Are the Vikings we know the original Vikings?

[PaulMarcW]

Were Africans the first Vikings: An African (by phenotype) Neolithic and Bronze Age presence in Scandinavia?

As the understanding of what includes Scandinavia sometimes depends on ones’ frame of reference, the meaning here is is also called the Scandinavian Peninsula: i.e. the peninsula of North Europe occupied by Norway and Sweden. These are referred to as the countries of North Europe, especially considered as a cultural unit and including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and often Finland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands.

OUTLINE

[A] Vikings Part 1

Vikings Part 2

[C] TW Shore’s historical accounts of what I’d call African peoples and in Scandinavia of the Middle Ages 1

[D] TW Shore’s historical accounts of what I’d call African peoples and in Scandinavia of the Middle Ages 2

[E] Migration of Europeans-to-be from Steppes to Scandinavia (and elsewhere: as India, China … work of Maria Gimbutas collaborated with another

[F] The African Neolithic and Bronze Age population of Scandinavia in sculpture, etchings, and cranial remains



[A] Vikings Part 1


http://www.beforebc.de/Related.Subjects ... 36-01.html

Vikings Part 2


http://www.beforebc.de/Related.Subjects ... 0-825.html

[C] TW Shore’s historical accounts of what I’d call African peoples and in Scandinavia of the Middle Ages 1



http://www.beforebc.de/AfricanaResource ... 12-113.jpg

[D] TW Shore’s historical accounts of what I’d call African peoples and in Scandinavia of the Middle Ages 2


http://www.beforebc.de/AfricanaResource ... 14-115.jpg


[E] Migration of Europeans-to-be from Steppes to Scandinavia (and elsewhere: as India, China … map of Maria Gimbutas collaborated with another


http://www.beforebc.de/all_africa/04-10a-00-05.jpg

[Minimalist]

If you want to talk about pre-historic boats, Paul, you've come to the right place!



A high-prowed boat is indicative to me of a sea-going vessel. A river craft would not have to avoid much in the way of waves but on the open sea a boat with a low prow would be in constant danger of being swamped. So, again, it seems like a logical and technical solution to a problem of transport over open water.

Now, if you want to discuss the reasons why an ancient petroglyph from North Africa depicts a sea-going vessel I'm very interested. BTW, where in North Africa was that found? I think a lot of people here are comfortable with the idea of the neolithic Sahara being a lush and well-watered grassland with rivers and lakes. Evidence for that has been found. But sea-based travel is something else.

I guess what I'm asking is, what are the details for photo #1?

[Digit]

The black reference could of course refer to either hair or visage. Scandanvians have a higher percentage of fair haired people than does most of Europe, and it was possible higher in the past, so any reference to black hair could be simply to differentiate one group of raiders from another.
Also the use of facial make up, 'war paint', should not be discounted.

[Ishtar]

Paul Marc

Is your spread of Indo-Europeans from the Russian Steppe based on archaeology, linguistics or geneaology?

Also curious about your date of 4000 BC.

Thanks.

[PaulMarcW]

Hi Ishtar. Left town Wednesday morning and got back this Sunday afternoon. Only now (Sun. 11 PM) am I seeing your post.

You asked where my my comment that Indoeuropean radiation arises from the Steppes of 4000 BC?

Some years back, my thoughts arose from readings I'd done by Maria Gimbutas who came to that conclusion in the Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe and works like:

Marija Gimbutas, "The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe. Selected articles from 1952 to 1993." Edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Karlene Jones-Bley. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 18, Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. 1997. XIX.

The above I perused along with some others.

Aside from than that, my view arose from archeology and a smattering of genetics. Archeology based on a study of sorts (it's ongoing) of Mesolithic and Neolithic figurine worldwide. And I have made maybe half-a-dozen web pages dealing with this subject one of which is below in what could more appropriately (though it's limited in scope) be called The peopling of the world.


http://www.beforebc.de/all_africa/04-10a-00-02.html

THE ABOVE TEXT IS in a bit larger font below:

While maps (3) depict modern Europeans as descending from Paleolithic Europeans [concentric circles A, B, C, in (1)], populations worldwide & in Eurasia (1) arose from Africa (5). Populations labelled European (3) do not depict the African origins (5) and phenotype of those then Europeans (1). Modern Europeans (2, 3) migrating to today’s Western and Southern Europe, the Middle East, & North Africa, trace their origins, as shown in Indo-European language map (2) and migration map (4) primarily from the 1st millennium BC to the Middle Ages. Note the pre-Germanic (Before) population of Europe in (1) and the post-Germanic population of Europe (After) in ,e.g., (3).

