Palaeolithic Continuity Theory - European origins

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  • I of Macedon
    Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 222

    Palaeolithic Continuity Theory - European origins

    FROM MY MAKNEWS THREAD - SELDOMBALANCE

    I found this absolutely important when I placed it on maknews, and its just as important here.

    The following are extracts that touch upon as to why experts are divided in their theories, Also, the extracts touch upon language evolution.

    Mario Alinei
    Darwinism, traditional linguistics
    and the new Palaeolithic Continuity Theory of Language Evolution
    published in Gontier, Nathalie; Bendegem, Jean Paul van; Aerts, Diederik (Eds.),
    Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture. A non-adaptationist, systems
    theoretical approach, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, pp. 121-147.
    December 6th 2006

    Extract of Summary

    As the author has shown in previous work, although linguistics as a science was born in Darwin’s
    century, Darwinism’s influence on it was superficial and produced the mystifying, but still current, view
    that language is a living organism, and language change an organic law. Language is, instead, a social
    artifact with an interface with nature, which is governed by the law of conservation and changes only
    exceptionally. Since language is innate - as claimed by Chomsky and now demonstrated by natural
    sciences - and Homo was thus born loquens, the evolution of language - and all world languages,
    including Indo-European (IE) - must be mapped onto the entire course of human cultural evolution, in the
    new framework provided by the Palaeolithic Continuity Theory (PCT).

    The cultural context of the 19th century

    First of all, it is necessary to remember that the 19th century was not dominated, culturally, by the emergence of evolutionary theory, but, on the contrary, by a very conservative, theological view of nature, according to which the Bible was the basic source for knowledge, and thus also for science.

    As is known (e.g. Daniel 1962, Pinna 1992), Pre-Darwinian scholarship saw the duration of the earth and of life, as well as the beginning of human history, as set down by the Bible. And the text of the Bible, in its authorized version published in England in 1701, included the results of Dr. John Lightfoot’s and bishop James Ussher’s earlier calculations, according to the latter of which the universe was created by God on Sunday the 23rd of October 4004 b.C, beginning at sunset of the 22nd, Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden in the same year, on November 10, and Noah’s ark saved living beings from the Flood on May 5, 1491 b.C. Throughout the 19th century, and as late as the Victorian era - that is long after Darwin published his book - this was the current view about the origins of the universe. For the same reason, contemporary scholars reduced the entire human prehistory to the so-called Four Monarchies - Persian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman. And in the almost 6000 years between the present and the divine Creation in 4004 B.C., nothing short of a catastrophic, supernatural event could explain the process of geological accumulation and change. The biblical Flood provided an exceptionally effective example of such a catastrophe. In short, before the four monarchies there was only impenetrable fog, and before the year 4000 b.C. was the supernatural.

    And it was precisely the strength of this belief that caused, in the 19th century, a sharp division between contemporary scholars: on the one hand the majority, called Catastrophists, who interpreted the terrestrial documentation in conformity with the Book of Genesis, saw the Flood as an example of supernatural catastrophes, and the biological past of the earth as a succession of supernatural catastrophes, each followed by new acts of supernatural creation. And on the other a minority of scholars, called Uniformitarianists, who studied the earth and life in terms of natural phenomena and natural laws operating in the present, and affirmed the natural character of the evolution, and the uninterrupted continuity of species from their origins to the present, in spite of their transformations.

    In the last three decades, archaeological research has made quite a few revolutionary
    advances, among which the most well-known is the much higher chronologies of European prehistory, obtained by radiocarbon and other innovative dating techniques. As far as Europe is concerned, the conclusion that interests us the most are:

    (a) There is absolutely no trace of a gigantic warlike invasion, such as to have caused a
    linguistic substitution on continental scale, as envisaged by the traditional IE (Indo-European) theory.

    (b) All Neolithic cultures of Europe are either a direct continuation of Mesolithic ones, or
    have been created by Mesolithic groups after their Neolithization by intrusive farmers from the Middle East.

    (c) There is every possible evidence for demic and cultural continuity, from Upper
    Paleolithic to the Metal Ages. Continuity is now universally considered the basic pattern of European prehistory. Even James Mallory, probably the last archaeologist who defends the IE invasion theory, has had to concede: "the archaeologists' easiest pursuit [is] the demonstration of relative continuity and absence of intrusion" (Mallory 1989: 81). All of this, again, represents a firm basis for the Short PCT.

