Talk:Old Europe (archaeology)

Uralic peoples

Should a discussion of the Uralic peoples be included here? It's my understanding that the Sami_people have lived in Scandanavia since well before Germanic settlement there. And of course Russia west of the Urals has been populated by various Uralic peoples since well before Slavic settlement... --Blackcats 18:46, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Merge with other article

Shouldnt this article be merged with Neolithic Europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.194.170.62 (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Serious population studies science left Gimbutas behind years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.69.219.3 (talk) 01:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Picts

Should Picts be included? --Error 01:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I just came to ask the exact same question. — Trilobite (Talk) 19:56, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

imho, this article is inherently broken due to its title. It should redirect to Old European culture — seriously, the two articles treat the same topic, and "Old European" is the better term, since it is not as misleading ("Pre-Indo-European" in principle could also refer to India or the Americas). dab (ᛏ) 18:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with a redirect, as soon as all pertinent info is worked into Old European Culture. In other words, most of the groups mentioned here need to be mentioned there. Alexander 007 02:14, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Title

This title is a little bit confusing, as in historical linguistics, the "Pre-" prefix is used to indicate the earlier state of a language deduced through internal reconstruction rather than the comparative method - that is, "Pre-Indo-European" is a legitimate term in historical linguistics referring to a state of the Proto-Indo-European language prior to that which can be reliably attested by the comparative method. --April Arcus 07:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with April Arcus that the use of a linguistic term to denote an archaeological moment is confusing, but that's the usage of Professor Gimbutas. It may be better to put this article under Old Europe and just do a redirect from here to there. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The article should not remain under the current title, an adjective without a noun. Pre-Indo European Wwhat? Language? Culture? Both? Sylvain1972 15:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Idea of Anatolian origin for PIEans

It's not impossible that Renfrew is right. However, for that to be so, the Indo-European languages would need to have remained unchanging or barely changing for thousands of years. Even Basque doesn't take that long to change - compare some of the inscriptions from Early Roman-Era Iberia in languages related to Basque! Also, attributing the spread of agriculture to the Proto-Indo-Europeans seems like an attempt to glorify them.

On the other hand, Gimbutas makes the PIEan culture into a savage one that introduced war into a part of the word that didn't know a thing of it, and forced a father-worshiping culture on mother-reverers. That idea of "Old Europe" is far too utopian. No, there were surely wars; name one culture that hasn't ever fought a war. As for the Indo-Europeans, it seems quite likely, from reconstructed words about reciprocity and equivalent exchange, that there was much trading between their culture and the Old European cultures of goods, and as is known, where goods are transfered, so are words and some customs.

Is it possible that the Indo-Europeans were in fact merely aggressive businessmen? That the expansions Mrs. Gimbutas speaks of are major eras of trade with the cultures of Old Europe? The Indo-Europeans might well have set up trading posts in urban centres of Old Europe, or as close to those as existed. Whether or not there were subsequent military incursions is up for grabs, but is it possible that the Indo-Europeans trusted these trading partners enough to take some of their women as wives? This would allow the mixture of cultures that is seen in every branch of Indo-European, but since this was taking the woman in, the children would be brought up in the Proto-Indo-European tradition, while being told Old European stories by their mothers.

Since the archaeological record rarely shows a SUDDEN change from one culture to another, the idea of trading with and gradual absorption of cultures by the Proto-Indo-Europeans seems to work. If there are archaeological clues pointing to war and such, this might still be Proto-Indo-European in origin - BUT IT COULD EQUALLY BE A NON-PIEan INVASION. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seadog driftwood (talk • contribs) 17:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Your reasoning sounds plausible. It would be nice to work these ideas into the article, provided you can find some sources. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Merge

Pre-Indo-European is a concept from Gimbutas and her colleagues. This concept has been pretty much crowded out of contemporary archaeology. It deserves (and receives) a mention in the article on the European Neolithic, but doesn't deserve the full treatment that it receives in this article. So I vote to maintain the split, to keep the nice work so many people put into this page. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the merge tag because the merge hasn't received favorable interest either here or in Neolithic Europe, where the merge tag has already been removed. --teb728 21:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Lehmann

Lehmann's use of the term is idiosyncratic, and should be split. The usual term for what he is doing would be Pre-Proto-Indo-European. --dab (𒁳) 10:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed rename

I propose that this article be renamed from Pre-Indo-European to Old European culture (or something like that). The subject of the article is really Gimbutas’s “Old Europe” hypothesis. (Perhaps it should even be named “Gimbutas’s Old Europe hypothesis.”) Although (as the article says) from a pro-Gimbutas POV “Old Europe” and “Pre-Indo-European” are synonyms, calling the article “Pre-Indo-European” presupposes that Gimbutas’s hypothesis is correct.