From Science, we read: “The Dmanisi of 1.8 million years ago are the first hominids with clearly ‘African’ features found outside that continent – and they used only a simple stone tool kit, called Oldowan tools, to accomplish their journey. ‘They look African,’ (A0 above) says archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University, who has visited Dmanisi (A1 above) several times. ‘I would give [Dmanisi] the credence of being the oldest known site in Eurasia with Oldowan stone tools.’ … Enthused University of Rome paleoanthropologist Giorgio Manzi claimed: ‘This is the missing link between Africa, Europe, and Asia!’” In: Michael Balter, A Glimpse of Humans’ First Journey Out of Africa, Science, 288, pp. 948 – 950, Issue of 12 May 2000.

Not from but after Dmanisi came Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens appears to have colonized all of Africa about 150 millennia ago, moved out of Africa some 80 millennia ago, and spread across Eurasia and to Australia before 40 millennia ago. Migration to the Americas took place about 20 to 15 millennia ago, and by 1 millennium ago, all the Pacific Islands were colonized. Later population movements notably include the Neolithic revolution and Indo-European expansion, part of which emerges is in the earliest historic records.

Before the modern era, migrations are often confusing in the written record because the history is written by societies on the periphery of the migrating peoples, or by their descendants who have given up the nomadic way of life. This is true of the era that follows the collapse of classical civilization in Europe, as well as the collapse of the Early Medieval Great Migrations, & the related Turkic expansion. Much better understood are the Age of Exploration & European Colonialism from the north.

FOOTNOTE: I’d say the concept of “Classical Europe” does not account for the movement of the Proto-Italic segment of Steppic peoples (PISP) into the nation-states of the Roman Republic (the states were African) characterizing Italy before Caesar’s Roman Empire. A better definition of Classical Europe is: “African settlement areas predating the Migration Period of Indo-Europeans (2*) from the Russian Steppes into England and mainland Europe 500 AD to 1500 AD; but especially predating the centuries leading to the ~ 800 BC incursion of the PISP Julius Caesar would later emerge from. Caesar was virtually the first I-E to enter England. This was in 94 BC.”

[Ishtar]

Hi Paul Marc

That's OK .. . I know the demands of your life and was happy to wait for your answer.

You asked where my my comment that Indoeuropean radiation arises from the Steppes of 4000 BC?

Some years back, my thoughts arose from readings I'd done by Maria Gimbutas who came to that conclusion in the Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe and works like:

Marija Gimbutas, "The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe. Selected articles from 1952 to 1993." Edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Karlene Jones-Bley. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 18, Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. 1997. XIX.

Yes, I sort of guessed that. But I think that Maria Gimbutas's views from this time (1952 - 1993) would have been based on current thinking then, and have since been overtaken.

The problem, towards the end of the 20th century, was that archaeologists were dating everything on what the linguists were saying, and vice versa. And the linguists were saying (in fact, had been saying for 200 years at least) that there had been an Aryan invasion into India and other points south and south west from a) the Russian steppes b) the Aral Sea, c) Siberia, d) Anatolia - there was a whole raft of different locations that were identified and discarded, one after the other, and Maria Gimbutas's was one of them.

J P Mallory said:

“We call the people who spoke this ancestral language the Indo-Europeans or Proto Indo-Europeans. But although we can give them a name, they are unlike almost any other ancient people we are likely to encounter. As the linguistic ancestors of nearly half the planet’s population, they are of one of the most important entities in the prehistoric record – and yet they are also one of the most elusive. No Proto-Indo-European text exists; their physical remains and material culture cannot be identified without extensive argument; and their geographical location has been the subject of a century and a half of intense yet inconclusive debate.

“...This quest for the origins of the Indo-Europeans has all the fascination of an electric light in the open air on a summer night: it tends to attract every species of scholar or would-be savant who can take pen to hand. It also shows a remarkable ability to mesmerise even scholars of outstanding ability to wander far beyond the realm of reasonable speculation to provide yet another example of academic lunacy...One does not ask “where is the Indo-European homeland?” but rather “where do they put it now?”

But since then, over probably the last ten years, the tide has turned in this debate. Nobody seriously now thinks that there was an Aryan invasion into India, although the linguists are clinging on to the battered raft of a 'migration'. However, geneticists are now finding that the gene pool in India has not changed substantially in 10,000 years. They are also thinking it unlikely that when they did come in, that they came through the Khyber Pass in the north-west. On top of that, when you analyse the linguists' case (upon which the achaeos were basing theirs) there are holes in it that you could have driven a horse and chariot through. (If you'd like to read my analysis of the linguists' case, based on a paper by Shrikant Talegeri, let me know and I'll dig it out the archives for you. But don't feel obliged - for one thing, it's bloody long!)

So in my view, this throws the whole deck of cards about IE spread up in the air ... and they haven't come back down yet.

Hope this helps.