    In fact, for the specific problem of the origins of IE (Indo-European) languages Cavalli Sforza has first attempted to adjust his data to the traditional model of the warlike invasion theory, claiming that the two data converged, and later fully supported Renfrew’s model (Ammerman and Cavalli Sforza 1984), without realizing – apparently – that also the latter model, with its catastrophic scenario for both European and Asiatic people, clashes with his own claim of a close correspondence between the a real distribution of genetic markers and that of world linguistic phyla. Nevertheless, even Cavalli Sforza has recently had to surrender to the latest outcome of genetic research, i.e. that 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to Palaeolithic (e.g. Sykes 2001: 240 ff). As Bryan Sykes’ has recently commented: “The Neolithic farmers ha[ve] certainly been important; but they ha[ve] only contributed about one fifth of our genes. It [is] the hunters of the Palaeolithic that ha[ve]created the main body of modern
    European gene pool” (Sykes 2001: 242). This conclusion represents, in my opinion, a firm basis for the Short PCT.

    Short extract of conclusion

    “…PCT can be regarded as successful, not only in its results but also in its methods of seeking evidence in archaeology, (palaeo) anthropology, historical sciences, and genetics and cognitive sciences…”
    Last edited by I of Macedon; 09-08-2008, 09:00 AM.
    No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun
  • I of Macedon
    Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 222

    #2
    Paleolithic Continuity Theory - Marcel Otte, Alexander Häusler, and Mario Alinei

    These are excerpts from Mario Alinei’s Theory of Continuity are being quoted:

    “I have to commence by clearing away one of the most absurd consequences of the traditional chronology, namely, that of the ‘arrival’ of the Slavs into the immense area in which they now live. The only logical conclusion can be that the southern branch of the Slavs is the oldest and that from it developed the Slavic western and eastern branches in a differing manner and perhaps at different times.”

    “Today only a minority of experts support the theory of a late migration for the Slavs… because none of the variant versions of such late settlement answers the question of what crucial factor could possibly have enabled the Slavs to have left their Bronze-Age firesides to become the dominant peoples of Europe. The southwestern portion of the Slavs had always bordered on the Italic people in Dalmatia, as well as in the areas of the eastern Alps and in the Po lowlands.”

    “The surmised ‘Slavic migration’ is full of inconsistencies. There is no ‘northern Slavic language’, it is rather only a variant of the southern Slavic… The first metallurgic cultures in the Balkans are Slavic… and connected with Anatolia… Slavic presence in the territory, nearly identical to the one occupied by them today, exists ever since the Stone Age… The Slavs have (together with the Greeks and other Balkan peoples developed agriculture… agriculturally mixed economy, typically European, which later enabled the birth of the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin urbanism. Germanic peoples adopted agriculture from the Slavs… The Balkans is one of the rare regions in which a real and true settlement of human groups coming from Anatolia is proven…]. This was a sobering analysis by Anthony Ambrozic.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithi ... ity_Theory

    Sprachen des Onlinestudiums umfassen nicht nur Englisch und andere Weltsprachen. Onlinekurse werden weltweit zu jedem Thema angeboten und diese werden in der Landessprache, sowie in den wichtigsten, internationalen Sprachen, unterrichtet. (…) Weiterlesen
    No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

    Comment

    • I of Macedon
      Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 222

      #3
      As many studies have now shown, the foundation of scientific IE research in the 19thcentury was deeply influenced by the contemporary Arian, Pangermanic and colonialist ideology, as first expounded in Count Joseph-Arthur De Gobineau’s, Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1853-1855) and Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s, Die Grundlagen des XIX Jahrhunderts (1899), with their emphasis on Indo-Europeans racial superiority and their inclination to war and conquest (e.g. Poliakov 1974, Römer 1985, Trigger 1989, Renfrew 1987 etc.).

      Here is, for example, how Adolphe Pictet, the founder of the so called Linguistic Paleontology, in his book Les origines des Indo-européennes ou les Aryas primitif. Essai de paléontologie linguistique, Paris, 1859-63, described the “Arian race”: «a race destined by the Providence to dominate the whole world… Privileged among all other races for the beauty of its blood, and for the gifts of its intelligence, … this fertile race has worked to create for itself, as a means for its development, a language which is admirable for its richness, its power, its harmony and perfection of forms».


      Within the Arian superior race, the German father-founders of IE studies preferred to see the Germanic people as the supermen, the purest and the closest to the original blessed race. This is also why the continental Germanic area for a long time was believed to be the Urheimat of the PIEs (Kossinna!).

