Old Europe

[Maleth]

I am sure that many of you heard of the theory of Marija Gimbutas of old Europe and the Godess culture, even older than the pyramids of Egypt. Her studies and research were pre dna. Unfortunately I cannot find much information about it. Is her theory more accepted now? and were there any further research in regards to her theory to substantiate or dismiss?. What is your take on this? (Im sorry if there were some older threads on the subject but could not find any directly relevant to this)

 

[bicicleur 2]

end 7 th millenium BC farmers settled in the Balkans.
by mid 6 th millenium BC they had created an advanced civilization, much more advanced than Marija Gimbutas could imagine
4th millenium BC they were invaded by Indo-Europeans

but the image created by Marija Gimbutas of a harmonious peaceful civilization overrun by agressive Indo-Europeans doesn't seem to fit

for a starter you can consult the story of haplogroup R1b on this site

 

[Maleth]

end 7 th millenium BC farmers settled in the Balkans.
by mid 6 th millenium BC they had created an advanced civilization, much more advanced than Marija Gimbutas could imagine
4th millenium BC they were invaded by Indo-Europeans

but the image created by Marija Gimbutas of a harmonious peaceful civilization overrun by agressive Indo-Europeans doesn't seem to fit

for a starter you can consult the story of haplogroup R1b on this site

Thanks for info bicicleur. That is a big read, and lots of good info also including old Europe.

 

[Angela]

I posted a lot of material about "Old Europe" in an older thread, but I can't find it through the search engine. It's probably better to have it in this appropriately named thread anyway.

This is a New York Times article on an international exhibit called "The Lost World of Old Europe." It was fabrlous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a very good presentation about it by New York University.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/oldeurope/home.html

This is a fabulous slide show of the artifacts.
http://www.slideshare.net/nobodyws/the-lost-world-of-old-europe

And this is the exhibition video:

 

[Echetlaeus]

I posted a lot of material about "Old Europe" in an older thread, but I can't find it through the search engine. It's probably better to have it in this appropriately named thread anyway.

This is a New York Times article on an international exhibit called "The Lost World of Old Europe." It was fabrlous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a very good presentation about it by New York University.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/oldeurope/home.html

This is a fabulous slide show of the artifacts.
http://www.slideshare.net/nobodyws/the-lost-world-of-old-europe

And this is the exhibition video:

How come we have Greek subs?
Oh, I see, the Museum of Cycladic Art!

 

[Maleth]

I posted a lot of material about "Old Europe" in an older thread, but I can't find it through the search engine. It's probably better to have it in this appropriately named thread anyway.

This is a New York Times article on an international exhibit called "The Lost World of Old Europe." It was fabrlous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a very good presentation about it by New York University.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/oldeurope/home.html

This is a fabulous slide show of the artifacts.
http://www.slideshare.net/nobodyws/the-lost-world-of-old-europe

And this is the exhibition video:

Many thanks for links Angela, very informative. I find this very interesting. In one of her interviews Marija Gimbutas mentions the the megalithic temples of Malta (also having the 'Fat lady' as a goddess and figurines were found in the oldest one on Gozo). Its interesting now there will be more study about them in collaboration with the university of Belfast. I really hope they would take some dna testing as some bones where excavated from the sites. http://www.timesofmalta.com/article.../Digging-into-Malta-s-prehistoric-past.504975 hopefully more light will be shed on this part of history.

 

[Angela]

Many thanks for links Angela, very informative. I find this very interesting. In one of her interviews Marija Gimbutas mentions the the megalithic temples of Malta (also having the 'Fat lady' as a goddess and figurines were found in the oldest one on Gozo). Its interesting now there will be more study about them in collaboration with the university of Belfast. I really hope they would take some dna testing as some bones where excavated from the sites. http://www.timesofmalta.com/article.../Digging-into-Malta-s-prehistoric-past.504975 hopefully more light will be shed on this part of history.

You're very welcome, Maleth.

I think we'd all be very interested in finding out where they went, if anywhere, and their genetic composition, although if I had to guess, I think they were EEF people.

In this video, David Anthony talks about the exhibit.