[PaulMarcW]

Hi Ishtar. I keep an open mind to things. However, when I look at the archeological evidence of early populations in India, there was (by phenotype) an African presence there. When one looks at the figurine, they slowly begin to evolve over the millenniums from the type seen below to populations found in India today many with sharper features I'd say showing an Aryan heritage.


http://www.beforebc.de/400_neareast/02-16-400-05.html

Also, there is a significant Neolithic red, black, brown rock art presence in India likely, I guess, kin of the Jawara of the Andaman Islands.

But, still. I keep an open mind. My thoughts aren't frozen where I am not willing to change my position if the evidence points that way.

[Ishtar]

Yes, I agree with you that there is an African presence in India, particularly southern India where I believe there is an Ethiopian influence.

I also believe in keeping an open mind but not so much, as Richard Dawkins says, that your brains fall out.



At some point, I believe, you have to take a view - otherwise, it's just a pointless mental exercise.

I also think that you have to be really careful with the use of the term Aryan. The British Raj invented that term - or rather they misunderstood the meaning of the word 'arya' that they found when translating the Rig-veda. They understood the RV as literal history instead of what it is, the hymns of the shamans as they prepared and carried out their rituals and ceremonies, and so they thought that the arya or aryans where a race of people, when in fact it meant someone who had achieved a certain point on the spiritual path. In Sanskrit, it means 'noble' in the sense of the good, fair and honest, but the British/German translators took this to mean 'noble' in the sense of aristocratic.

That said, it is clear that there are two races in India - the smaller, darker more African/Australoid southern Indian (who were called Dravidian by the British Raj) and the taller, slightly more fairer northern Indian. However, their own historians (who I would trust more than the British Raj!), say that they came from Siberia and Kashmir more than 10,000 years ago, which would explain the lighter skins.

So if this is true, you've got the northern Indians coming in from the north-east and the southern Indians coming in from the south and south-west.

Thus - there were no 'Aryans' coming into India from the north-west - and so it throws into question whether they existed at all.

I've also seen that diagram many times before of what looks like breadcrumb trails coming out of a central point in central Asia. But there is no evidence which way those breadcrumb trails were travelling in. It could have been in the opposite direction.

An extra point - I think basing your research about the Indian people on Buddhas is not that helpful in terms of tracing their origins. Buddha is very late, compared to how long they' d been in India.

And one final point - most Neolithic rock art worldwide is red - red ochre, in fact.

Hope this makes sense.

[PaulMarcW]

Ishtar. I have read at another forum the belief that indeed Indian populations can trace a history to Siberia. I have seen as well attempts to establish some substantive kinship between Dravidian and (I think but am not sure) the Ural-Altaic language.

A researcher, retired and respected, spent years trying to sew together these links but in the end sadly abandoned it saying that he thought so much time had passed since the separation that too much of the language had evolved beyond any point of showing a probable relationship.

He did, though, amass tons of similar words. Actually, now that I think about it, some real progress may have been made in this area among Finnish scientists. As you know, they are avid, robust researchers. Their threads attract many thousands of comments. I know that even last year talk existed of strides being made in linguistic research showing some common paleo ancestor for Siberian-Indian languages. I can't talk intelligibly about this as I know so little. But, I do know your information is reliable. That I know.

Thanks for sharing,


Marc

[Ishtar]

Actually, now that I think about it, some real progress may have been made in this area among Finnish scientists. As you know, they are avid, robust researchers. Their threads attract many thousands of comments. I know that even last year talk existed of strides being made in linguistic research showing some common paleo ancestor for Siberian-Indian languages.

Do you mean Parpolo?

http://www.helsinki.fi/~aparpola/

He ended up with egg on this face over the Indus script, but I think he is an honest researcher who is not afraid to admit to a mistake, and go back to the drawing board with renewed fervour.

[Ishtar]

Paul Marc

I thought this might interest you. A new genetic study came out a few months ago showing the links between Orkney Islanders, Pakistanis and Siberians.

The Orkney Islands are north of Scotland in the UK - so for that read British. Obviously, Pakistan didn't even exist 50 years ago, so for that read Indian.

So the genetic study shows the links between the Britiish, the Indians and the Siberians:

You can access the article and our discussion about it here:

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... sc&start=0

There's also a fairly recent paper of George Thompson's on Michael Witzel tracing the Siberian horse sacrifice to the Rig-vedic ashvamedha rites. Here's the article:

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:-T ... ompson.pdf

[PaulMarcW]

Hi Ishtar. I began a reply early this morning and saved the unfinished comments on my computer not giving it a proper name and now it's lost. I certainly found the information you shared interesting and will be replying later. The Finn-Ugrik connection with paleo Indian languages I saw mention made to.

Best regards,


Marc

[Minimalist]

I began a reply early this morning and saved the unfinished comments on my computer not giving it a proper name and now it's lost.

I sympathize, Paul. When I do that I tend to drink a lot.