For reference, the history of the article is as follows:

• It was originally a language stub about the early non-Indo-European languages in Europe.
• On 9 June 2005 the content was merged into Old European culture and the stub was replaced with a redirect to that article. (See #Picts above.)
• Several editors objected to the redirect. (See Talk:Neolithic Europe#The term "Old Europe".) So on 11 July 2005 Old European culture was merged into Neolithic Europe.
• On 9 March 2006 this article was recreated with essentially the present content, i.e. Old European culture.

After the article is renamed, the redirect which results from renaming should not be left, for leaving it would justify renewed objections to such a redirect. Instead the original stub should be restored. (Or perhaps the redirect should be replaced with a redirect to Pre-Proto-Indo-European.) --teb728 09:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

On 5 November 2007 the article was renamed as proposed. --teb728 21:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

"Old European" is both awkward and ambiguous. john k 22:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

So what do you prefer? --teb728 22:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Pre-Indo-European makes more sense to me, but seems to have its own problems. I'm not really sure. john k 20:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Haplogroup I

Are there any hypotheses relating haplogroup I with Old European culture? They seem to span the same terretories. --Kupirijo (talk) 23:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

A statement about Greek

Does anyone take issue with the following statement:

A substrate in Greek, "Pelasgian", can be made out from loanwords, but it is unclear whether this is a genuinely pre-Indo-European substrate, or a Anatolian Indo-European one.

If so, can it be improved rather than deleted? --Wetman (talk) 08:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently not. It's been re-deleted. --Wetman (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we explain the huge amount of non indo-european words and grammatical features(especially in local-non standard-indoeuropean dialects)by pre indoeuropean peoples' languages?

Can we explain the huge amount of non indo-european words and grammatical features(especially in local-non standard-indoeuropean

dialects)by dene-caucasian,borean and cromagnic substratum of pre neolihicly migrating(proto indoeuropean speaking anatolian

farmers)populations of europe? Humanbyrace (talk) 01:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Paleolithic Continuity Theory

Hello, I think we should add also the Paleolithic Continuity Theory in the lists of theories that refers to Gimbutas old european theory. The section could carry text as folows: The Paleolithic Continuity hypothesis reverses the Kurgan hypothesis and largely identifies the Indo-Europeans with Gimbutas' "Old Europe."[6] PCT reassigns the Kurgan culture (traditionally considered early Indo-European) to a people of predominantly mixed Uralic and Turkic stock. This hypothesis is supported by the tentative linguistic identification of Etruscans as a Uralic, proto-Hungarian people that had already undergone strong proto-Turkish influence in the third millennium BC,[5] when Pontic invasions would have brought this people to the Carpathian Basin. A subsequent migration of Urnfield culture signature around 1250 BC caused this ethnic group to expand south in a general movement of people, attested by the upheaval of the Sea Peoples and the overthrow of an earlier Italic substrate at the onset of the "Etruscan" Villanovan culture.[5]

[5] ^ a b c Alinei, Mario. Etruscan: An Archaic Form of Hungarian. Il Mulino, Bologna, 2003 (summary). [6] ^ Gimbutas, Marija. "Old Europe c.7000-3500 BC., the earliest European cultures before the infiltration of the Indo-European peoples". Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1, 1973, pp. 1-20. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceckauskas Dominykas (talk • contribs) 04:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Please delete that map

The map titled File:Old Europe.png is very innaccurate and needs to be deleted immediately. The Vinča Culture shown on that map is completely wrong - it was actually only in a relatively small area in modern-day Serbia, and that map indicates that it took up half of Southeastern Europe! That is just one of the many errors in that map, and having it displayed in this article is just one more example why people feel that Wikipedia is not reliable. Delete it now, please. --Saukkomies ^talk 04:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC ->-> Why are we using a map which shows arrows all across Europe when we are talking about the Danube River valley ? ? ? <-<- This might be a fine map, but probably for another purpose.