      In turn, the Pangermanic ideology and its political context gave rise to yet another important myth, the consequences of which are still dominating the field of IE studies: namely that of the extremely late arrival of the Slavs: if the Germanic people were the closest to the pure Arian race, then the Slavs must certainly be the farthest ones! Despite their enormous numbers (half of Europe is Slavic), the Slavs were thought of having hidden somewhere, magically leaving no archaeological trace whatsoever of their presence, until in the Middle Ages they unexplainably (and quite regretfully!) emerge and swarm over Eastern Europe…

      After WW2, with the end of Nazi ideology, a new variant of the traditional scenario, which soon became the new canonic IE theory, was introduced by Marija Gimbutas, an ardent Baltic nationalist: the PIE Battle-Axe super-warriors were best
      represented by Baltic élites, instead of Germanic ones (Gimbutas 1963, 1970, 1973ab, 1977, 1979, 1980).

      In so far as it explains why the founders of IE studies came to the preposterous idea of a recent invasions of Neolithic Europe by superior IE warriors, the above illustrated conclusion reached by history of archaeology and linguistics belongs in this survey.

      As of now, no alternative theory has provided adequate evidence against the Paleolithic continuity paradigm. As a consequence:

      (1) The ‘arrival’ of Indo-European people in Europe and Asia must be seen as one of the major episodes of the ‘arrival’ of Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia from Africa, and not as an event of recent prehistory.

      (2) The differentiation of IE languages from the Proto-IE common language must have been an extremely slow process, associated with the varying episodes of the original migration from Africa, with the different course of development in the different settlement areas, and with the difference in climatic, ethnic and social contexts. For example:

      ...(C) The totally absurd, fairy-tale like thesis of the so called ‘late arrival’ of the Slavs in Europe must be replaced by the scenario of Slavic continuity from Paleolithic, and the demographic growth of the Slavs explained by the extraordinary success, continuity and stability of the Neolithic cultures of South-Eastern Europe (the only ones in Europe that caused the formation of tells).

      Needless to say, these are just three examples: much more can be said on the European linguistic prehistory, utilizing the convergence of archaeological and linguistic data, as I have tried to do in the second volume of my recent book (Alinei
      2000).

      As is known, English and German land, as well as well as all their numerous cognates in the other Germanic languages, are connected with the Slavic names for ‘fallow land’, which in turn are the basis of the Slavic name for ‘Poland’ and ‘Polish’ – Ru. ljach ‘Polish’, Serb. Cr. (obs.) Leđanin ‘Polish’ (> Hung. Lengyel ‘Polish’) –, motivated as ‘opener of new fields’. As etymologists have recognized, the specialized meaning ‘fallow land’ of Slavic languages must have preceded the more general meaning of ‘land’ of Germanic ones. Now, while it is evident that this semantic sequence necessarily implies an
      earlier Neolithic development for the Slavs than for the Germanic people, the traditional scenario makes this implication altogether unconceivable even for Germanic people (not to speak of Slavs!), as we have to assume the arrival of the PIE invaders only in the Copper Age! In Renfrew’s chronology, although it is not at all clear as to how and when

      Slavic languages are formed, this priority of Slavic Neolithic over the Germanic LBK is at least possible.
      Last edited by I of Macedon; 09-11-2008, 11:08 AM.
      No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

      Comment

      • I of Macedon
        Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 222

        #4
        Interdisciplinary and linguistic evidence for Palaeolithic continuity of
        Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic populations in Eurasia, with an
        excursus on Slavic ethnogenesis
        by Mario Alinei
        Expanded version of a paper read at the Conference Ancient Settlers in Europe, Kobarid, 29-30 May
        2003. – Forthcoming in “Quaderni di semantica”, 26.


        EXTRACTS

        Three preliminary remarks are in order:

        (A) the Slavic area corresponds to almost half of Europe. As such it is the
        continent’s largest, and the only one that includes three climatic zones (subarctic,
        continental and Mediterranean) and almost all ecological zones: arctic,
        tundra, coniferous forest, mixed forest, steppe-forest, steppe, semi-desertic,
        Mediterranean, alpine.

        (B) In spite of their huge extension, Slavic languages are much less differentiated
        than, for example, the Germanic or the Romance.

        (C) Slavic languages have also a unique, asymmetric areal distribution: while
        Southern Slavic languages (Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian and
        Bulgarian) form a homogeneous bloc, sharing several common features, for
        Northern Slavic languages it is necessary to distinguish between a Western
        branch (including Czech, Sorbian and Polish), and an Eastern one (including
        Russian, Ucrainian and Belo-Russian), as each of the two branches shares
        different features with Southern Slavic.

