6.3 Europe: 1500 to 1000 b.c.  (Page 4/4)

Central europe

In this time-frame an Indo-European speaking, tall, blonde people emerged as a confederation of tribes from a prehistoric complex and began to inhabit the bulk of Europe, spreading out from a "nest" around the rich ore fields of Bohemia and the central German mountains. Called Unetice, the distinguishing feature of this Bohemian-central German culture up until about 1,500 B.C. was the burial mound, but by 1,300 they had given this up in favor of cremation with the ashes of the dead placed in urns in cemeteries, and thus becoming known as the Urnfield Culture. This became the custom of later peoples, including the Italics, Venetians and Illyrians., and it may also have been the cradle of the three linguistic variations of "Old Indo-European" and possibly also that of the Phrygians and Armenians who settled in Anatolia about 1,200 B.C. All of these people were farmers, not much inclined to village life, raising animals, hunting, sacrificing to sun-gods, using the battle axe and both two and four wheeled chariots. People later to be identified as true Celts had probably not become differentiated at this time, although there is much confusion in the literature on this point, and many would call the early waves of Indo-Europeans of the Urnfield Culture by this name. (Ref. 91 )

It is probable that after 1,220 B.C. the Scandinavian branches of the old Indo-European peoples which had migrated south after the catastrophes which seem to have occurred there in the 15th century (See SCANDINAVIA, this chapter), reached central Europe and spread with the local people in various directions - some to the Apennine peninsula to be- come the Ambrones, later Umbrians - some drove the Veneti to northern Italy and the forefathers of the Illyrians to Yugoslavia, and the Phrygians and Armenians to Anatolia – and finally some went to Greece. In the far north of the continent proper, the Thuringians Germanized north Germany and the Goths, Burgundians, Alemans and Marcomans prepared to move west as the Lausitz Slavs moved in behind them. (Ref. 194 , 91 )

Western europe

It was in the 12th century B.C. that Phoenicians from Sidon first settled on the coast of Spain, building a light house at La Coruna to be used as a guide for their ships going to England for tin. Soon after, other Phoenicians from Tyre established trading posts along the Guadalquiver River and finally founded Cadiz about 1,100 B.C. (Ref. 196 ) At this period Spain had a basic population of dark whites who may have been the ancestors of present day Basques, and there were Ligurians on the west coast. The latter had invaded from France and were actually a mixture of early or pre-Celts with Celtic speaking Ligurians who were numerous in France. McEvedy (Ref . 136) insists that about 1,200 B.C. a branch of these same people crossed over into England, conquering and intermarrying with the natives, who were already a mixed group of dark-haired and dark skinned people, possibly Iberian in origin, and light-haired Scandinavians. All of these people spread throughout England and Wales. The area of Wessex was particularly prosperous, with trading contacts with most of Europe and the Mediterranean. Working on the assumption that some of these early invaders of the British Isles were actually Celts, we can differentiate two stocks:

• The Goidels (Gaels) still surviving in northern Ireland and nigh Scotland, representing a survival of the earliest Beaker-folk with a Q-Celtic tongue
• the Cymri and Brythons (Britons) still represented in Wales as the P-Celtic, Urnfield people. The latter were close kin to the Gaulic Belgi

Scandinavia

As the early Celtic people spread across northern Europe, they did not enter Scandinavia, and actually even made a type of barrier cutting off some trade between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean areas. In spite of this some iron, which was the secret weapon of the Celts, seeped into Scandinavia, so that they also had what might be called a "Celtic Iron Age", even though their basic economy still depended mainly on imported bronze to the extent that their unique metal work developed a special Northern Bronze Age. People buried their dead in log coffins in barrows and the clothing and hair were preserved intact. Rock scribings of wild animals and legendary scenes hewn into rock continued to be produced throughout large areas of Scandinavia, including Finland, and even parts of northern Russia. The richest finds of these scribings straddles the Swedish-Norwegian border. (Ref. 122 , 228 )

The climate in Scandinavia was for awhile warmer and drier than today and then it became cold again. Glaciers expanded, the sea level sank and vines stopped growing. In the more southern areas the Teutonic or Germanic tribes were in growth and some had already migrated to Britain and back and forth to the main continent. Danish amber was in demand on the continent and by 1,000 B.C. the Danes decked themselves with ornate weapons and ornaments and used bronze lurs as musical instruments. Navigation science must have been fairly well established, as there was much sailing of narrow, keel boats about England, Jutland and Brittany and perhaps even to Gibralter and the Canary Islands, where boat drawings similar to the Scandinavian ones have been found. (Ref. 117 )

Eastern europe

The previously described Urnfield Culture, involving the burial of the ashes of the dead in urns, appeared in Poland about 1,300 B.C. and was also called the Lausitz Culture. These early people of Poland were the Lusatians, a western branch of Slavs. The eastern Slavs by the Pripet marshes of the middle Dnieper River did not use this burial method. North of both of these Slavic groups the Balts and/or Letts lived on the south shore of the Baltic. As indicated previously they may be neither purely Slavonic nor Teutonic nor Celtic. Their classical Baltic Bronze Age Culture, located between the Oder and Dvina, included local metal objects, pottery and burial rites in barrows surrounded by stone rings. To the northeast of the Balts all land area was sparsely inhabited by Finns and/or Lapps. The bulk of the southern branch of the Baltic Finns was the Estonians. Others of this group were the Livs (now about 1,000 remain on the tip of Courland) and the Votes. There are perhaps a few of the latter still around Narva, but they originally occupied all of Ingria. All of these Finns, like the Balts, came originally from the great arc of the Volga in the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. and probably met with the Aesti, described by Tacitus. As they reached their Baltic homes, they intermarried with Balts and Lapps in an amount unknown. Southern Russia, from the Carpathians to the Caspian Sea was inhabited at that period by the Aryan Cimmerians, probably closely related to the Thracians. The Cimmerian name is preserved in the Crimean peninsula of the Black Sea. (Ref. 136 , 61 , 144 )

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