And implies this civilization was all of Europe which, from what I read, is not the current best understanding. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Which article is the main topic?

Please see my comments on Talk:Old Europe. I am disputing that article's use of the namespace Old Europe and proposing 2 possible solutions. Note also there are many links to the other article which should be coming to this one instead.Trilobitealive (talk) 15:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Dravidians

Dravidians in "Old Europe"? I understand inclusion of neighbouring Asia Minor, but a distant subcontinent like India? Is this not stretching the concopt of Old Europe to breaking point?

Evidence/arguments for pacifist matriarrhal culture

I'm not sure if it should go here or in some other article, but there needs to be some discussion of why Gimbutas thinks Europe was an egalitarian, pacifist, matriarchal utopia. (Okay, so it appears from some of their surviving art that their idal woman was (apparently) a fat, overly-sexualised child-bearer. I'm not sure if that is a particulary strong indication of matriarchy, let alone proto-feminism. Is that more egalitarian/feminist that, say, the Sarmatians, who expected women to ride and fight like the men?) In any case, the evidence/arguments needs to be presented here. Iapetus (talk) 23:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Hardly anyone among archaeologists or other actual scholars of the relevant fields believes that there was an egalitarian pacifist utopia, or a matriarchal society in any meaningful definition of the word "matriarchal". However, there does seem to be some evidence for "female-centered rituals" in at least some of these societies (to use the terminology of David W. Anthony). And if there's not a strong differentiation of some houses being more elaborate and much larger than others, or some burials being more elaborate and much larger than others, then archaeologists are generally inclined to think that such a society is somewhat egalitarian (as far as the evidence available to archaeologists goes)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Just Danube river valley or all of Europe?

The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500BC, The Ashmolean Museum, The Oxford Times, Theresa Thompson, June 8, 2010.

" . . . At their peak (the period covered by the show), the cultures of ‘Old Europe’ — what is today Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova -— were among the most technologically advanced and sophisticated places in the world. . . "

" . . . It is likely copper metallurgy was invented first in Old Europe, the Balkans, rather than the Near East as thought. . . "

---

THE GODDESS THEORY : Controversial UCLA Archeologist Marija Gimbutas Argues That the World Was at Peace When God Was a Woman, Los Angeles Times, Jacques Leslie, June 11, 1989.

'IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE a book less likely than "The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe" to cause a sensation. Its subject matter, the spiritual practices of people living in southeastern Europe 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, . . '

' . . . an academic audience . . prose is wooden. . . '

' . . . Simply put, "The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe" argues that the original settlers of southeastern Europe lived in societies that were ideal in many respects. Men and women lived in harmony, Gimbutas says; women ran the temples and in doing so held predominant positions, while men performed such physical chores as hunting, building and navigating. The deities these people worshiped were overwhelmingly female, and their values, emphasizing nonviolence and reverence for nature, came from the feminine realm. It was marauding Indo-Europeans, the forerunners of Western civilization, who destroyed these societies, Gimbutas says. Making incursions from the Russian steppes starting in 4400 BC, the Indo-Europeans were violent, indifferent to nature and dominated by men. Those features, she says, have been part of Western civilization ever since and account for the political and environmental crises that now threaten the planet. . . '

[page 3:]
' . . . McPherron says that after he published a book describing a dig he led in Yugoslavia, Gimbutas designated one of the excavated structures a temple, even though it was distinguished from surrounding houses only by its slightly greater size. . . '

---

Dr. Marija Gimbutas Dies at 73; Archaeologist With Feminist View, New York Times, RICHARD D. LYONS, February 04, 1994.

' . . . Three of her more noteworthy books are "Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe" (1974), "The Language of the Goddess" (1989) and "The Civilization of the Goddess" (1991). Collectively, they present an interpretation of the Neolithic period of Europe that challenged traditional views of prehistoric societies. . . '

---

Europe's First Farmers, Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, KATHERINE SHARPE, April 30, 2013.