        An adequate theory of Slavic ethnogenesis will have to provide a satisfactory
        and coherent explanation for these three fundamental aspects of Slavic: enormous
        extension, extraordinary homogeneity, and areal asymmetry between South and North.

        Mallory concludes: “It is difficult to deny that
        there existed a geographical centre weighted between the Vistula and Dnieper which is
        most commonly agreed to be Proto-Slavic and which appears to display a continuity of
        cultural development from about 1500 BC (or earlier) to the historical appearance of the
        earliest Slavic peoples” (Mallory 1989, 81). In more general terms, Mallory admits that
        “A long geographical stasis for the Slavs [...] is probably the model that would be most
        readily accepted by linguists who see in the Slavic language group little reason to
        assume that they have moved much since their development from Proto-Indo-
        European” (Mallory 1989, 81)2.

        As a specialist in geolinguistics, I have always been surprised by the fact that Slavic
        specialists have failed in noticing or appreciating
        the extraordinary diagnostic value –
        from a geolinguistic point of view – of the asymmetric configuration of the Slavic area.
        Even more so since the cause of this asymmetry is quite well-known, and explicitly
        stated in all handbooks for first-year students of Slavic: Northern Slavic does not form a
        single unit, but each of its two branchings – the Western and the Eastern – shares
        different features with Southern Slavic.

        Now, from a geolinguistic point of view, there is just one explanation possible
        for this peculiar and transparent areal configuration: Southern Slavic must form the
        earlier core, while the two Northern branchings must be a later development, each with
        its proper history and identity. No other explanation is possible, unless one challenges
        the very raison d’etre of IE and Proto-Slavic reconstruction, besides common sense.
        Needless to say, this simple remark demolishes the whole construction of the
        Slavic homeland in Middle Eastern Europe and of the Slavic migration in traditional
        terms, as well as all of its corollaries. But let us check the other two points, before
        developing it further within the framework of the PCT.


        The only evidence for a great migration of Slavs in historical times that traditional
        scholars can possibly claim
        lies in a literal reading of the mentions of medieval
        historians, such as the Thracian Priscus of Panion (5th century), the Greek Procopius of
        Cesarea (6th century) and the Goth Jordanes (6th century), or those of the Church (e.g.
        Conte 1990, 33-34). But it is quite evident that such mentions do not point
        unambiguously to an ‘invasion’ or ‘migration’ of Slavs, but can just as simply be taken
        as to refer to pre-existing Slavs, the presence of which even traditional scholars now
        admit. When, for example, John of Ephesos, bishop of Constantinopolis under Justinian
        (527-65) mentions the innumerable raids into the Bizantine territori by “the damned
        people of the Slavs” he damns them because they were still pagan, and not because they
        are ‘arriving’!
        And when, in his De rebus Gethicis Jordanes describes the location of
        the Venedi, and writes that they inhabited the area “From the source of the Visla river
        and on incommensurable expanses”, he does not give the slightest indication of a recent
        arrival of theirs, but simply describes a statu quo. And I challenge Slavic specialists to
        find any indication of a recent arrival of the Slavs in their area in other medieval
        sources.

        Not only, but when earlier historians, living in the centuries preceding the
        supposed arrival of the Slavs, write that the population of the Carpatian Basin offered a
        drink called medos (Proto-Slavic medŭ ‘drink produced with honey”) the Byzantine
        ambassadors directed to the court of Attila (king of the Huns), and that a part of the
        funeral rituals for Attila’s death was called strava (medieval name of a Slavic funeral
        ritual), only a biased reader can find evidence in this for the “first infiltrations” of Slavs
        in the Carpatian area, especially as they seem to have left not trace of their coming!
        (Neustupný-Neustupný 1963, 196).

        The much simpler truth is that the Slavs were there from remote times. For,
        again, the first mention of peoples in writing depends on the birthday of writing, and not
        on the birthday of peoples!

        In short, if such an enormous expansion of the Slavs both to the South and to the
        North from their alleged homeland in Middle-Eastern Europe had really taken place, the
        most important evidence we should expect to find would be archaeological. Which is
        entirely missing.
        Just as we miss any discussion of this point in Mallory’s book –and
        certainly not by accident, given the fact that Mallory is an archaeologist. I fail to see,
        then, how an archaeologist can advance the hypothesis of a massive expansion that
        involves half of Europe, and is capable of entirely changing its linguistic identity,
        without the slightest archaeological evidence: unless it is a curious case of
        underestimation of one’s own science.


