (the late 3rd millennium BC) Ireland was one of the most important, if not the most important centres of gold working in Europe. Gold lunulae like the one on the picture were made by the Irish artisans from gold found in the Irish streams...

There is an English nursery rime which says: Sticks and stones will break my bones But words will never harm me. But people didn't always think this way. In the past when people swore or cursed at someone, they weren't just being rude. Every curse or a swear was a prayer to God(s) to do...

These are Racka sheep. The Racka is a unique breed with both ewes and rams possessing long spiral shaped horns. This sheep is a bit of a mystery, a mystery whose solving will shed new light on the history of the Balkans. You can read more here...

Serbian and Irish medieval law texts make clear distinctions between the peasants and shepherds which are treated as two distinct classes in the society. They had vastly different rights and obligations which were regulated in separate law texts. For instance in Serbian medieval law texts...

In the late 2014 a team of archaeologists lead by Predrag Lutovac opened one of the 10 tumuluses found betwen the villages Frutak i Kujava near the town of Danilovgrad in Montenegro. What they have found under the earth mound is very very interesting and can rewrite the history of the European...

A few weeks ago someone wrote this comment on my post about knobsticks: "One of the knobsticks found in the Tollense River is actually made from blackthorn (sloe) wood (Prunus spinosa)! A remarkable resemblance to the Irish tradition. " I had no idea what this person was talking about. I...

Hi all. I hope you are all happy and healthy. In this post I would like to talk about the development of the toothed (serrated) cutting implements and the words used to describe these implements and the actions performed with them. I started my investigation as a pure linguistic one. I tried...

The worship of Crom Dubh or Crom Cruiach, is said to have been brought to Ireland by Tigernmas, sometimes called Tiernmas. Tigernmas is sometimes referred to as the “culture king”, because it is said that he was the one who brought aspects of civilisation to Ireland including the cereal farming...

In the 6th millennium bc, in Serbia we find Vinča culture. I believe that everyone reading this have heard of the Vinča culture, the culture that invented metallurgy, alphabet... Slightly earlier, at the end of the 7th millennium bc we find on the same territory of Central Serbia, the Blagotin...

This is a stone statue from Armagh, Ulster, Ireland, (pre-christian / pre- 5th c.). It represents a man with a lion's head. It was discovered and first recorded during the reconstruction of the Armagh cathedral in the late 19th century. The man with a lion's head is a very strange image indeed...

Prohodna (Bulgarian: Проходна) is a karst cave in north central Bulgaria, located in the Iskar Gorge near the village of Karlukovo in Lukovit Municipality, Lovech Province. On a sunny day, as you approach the entrance, you are greeted with two shining eyes staring at you from the darkness of...

An earth oven or cooking pit is one of the simplest and longest used cooking structures. It is also the oldest oven type used by people. The earliest ones were found in Central Europe, and dated to 29,000 BC. They were situated inside mammoth bone yurts and were used to cook mammoth meat. So...

A few days ago I came across this early christian relief from Naxos depicting the nativity (birth) of Jesus scene. Unlike the later representations of the Nativity which take place in a manger, the Nativity scene on this early marble slab is framed by two trees, which means that the scene is...

In my post about eating acorns, I said that people had to invent quite a few things in order to move from eating acorns as occasional snacks to eating acorns as staple starch food. One of these acorn eating inspired inventions was a grinding stone. At the moment the earliest dated grinding...

Why are Thunder deities always linked with agricultural cults? Maybe because the first corn was acorn, the fruit of the thunder tree, oak...I am continuing my articles about oaks and acorns. I hope you will find this one interesting. How did hunter gatherers start to eat acorns? How did they...

The best examples of wooden trackways from Iron Age are in the south Baltic, in the area of Lower Saxony inhabited by Chauci, and in east Ireland, in the area inhabited by Cauci. The way these Iron Age wooden corduroy roads were constructed is so similar and superior to the rest of the roads...

In my post about oaks I talked about the oak tree and how useful this tree was and still is to people. In this post I would like to explain why I believe that people were as useful to the oak trees as the oak trees were useful to people. I believe that the influence that people had on the...

In my post about Oaks I wrote about how how useful they were and are to people. The last thing that I said in my last post is that acorns had been eaten by humans since at least late Paleolithic times right up to modern times, and that I would write about acorns and acorn eaters in my next few...

Sword, knife was the weapon that defined bronze and iron age. Before Bronze and Iron were invented, there was no way to make long, thin, flexible blades, which could be used as weapons. The invention of Bronze and later Iron changed all this and we suddenly see emergence of warrior caste...

Have you ever wandered why oak trees and oak groves were considered sacred in the past? Maybe the reason is that oaks are one of the most useful trees in the world. You can read more here: http://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.ie/2014/10/oaks.html