" . . . of the Danube Gorges region, in present-day Romania and Serbia, . . "

" . . . But around 6200 B.C., foreigners began appearing. They came from the south and east, and hailed from farming communities, says anthropologist T. Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. . . "

---

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520253988 University of California Press

" . . . Marija Gimbutas sketches the matrilineal village culture that existed in southeastern Europe between 6500 and 3500 B.C., . . "

So we have 3+ sources saying the Danube River valley. Let's go with that. And yes, this is a MAJOR CHANGE as acknowledged. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

which present day countries?

The Oxford Times source above says Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova. The Archaeology publication says Romania and Serbia. So yes, we can use some more sources on this point. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ

Please read this article...

https://feminismandreligion.com/2017/12/11/marija-gimbutas-triumphant-colin-renfrew-concedes-by-carol-p-christ/?fbclid=IwAR1MmTjnUEYQCAZJUQctOJJXMHiwzFZV5CY_yX9LU4QtP9BWLZoH8nhIZ5M Rosewind7 (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC) Rosewind7

Linguists working on early Indo-European have always been skeptical of Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis. Renfrew's statement apparently concedes some validity to the overall Kurgan hypothesis, but I doubt that it gives any support to the aspects of Gimbutas' work which many scholars have always doubted, such as her claimed ability to interpret the exact meaning of every scratched line on ancient inscribed objects, and her love of absolute binary oppositions. AnonMoos (talk) 18:10, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

The main weakness of the Anatolian hypothesis has always been its implausibly high time-depth, not only because of the reconstructed lexicon, which points to the Late Neolithic, but also because Old Hittite, Luwian, Mycenaean Greek and Indo-Iranian (especially Vedic) in the mid-second millennium BC (the Late Bronze Age) are still strikingly similar grammatically (taking into account the divergent phonologies), which makes 5000–6000 years of divergence (Gray and Atkinson conclude, for the initial divergence, an age of 7800–9800 BP) much less likely than 2000 or at most 3000 years (mainstream estimates for the Hittite–Indic divergence being 5000–6000 BP, no more than 6500 BP). Moreover, in the Iron Age, the similarities between the Indo-European languages, including Anatolian, are still evident – but after 6000–7000 years of divergence, this degree of similarity would be highly unusual. (Renfrew's original model implies that Classical Attic and Archaic Latin had been diverging for 6000 years but even his revised model implies 4500 years of divergence, comparable to the Finnish–Hungarian split, as opposed to the mainstream 2500–3000 years.) Renfrew's model implies an implausibly long period of linguistic stasis – some 3000 years, between the seventh and the fourth millennia BC, during which agriculture had spread from the Aegean region to Ireland. Maybe even more decisively, the early contacts with Uralic confirm that Indo-Iranian originates in Eastern Europe (Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic imply that it cannot have been spoken south of Kazakhstan, because the Proto-Uralic lexicon points to the taiga zone) and, together with even earlier Indo-European loanwords in Proto-Uralic, militate against a Proto-Indo-European spoken south of the Caucasus. While the evidence from the reconstructed lexicon, which implies that the split between Hittite/Anatolian and Vedic/Indo-Iranian cannot precede c. 4500 BC, and the splits between Germanic, Greek, Vedic/Indo-Iranian and probably Tocharian cannot precede c. 3500 BC, has been doubted, the cumulative evidence from Uralic contacts, reconstructed lexicon and impressionistic time-depth is difficult to overcome; while it's not impossible to get around the problems with time-depth and Uralic contacts somehow, and save the Anatolian hypothesis, in either version, so that it cannot be strictly disproved, it stretches plausibility and clashes with Occam's razor, which favours Chalcolithic Eastern Europe.

Also, AnonMoos is right that not only did the Kurgan hypothesis (which well precedes Gimbutas, but she buttressed and augmented it in detail with a plethora of archaeological evidence from Eastern Europe) never fall out of favour with linguists, but her work on Old Europe was never quite accepted by them either – although my understanding is that she never literally postulated a women-ruled Neolithic Europe but an egalitarian Danubian culture with older women being respected as community-advising elders and little stratification of class and power, which isn't unreasonable, let alone outlandish, so critics must be careful not to strawman her views. It's also worth mentioning that Renfrew has never actually retracted the Anatolian hypothesis, he accepts the Kurgan hypothesis as correct but maintains that it can only account for part of Indo-European, as his revision shows. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:23, 30 December 2019 (UTC)