        Another fundamental objection to this thesis lies in the fact that, following the
        traditional scenario, we would have to assume that this ‘great migration’ involved also
        the Southern Slavic area: an absolute impossibility, as we have just seen. If there has
        been a ‘migration’, it must have proceded from South northwards
        .
        A third, fundamental objection to this thesis is the contradiction between the
        idea of a medieval migration and the total disappearance of the presumed pre-existing
        languages.Not even modern mass migration and colonization, despite the enormous
        technological and cultural difference between the migrants and the indigenous people,
        have caused the total extinction of all autocthonous languages in the New World
        . The
        ideal of the extinction of all alleged pre-Indo-European languages because of a Copper
        Age IE migration is already hard enough to admit, given the same reason, plus the fact
        that research on pre-Indo-European has never produced any serious result (Alinei 1996,
        2000). How can we accept such an idea for the Early Middle Ages, and for the highly
        civilized areas of Southern Eastern prehistoric Europe? What and where would the pre-
        Indo-European substrate be in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and
        Slovenia? Unless we associate this late migration to a gigantic genocide – a
        phantascientific hypothesis – this hypothesis does not belong to serious scientific
        thinking.

        Unquestionably, the homogeneity of the Slavic languages, which contrasts so strikingly
        with the internal differentiation of Germanic, Romance and Celtic, for example, can
        only be explained in two ways: by positing: (A) a very high degree of cultural and
        social stability for a very long period, or (B); a most rapid expansion of the Slavs, the
        tempo of which would have prevented the original Slavic language (Proto-Slavic) from
        changing in the new areas. Something like what happened, for instance, to the English
        language of the Pilgrims when they migrated to America, for its rapid expansion into
        the new continent produced much fewer dialectal differences – despite its enormous
        area – than, say, British English shows in the island of England.
        The traditional theory was indeed coherent with this approach, when it assumed
        the ‘arrival’ of the Slavs in historical times, following their ‘great migration’. This
        scenario did indeed involve a sort of blitz-invasion of most Eastern Europe
        , which in
        turn would explain the homogeneity of the Slavic languages as they are now. But in the
        modified scenario now current for Slavic specialists, envisaging a chronological gap of
        two millennia from the first ‘arrival’ in the Bronze age, and the later ‘migration’ of
        historical times, how can this argument still hold? Rather than beeing stable, the two
        millennia of the Bronze, Iron Age and the beginning of our era form – on the contrary –
        one of the most turbulent periods of European prehistory, protohistory and history:
        Celts, Greeks, Romans, Illyrians and other people (including Slavs themselves, if we
        accept this theory!), were constantly on the war path, occupying other people’s
        territories, and greatly influencing their languages and cultures, as the numerous Celtic,
        Greek and Latin loanwords in the Slavic languages abundantly witness.

        Neither version of the traditional theory can provide a satisfactory answer to the twofold
        question underlying the hypothesis of the great Slavic migration in the Early Middle
        Ages:
        What prehistorical or historical circumstances would have brought the Slavic
        people first to their demographic explosion and then to their great migration, both of
        which made them into the dominating population of Eastern Europe, from North to
        South, and the most numerous group in Europe? Neither archaeology nor history gives
        us the slightest piece of evidence for such events which, as we have already noticed,
        would have caused nothing less than the almost total disappearance of the previous
        populations and of their languages. Notice that we followed the traditional theory we
        wold have to assume not only that the Proto-IE people would “arrive” with the kurgan
        culture from the Ukrainian steppes, in the Copper Age, while the Slavs would “arrive”
        in Central Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age; but also, and especially, that after their
        arrival they would multiply like ants, and would then occupy almost the whole of
        Eastern Europe, from the arctic area and the tundra to the shores of the Black Sea. Can
        such a preposterous thesis be in all seriousness advanced, in the 21st century, with the
        progress made in so many scientific fields such as archaeology, anthropology, general
        linguistics, and without a single piece of evidence?
        If we then also recall that the core
        area of the Slavs was the South and not the North – as the geolinguistic picture
        irrefutably indicates – what remains of this construction?