 

[Angela]

Since David Anthony mentioned her in the video in the prior post, here is Marija Gimbutas speaking for herself...She begins her presentation at about 3:15.

 

[Maleth]

Very interesting again Angela...thanks. Surely lots of food for thought there and that pottery is just awesome. This story will keep unfolding. Here are some more pictures found in the Maltese temples to which can easily pertain to the same cult


I came across this short documentary of Harald Haarman re evidence of writing in the area....

 

[Angela]

Very interesting again Angela...thanks. Surely lots of food for thought there and that pottery is just awesome. This story will keep unfolding. Here are some more pictures found in the Maltese temples to which can easily pertain to the same cult
View attachment 6407View attachment 6405 View attachment 6406

I came across this short documentary of Harald Haarman re evidence of writing in the area....

The earth mother goddess has different names in different places...Ashtarte/Ishtar, Isis, Cybele, Ceres...but it's all the same cultural phenomena, and she has had a place in human consciousness since the Paleolithic.

Whenever I'm at an event like this, I think that she hasn't quite vanished yet:

 

[Aberdeen]

The earth mother goddess has different names in different places...Ashtarte/Ishtar, Isis, Cybele, Ceres...but it's all the same cultural phenomena, and she has had a place in human consciousness since the Paleolithic.

Whenever I'm at an event like this, I think that she hasn't quite vanished yet:

Beautiful!

 

[Maleth]

Beautiful!

indeed......

 

[Echetlaeus]

Τάρας, that says it all!

 

[Angela]

The first time I saw this type of presentation of the pizzica I wondered if he knew he was going to be sacrificed to the crops in the morning?etrified:

 

[Aberdeen]

The first time I saw this type of presentation of the pizzica I wondered if he knew he was going to be sacrificed to the crops in the morning?etrified:

Well, at least it looks as if the ladies are doing a good job of making sure they have a willing sacrifice.

 

[Fire Haired14]

How do you define '"old Europe". The only genetically European-specific people were Mesolithic-Upper Palaeolithic European hunter gatherers who had nothing to with these Neolithic Levant descended cultures.. A society were women are men and men are women, is unlikely to have ever existed and is just a fantasy of feminist.

 

[Maleth]

How do you define '"old Europe". The only genetically European-specific people were Mesolithic-Upper Palaeolithic European hunter gatherers who had nothing to with these Neolithic Levant descended cultures.. A society were women are men and men are women, is unlikely to have ever existed and is just a fantasy of feminist.

“ old Europe” is a term used for the first more elaborate culture on the land that is now named Eruope, meaning bigger permanent settlements and more elaborate earthenware and tools, the first type of industry (copper smelting). This would be a type of system we can more related to these days but obviously on a much larger scale. These were a group of people that traveled upwards or westwards, to a land that had no name until the Phoenicians or Greek gave it its present one. The fertility cult is very obvious (not exactly a fantasy) and not sure whats so feminist about it. With the same measuring stick is everything else male chauvinism?

 

[LeBrok]

Since David Anthony mentioned her in the video in the prior post, here is Marija Gimbutas speaking for herself...She begins her presentation at about 3:15.

I love the artifacts in this video, and for this it was a great watch, but I must say I'm not a big fan of Marija Gimbutas. She just clumped Neolithic and Paleolithic together if there was one cultural block versus IEs. I would say she makes quite big scratches describing the art, I'm not sure if half of them resembles a woman, even less a goddess. Actually all of them are goddesses, according to Marija, not leaving a slightest chance that the Artist perhaps made a statue of his wife, or was the art a duplication/manufacturing of local smith, or was it an artistic experiment. However I'm not an expert and surely can miss details which are obvious for archaeologists and historians.
I'm glad she revealed her biggest revelation at the end, about totally peaceful Europe, again paleolithic and neolithic, or she would have killed the show for me at the beginning.

And of course everything means new life and regeneration, and at the same time death. It must be more of Buddhist philosophy, but wouldn't it be more related to IEs then?

There are nice nuggets though:
- mother bear, big cultural symbol till modern times.
- meaning of hedgehog

Anybody knows something more about 3 waves of IEs she alluded too?

