Neolithic Europe

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia II - Neolithic Europe - Origins

Archeologists believe that food-producing societies first emerged in the Levantine region of southwest Asia in the early Holocene, and developed into a number of regionally distinctive cultures by the 8th millennium BCE. Remains of food producing societies in Greece have been carbon-dated to around 6500 BCE at Knossos, Franchthi Cave, and a number of sites in Thessaly. Neolithic groups appear soon afterwards in the Balkans and south-central Europe. The Neolithic cultures of southeastern Europe (the Balkans, Italy, and the Aegean) show some c ...

Since the dawn of human time people have described certain places as being holy or magical, as having a concentrated power or presence of spirit. Ancient legends, historical records and contemporary reports tell of extraordinary, even miraculous happenings at these places. It is a curious fact, however, that these sacred sites, so significant to human culture are so little known beyond their own religious traditions. Of enormous importance, they have received only limited attention from social anthropologists, cultural geographers and religious historians. Why this remarkable omission of awareness and understanding?

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Dolmen

Dolmens, cromlechs, Hünengräber or Hunebedden are megalithic tombs consisting of large stones ("megaliths") set in formation and originally covered with earth or more, smaller stones. In many cases the covering has been weathered away leaving only the stone 'skeleton' of the monument. They are a single chamber type of megalithic tomb. The word dolmen, in Breton and Cornish means "stone table". The word was introduced into archaeological usage by Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne. Cromlech derives fr ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Circular ditches

About 150 arrangements of prehistoric circular ditches are known to archaeologists spread over Germany, Austria and Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Their diameters range from ca. 20 to ca. 130 m, and they date to the 5th millennium BC. Tools, bones, and some artefacts were found in their context. The largest of these arrangements to date was found in Leipzig in the 1990s. Another large find was at the nearby village of Aythra, outside of Leipzig. From finds in the context of these ditches, and associated settlements of longhouses, it ...

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Vinča culture

The Vinča culture was an early culture of Europe (between the 6th and the 3rd millennium BC), stretching around the course of Danube in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans. It was named after Vinča, a suburb of Belgrade, where in 1908 several artifacts were found by the first archaeological excavation team lead by Miloje M. Vasić. After WWI excavation took part since 1924, so Vinča came into the focus of attention of European archaeol ...

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Bird goddess

The term Bird goddess was coined by Marija Gimbutas with relation to Neolithic Europe. The Vinca culture, in particular, had a bird goddess. Griffen (2005) even claims to have discovered a sign for the bird goddess in the Vinca script. Later goddesses with associations with birds include Nuit, Lilitu and Athena [1] and perhaps Circe. Gimbutas also identified a "Lady of the Beasts" (the female analogon of Pashupati) ...

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Bird goddess - Literature

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Corded Ware culture

The Corded Ware culture, Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture is an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic (stone age), flourishes through the copper age and finally culminates in the early bronze age, developing in various areas from ca. 3200 BC/2900 BC to ca. 2300 BC/1800 BC. With the Yamna culture, it represents the introduction of metal into Northern Europe, and the earliest expansion of the Indo-European family of languages. Corded Ware culture - Extent. Including:

Corded Ware culture - Sources

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Anatolia

Anatolia (Greek: Aνατολή Αnatolē or Ανατολία Anatolìa) is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey, also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor. It means "rising of the sun" or "East", is . In Turkish it is called Anadolu, a derivation of its original Greek version. Because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe, Anatolia has been a cradle for several civilizations since prehistoric ages, with Neolithic settlements su ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Labrys

Labrys is the term for a doubleheaded axe, known to the Classical Greeks as pelekus πέλεκυς or sagaris (the term for a single-bladed axe being hēmipelekus "half-pelekus", e.g. Il. 23.883). Representations of the labrys are on Neolithic finds of "Old Europe", and the labrys is continued in Minoan Thracian, Greek (and Byzantine) art and mythology. It also appears in African mythology (see Shango). Today, it is sometimes used as a symbol associated with female and matristic power. Labrys - Etymo ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Beaker culture

The Beaker culture (also Bell-Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk, German Glockenbecherkultur), ca. 2600 — 1900 BC, is the term for a widely but spottily scattered archaeological culture of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic (stone age) running into the early bronze age. Beaker culture - Extent. Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Ger ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Votive deposit

A votive deposit or votive offering is an object left in a sacred place for ritual purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally made in order to gain favour with supernatural forces. This is attested by historical Roman and Greek sources although similar acts continue into the present day, for example in the wishing well. Votive deposit - Ancient offerings. In Europe votive deposits date to the Neolithic with polished axe hoards, reaching a peak in the l ...

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Votive deposit - Curse tablet

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Causewayed enclosure

Causewayed enclosures are a type of large prehistoric earthworks common to the early Neolithic Europe. More than 100 examples are recorded in France, 70 in England and further sites are known in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland and Slovakia. Causewayed enclosure is preferred to the older term causewayed camp as it has been demonstrated that the sites did not necessarily serve as occupation sites. They are often hilltop sites, encircled by between one and four segmented concentric ditches, wit ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - Avebury

Avebury is the site of an enormous henge and stone circles in the English county of Wiltshire, surrounding a village of the same name. It is one of the finest and largest Neolithic monuments in Europe dating to around 5000 years ago. It is older than the megalithic stages of Stonehenge, which is located about 20 miles to the south, although the two monuments are broadly contemporary overall. Avebury is National Trust property. Avebury - The monument. Most of the surviving structure consists of earthw ...

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Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia - History of Ireland

The History of Ireland is the story of a large island in the north-west of Europe and is heavily influenced by the concurrent History of Britain, its larger neighbour to the east. The first humans inhabited Ireland from around 7500 BC and were later responsible for major Neolithic sites such as Newgrange. Following the arrival of St. Patrick and other Christian missionaries in the mid-fifth century, a syncretized form of Christianity subsumed the indigenous pagan religion by A.D. 600. This led to a golden age of monastic Irish writing and ar ...

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History of Ireland - Reformation 1536–1654 and Protestant Ascendancy 1654–1801

History of Ireland - Union with Great Britain 1801-1922

History of Ireland - Footnotes

Neolithic Europe: Encyclopedia II - Prehistoric Europe - Neolithic

Main article:Neolithic Europe. European Neolithic comes from the Near East, via Asia Minor, the Mediterranean waterway and also through the Caucasus in what regards to the East. There has been a long discussion between migrationists (who claim that the Asian peasants almost totally displaced the European native hunter-gatherers) and diffusionists (who claim that the process was slow enough to have occurred mostly through cultural transmission). Modern genetic studies seem to show that the truth is somewhere in the middle and that both processes ...

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Neolithic Europe

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