        The diagnostic value of the etymological semantic change from Slav
        to slave


        A last argument against the traditional view of the Slavic ethnogenesis, and in my
        opinion just as strong as it is new, can be found in the historical events involving Slavs
        in the very period of their historical appearance in Europe.
        As is known, most western European words designating the notion of “slave”
        derive from the Latin word sclavus, originally meaning “Slavic”: not only English
        slave, but also German Sklave, Dutch slaaf, Danish slave, Swedish slaaf, Welsh slaf,
        Breton sklav, French esclave, Spanish esclavo, Portuguese escravo, Italian schiavo,
        Albanian skllaf, Modern Greek sklavos, etc. The word has also entered Spanish Arabic,
        where it has become saklabi or siklabi, plural sakaliba, with the meaning of “eunuch”.
        In Italy, Lat. sclavus has developed into schiavo in the dialect of Florence, which
        eventually has become standard Italian. But in Northern Italian dialects, in particular in
        the dialects of Veneto, through regular phonetic developments, sclavus ‘Slav’ as well as
        ‘slave’ has become first sciavo, then sciao, and finally ciao, the Italian informal
        greeting, now internationally known.

        As to the semantic change from the notion of “slave” to a simple greeting, it can be
        easily explained by comparing the very similar development by which in certain parts
        of central Europe the word servus, originally meaning “servant”, has become a common
        greeting.

        Why is all of this important for the traditional theory of the ethnogenesis of the
        Slavs? Because of the passage from the meaning of ‘Slav’ to the notion of ‘slave’, and
        its great historiacl significance. Let us see this in greater detail.
        There is a whole collection of medieval sources, which would take too long to list,
        but which have been systematicaly studied by the three fundamental studies on the
        history of Lat. sclavus (Aebischer 1936, Verlinden 1943, 1955), which shows that the
        earliest attestations of the word sclavus date back to the Early Middle Ages: precisely
        when the Slavs, in the traditional scenario, should undertake their ‘great migration’.
        Indeed we find the meaning ‘slave’ associated to the word sklavos sklavus generally
        used in Byzantine Greek and Late Latin documents of the 10th century of our era, and
        most philologists and historians who have discussed the problem are inclined to read
        “slave” instead of “Slav” in many earlier attestations. Still earlier, the first attestations
        of the word in the sense of “Slavic” can also be found in Greek, in the 6th century of our
        era. According to Vasmer himself, for example, the attestation of sclavos in Agathias
        (6th century) already has the meaning of “slave” (Aebischer 1936, 485).
        How do scholars explain the semantic development from “Slavic” to “slave”? All
        historical sources irrefutably show that the Slavic area was the main reservoir of slaves
        in the whole period of Early Middle Ages, beginning probably in the 6th century, and
        with a peak around the 10th. This preference for slaves of Slavic origin – so strong as to
        make Slavs the slaves by anthonomasia – has been easily explained: in that period
        Slavic people were the only ones who were still pagan, and this detail is most important
        as it explains why, by choosing them, early medieval slave traders – mostly Venetian,
        Genoese and Jewish – did not violate the new principles of the “Societas christiana”,
        introduced by Pope Gregory the Great at the end of the 6th century, according to which
        baptized people must be excluded from slavery. So we obtain a safe dating for the word
        sclavus, in the sense of “slave”, which will be approximately the period between the
        sixth and tenth centuries.

        Now, as this period is precisely the one in which the supposed ‘great migration’ of
        the Slavs should take place, the question arises: how can huge migrating groups that
        were supposed to be aggressively busy occupying half of Europe, from the Arctic area
        to the Black Sea, submerging and extinguishing all previous populations, have at the
        same time been chosen as the European slaves par excellence? This would clash against
        all that we know – and that history abundantly shows – , about the characters of ethnic
        and racial groups systematically reduced to slavery. In fact, if Slavs in the Early Middle
        Ages became the historical slaves of Europe, this implies that in that period, rather than
        being migrating to new territories and exterminating pre-existing people, they were
        known to have beeen stable in their territories, to be hard workers, and especially to be
        without much possibility to defend themselves from slave raiders and slave owners.
        Without leaving the traditional theory, we now move to the most recent variant
        of it.

        Criticizing the excessive restriction of the earliest Slavic area Trubačev finally
        recalls Brückner’s humorous warning: “Don’t do to anybody what would not please
        you. The German scholars would love to drown all the Slavs in the Pripet swamps, and
        the Slavic scholars all the Germans in the Dollart
        […] – a quite pointless endeavour:
        there would not be enough room for them; better drop the matter and don’t spare God’s
        light for either of them” (idem, 206).