Once again, great artifacts.

 

[Aberdeen]

I don't accept everything Gimbutas says as gospel, but I think she did provide a very important counterbalance to some earlier and equally inaccurate ideas that had been in vogue before her. And I think the stuff about life and regeneration going hand in hand with death probably does capture some of the flavour of the spiritual values of Old Europe, if we can judge by some of the artifacts, and I think it speaks to the world we actually live in, as opposed to the world as modern Western philosophy teaches us to see. You can't have Spring without first having Winter - neither one could exist without the other.

 

[Angela]

She just clumped Neolithic and Paleolithic together if there was one cultural block versus IEs. I would say she makes quite big scratches describing the art, I'm not sure if half of them resembles a woman, even less a goddess. Actually all of them are goddesses, according to Marija, not leaving a slightest chance that the Artist perhaps made a statue of his wife, or was the art a duplication/manufacturing of local smith, or was it an artistic experiment.

That's certainly the view of her detractors. My own personal opinion is that in later life Gimbutas rather left off being an anthropologist and linguist and archaeologist, and increasingly became an impassioned proponent of a certain point of view regarding matriarchy and patriarchy. (This is a viewpoint which she certainly didn't invent; the belief that matriarchies predated patriarchies was an idea with roots in the 19th century.) So, in her early work, she proposed not that women controlled the levers of power in "Old Europe", but that they had a more equal position, not that there was one "Great Goddess", but that there were many goddesses, each representing different aspects of the life cycle, and that there was a fertility based "religion" or cult practices in "Old Europe", which had extraordinary importance. From my reading, I would say that I don't think that there is any doubt that the "feminine principle" has been worshiped all over the world, and from very early times, perhaps more so with the invention of agriculture. The relationship of this principle with that of the masculine Sky God varied according to the culture, I think.

I'm glad she revealed her biggest revelation at the end, about totally peaceful Europe, again paleolithic and neolithic, or she would have killed the show for me at the beginning.

I always found it difficult to accept that any human culture could be pacific, no matter its guiding principles. However, her more fervent supporters maintain that critics of this concept are not on very firm ground either.
Warfare in the European Neolithic: Truth or Fiction?
http://www.belili.org/marija/marler_article_03.html

And of course everything means new life and regeneration, and at the same time death. It must be more of Buddhist philosophy, but wouldn't it be more related to IEs then?

These concepts are much older than the formulation of Buddhism or the emergence of IE. There is the yin and yang concept, for example. It's also an idea prevalent in the oldest forms of Hinduism, from which Buddhism drew many of its concepts, and extraordinarily prevalent in the Near Eastern Neolithic cultures and in Egypt. The whole Osiris/Iris mythology is a case in point.
The Sacred Feminine in Hinduism
http://www.ometc.net/2010/03/devi-the-sacred-feminine-in-hinduism.html

Joseph Campbell on the Goddess...it begins around 28:00 of this clip:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAAFHkA-Nc

Anybody knows something more about 3 waves of IEs she alluded too?

There were proposed to be three successive "waves" of expansion:-

• Wave 1, predating Kurgan I, expansion from the lower Volga to the Dnieper, leading to coexistence of Kurgan I and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. Repercussions of the migrations extend as far as the Balkans and along the Danube to the Vinca and Lengyel cultures in Hungary.
• Wave 2, mid 4th millennium BC, originating in the Maykop culture and resulting in advances of "kurganized" hybrid cultures into northern Europe around 3000 BC (Globular Amphora culture, Baden culture, and ultimately Corded Ware culture). According to Gimbutas this corresponds to the first intrusion of Indo-European languages into western and northern Europe.
• Wave 3, 3000–2800 BC, expansion of the Pit Grave culture beyond the steppes, with the appearance of the characteristic pit graves as far as the areas of modern Romania, Bulgaria and eastern Hungary, coincident with the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture (c.2750 BC).

The above is from the following site, which provides a good overview of the "Kurgan" theory.
http://romanianhistoryandculture.webs.com/marijagimbutaskurgan.htm