        Returning now to the strikingly low degree of differentiation of Slavic
        languages, let us recall that one of the most conspicuous phenomenon of the Balkanic
        Neolithic is the formation of the so called tells. As is known, tells are artificial hills,
        typical of the Arab (whence the name) and Iranian (called then tepe) areas, produced by
        the agglomeration of debris of prehistorical and proto-historical villages on the same
        site. In the South-Eastern area, these formation are called, locally or as place names,
        magula or tumba in Greece, mogila in Bulgaria, gòmila/mògila in Serbia,
        gamúle/mágule in Albania. But the word, with the meaning of ‘tumulus’, ‘tumb’, is
        diffused also in the rest of the Slavic area slava (Russ. mogíla, Ukr. mohýła, Slovn.
        gomíla, Czec. Slovk. mohyla, Pol. mogiła) and in Romania (Rum. măgură).
        Unfortunately, its etymology is not certain. But given its areal distribution, Vasmer’s
        proposal to connect it with Proto-Slavic *mogo, in the sense of ‘dominating site’, seems
        quite plausible. Tell are, of corse, prehistoric sites of exceptional importance, not only
        for the significance of theior stratigraphies, but also as signs of an uninterrupted
        continuity, both cultural and ethnic (Lichardus-Lichardus 1985, 229). Continuity, of
        course, that must have been also linguistic! While tells are very common in the Near
        and Middle East, where Neolithic cultures have an extraordinary and well-known
        duration and stability, in Europe they appear only in the Balkans, and only to the South
        of the Danube (DP, s.v. tell), and thus only in the Greek, Albanian and Southern Slavic
        area. In the last one, the tells are primarily Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and
        Bosnian, but that does not imply that in the contiguous areas within the same cultural
        orbit the situation would be different. Here then lies the reason for the little
        differentiation of Slavic languages (and mutatis mutandis for Greek): the cultural
        stability and continuity from Mesolithic and Neolithic to the proto-history of the
        populations of these areas.

        Sprachen des Onlinestudiums umfassen nicht nur Englisch und andere Weltsprachen. Onlinekurse werden weltweit zu jedem Thema angeboten und diese werden in der Landessprache, sowie in den wichtigsten, internationalen Sprachen, unterrichtet. (…) Weiterlesen
        No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

        Comment

        • Delodephius
          Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 736

          #5
          I have virtually memorized the PCT in the last two or three years. It was the first subject I discussed on Maknews back in 2005. It is a very powerful and elegant theory.
          अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
          उदारमनसानां तु वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्॥
          This is mine or (somebody) else’s (is the way) narrow minded people count.
          But for broad minded people, (whole) earth is (like their) family.

          Comment

          • osiris
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 1969

            #6
            recently i read about dna tests done in britian which confirmed that most modern english dna (65%) is pre anglo saxon, jute and viking invasions.

            Comment

            • I of Macedon
              Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 222

              #7
              What strikes me as surprising (all though not that much) that many Germans, French, British and Greeks believe they belong or did belong to some Aryan race, in other words a pure and superior race. Hitler came to believe in such things, in that only Germans were a pure race and thus Hitler even carried a copy of the Aryan scripture. Yet after the Nazi defeat, the Germans then started suggesting that all people actually belong to the Aryan race.

              In the mid 19th century, it was commonly believed that the Aryans originated in the southwestern steppes of present-day Russia (not surprising given the expansion of the russian empire). However, by the late 19th century the steppe theory of Aryan origins was challenged by the view that the Aryans originated in ancient Germany or Scandinavia, or at least that in those countries the original Aryan ethnicity had been preserved. The German origin of the Aryans was especially promoted by the archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna, who claimed that the Proto-Indo-European peoples were identical to the Corded Ware culture of Neolithic Germany. This idea was widely circulated in both intellectual and popular culture by the early twentieth century.

              Rudolf Virchow launched a study of craniometry, which prompted him to denounce "Nordic mysticism" in the 1885 Anthropology Congress in Karlsruhe, while Josef Kollmann , a collaborator of Virchow, stated in the same congress that the people of Europe, be they German, Italian, English or French, belonged to a "mixture of various races," furthermore declaring that the "results of craniology" led to "struggle against any theory concerning the superiority of this or that European race"

              The Aryan race is quite synonymous (as many know) with current Greek nationalism, which inturn (through government initiatives) has created many Greeks into uncontrollable fanatics.
              No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

              Comment

              • I of Macedon
                Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 222

                #8
                Originally posted by Slovak/Anomaly/Tomas View Post
                I have virtually memorized the PCT in the last two or three years. It was the first subject I discussed on Maknews back in 2005. It is a very powerful and elegant theory.
                It is a powerful and elegant theory indeed.

                Most importantly it looks closely at all the Slavic populace throughout Europe and from all angles and by using all available evidences and dedicated research to sufficiently allow thoroughness and completeness of our greatly distorted history. Such research can not be done by the negligent traditionalists (who have distorted our history only to further theirs), who seem to base their theories on a few vague old quotes and thus fill the gaps of history with their own assumptions, and as such with no evidence to back such assumptions. Therefore it’s quite frustrating and sad to read such negligence, to say the least.

                On the upside at least researches are beginning to see the light and the absurdity of the so called “Great 6th century Slavic migration,” and those researches are now forming a majority rather than the minority they once were.

                Therefore we are starting to see, if history has taught us anything (at least for the most part) that sound scholarship will eventually prevail.
                No need to sit in the shade, because we stand under our own sun

                Comment

                • Soldier of Macedon
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 13670

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Slovak/Anomaly/Tomas View Post
                  I have virtually memorized the PCT in the last two or three years. It was the first subject I discussed on Maknews back in 2005. It is a very powerful and elegant theory.
                  Slovak, your knowledge in Slavic linguistics is right up there, so I was wondering if you can help me out here because I am sure you will have a more defined understanding of some of the points Allinei makes. In relation to the part where Allinei speaks about the non-existence of Northern Slavic and how both East and West Slavic originate from South Slavic - Can you give us some visual examples of what he talks about there?
                  In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                  Comment

                  • Delodephius
                    Member
                    • Sep 2008
                    • 736

                    #10
                    Hmm... where did I see it, where did I see it. I have couple of really big books on comparative Slavic linguistics. I'll try looking.
                    अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
                    उदारमनसानां तु वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्॥
                    This is mine or (somebody) else’s (is the way) narrow minded people count.
                    But for broad minded people, (whole) earth is (like their) family.

                    Comment

                    • Delodephius
                      Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 736

                      #11
                      Damn, I can't find it. I found what are the distinct features of the three groups (East, West and South Slavic), but I don't know where I read about the similarities between them.
                      अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
                      उदारमनसानां तु वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्॥
                      This is mine or (somebody) else’s (is the way) narrow minded people count.
                      But for broad minded people, (whole) earth is (like their) family.

                      Comment

                      • Soldier of Macedon
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 13670

                        #12
                        When you find it, or even before if you wish, start a new thread in this Macedonian History section, and call it something like Relationship between South, West and East Slavic. We put all research there where it would be dedicated specifically for that purpose.
                        In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                        Comment

                        • Daskalot
                          Senior Member
                          • Sep 2008
                          • 4345

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Soldier of Macedon View Post
                          When you find it, or even before if you wish, start a new thread in this Macedonian History section, and call it something like Relationship between South, West and East Slavic. We put all research there where it would be dedicated specifically for that purpose.
                          I would really like to have Jus Divinium's work regarding the Genetic relationship added to our forum.
                          Macedonian Truth Organisation

                          Comment

                          • Soldier of Macedon
                            Senior Member
                            • Sep 2008
                            • 13670

                            #14
                            Jus has come up with some great research and initiative, viknigo ako ne e uste tuka.
                            In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                            Comment

                            • Pelister
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2008
                              • 2742

                              #15
                              There is evidence to support this theory if they really look for it.

                              There is an ancient Greek Vase, with of course, Greek letters on it, which is non-sensical in ancient Greek, and makes perfect sense in of course, Slavic.

                              This is "one piece" of evidence of a Slavic language in the lower Aegean.

                              How are people being informed about the Macedonians? Alot of what people know (or, think they know) about the Macedonians is being produced by States that have Colonized Macedonia, and currently occupy it. Their reasons, or justifications for invading it in 1912, were at that time, flimsy at best. At the same time, those justification set the tone of the discourse. A basic assumption, of all Colonisers, was the Macedonians do not exist. It was of course, completely different in secret (as the German historian, Hans Lottar Steppan) has revealed. Having each Colonizer agreeing on that point, made for a stronger case against the Macedonians in Europe, and the reverberations of that lie are still being felt today of course.

                              A closer look at the particular and unique customs of a small Macedonian village in the Pirin region, for instance, could quite easily reveal some identifiable ancient "and" local customs, which suggests some form of continuity from ancient times.
                              Last edited by Pelister; 09-16-2008, 02:12 AM. Reason: Add text

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