Danube civilization
Under the designation Danube civilization , Danube culture or Old Europe , the linguist Harald Haarmann puts forward the hypothesis that it took place in the period from approx. 5000 to approx. 3500 BC. A pre- Indo-European Chalcolithic culture of the Balkans exists. This thesis is usually not recognized in archaeological research or it is met with strong opposition.
Haarmann understands the Danube civilization as the earliest advanced civilization in Europe and the predecessor of the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. Under this term he summarizes various related archaeological cultures, all of which stem from the Neolithic cultures of Sesklo in Greece and Starčevo-Criş in Serbia and Romania. Haarmann describes these as cultural provinces , such as Vinča (approx. 5500–3000 BC), Karanovo (6200–3000 BC), Cucuteni (5050–3500 BC), Tisza and Lengyel (approx. 5400 -3700 BC). Their distribution extends from Slovakia through Serbia and Bosnia to today's Ukraine .
Regional cultures
Regional cultures according to Gimbutas are the Vinča culture , the Tiszapolgár culture , the Cucuteni-Tripolje culture , the Karanovo culture and the Lengyel culture . The Butmir culture , the Petreşti culture , the Danilo Hvar culture , the Boian Gumelnița culture , the Hamangia culture and the Dimini culture , which also includes Dalmatia and northern Greece, are considered to be further cultural stages within these cultural provinces .
Outstanding cultural achievement
According to Haarmann, the old Europeans had outstanding cultural achievements and made groundbreaking inventions, some of which were previously attributed to the Sumerians , such as the first large settlements, significantly larger than all cities of Mesopotamia in the early Bronze Age and also larger than Çatalhöyük , the first permanently inhabited places (e B. Larissa in Thessaly and Varna ), the first single-family houses with a floor area of over 100 m², the first two-storey terraced houses, the first potter's wheel (forerunner of the potter's wheel ), the first cylinder seals , the first ceramic kilns with regulated and controlled firing temperatures, the first metal casting by Copper , the first gold artifacts , the first system of numbers and writing (Danube script) , the first production of wine and olive oil and the first cultivation of cherries , peas and parsley .
Bearer of the Danube civilization
Genetic Relationship
Genetically, the bearers of the Danube civilization are most closely related to today's people in the eastern European Mediterranean region .
language
It is not known which language the bearers of the Danube civilization spoke due to the lack of appropriate written sources. It is still unclear and controversial to this day whether the Vinča signs are writing or just symbols or just decorative decorations. An investigation into the various complex forms of the V -sign showed that they occur in the form of the positive binomial distribution according to the law of diversification .
It is sometimes assumed that the Neolithic languages of the Danube civilization may have resembled a pre-Greek idiom attributed to the legendary Pelasgians . Linguists have discovered a pre-Indo-European substratum in Greek that could indicate this. In particular, these are designations for the fauna and flora of the Aegean Sea as well as elements of the technical nomenclature in the areas of plant cultivation, construction, handicrafts and words of the religious and cultic area. The linguist Harald Haarmann assumes that more than a third of the ancient Greek vocabulary comes from non- Indo-European languages .
The pre-Indo-European words can be found (in decreasing numbers) with plant terms of any kind (e.g. adraphaxus = "spinach" or kastanon = "chestnut"), animal terms of any kind (e.g. bonasos = "buffalo" or thunnos = " Tuna "), devices / vessels (e.g. kardopos =" baking trough "or trubilon =" bowl "), religious terms of any kind (e.g. bretas =" wooden image of a god "or thiasos =" procession in honor of the deity "), Environmental terms (e.g. lithos =" stone "or eriole =" whirlwind "), social terms, clothing / textiles (e.g. chlania =" outer garment "or motos =" plucked canvas "), body parts (e.g. B. kome = "hair" or neduia = "guts"), buildings / living terms (e.g. ikrion = "crossbar" or thalamos = "room"), craft terms of any kind (e.g. lalai = "weaving weight") or keramos = "clay"), food (e.g. trugia = "sweet wine" or korunthos = "barley bread"), emotions, concepts of time and units of measurement.
Economic life
trade
The trade of the Danube civilization was supposedly a barter trade . The most important trade routes were the rivers, especially the Danube , which were used by boats, as well as the coasts of the Black Sea . Important commercial goods were obsidian , spondylus shells , salt and metal , especially copper . (Complete or broken) clay figurines were used as ritual gifts in the context of trade.
Craft
The bearers of the Danube civilization are said to have known various forms of handicrafts and handicrafts. The weaving and textile production allegedly took place using a vertically oriented loom with loom weights . The clothes made in this way were worn draped. Long draped skirts were popular with women. The pottery was made using a pottery wheel and kiln . In metalworking , the use of copper dominated, first through cold hammering and then through metal melting. From 4500 BC Then gold was also processed.
Everyday life
Settlements and dwellings
Settlements
Settlements of the Danube civilization could reach different dimensions, from the village to the megasettlement . Just as different was their construction, which did not follow any given scheme. Settlements could be built on flat ground, on settlement mounds, or even on both.
Dwellings
The houses of the Danube civilization could be built in different ways, for example with wooden pillars and walls made of plastered wattle with a length of up to six meters or with stone foundations and clay brick walls . The hearth, the center of the house, is both sacred and secular, while these areas of responsibility could otherwise be spatially separated in the room layout (if any). Two-storey buildings were also possible, as was the construction of row houses. The second floor was reached from the outside via a ladder that led to a balcony. There were round windows and gable roofs .
Social organization
The Society of the Danube civilization was loud Haarmann no statehood hierarchically organized society, but an egalitarian society: it had neither a poor-rich-discrimination still stately landmark given. The society was probably matriarchal and men and women had equal rights, supported by a network of relationships. Women played a central role ( matrifocality ). The families would have included grandparents, parents and children. Head of a family, at least in the Lengyel culture, was always a woman (compare clan mother with the Indians).
After a matrilineal clan had gone out , their house was burned down. Otherwise (during the heyday of the Danube civilization), according to Haarmann, there was only peace. Hierarchization and patriarchalization did not occur until the Indo-European steppe peoples in the 4th millennium BC. Chr. Had invaded from the east in the area of the Danube civilization.
Religion and the cult of the dead
Deities
It is possible to identify some, mostly female, deities of the Danube civilization. So there is a goddess with a bird's head who is believed to be the giver of life and goddess of fate. The snake goddess stands for the maintenance and renewal of life. A pregnant goddess is the goddess of fertility, while a childbearing goddess gives new life and a child guardian (represented as a person or a bear with a child / young animal) protects the offspring. A young goddess with raised arms protect the young nature in spring, while a mature goddess with a protruding belly protects the fertility of the earth. An upright goddess is the protector of the hearth fire and the family, but in the area of the outside ovens, probably the goddess of grain and other crops as well as the patroness of bread-baking. The great goddess is accompanied by animals that symbolize fertility and life, such as the bull, the snake and the butterfly (in stylized form later the Minoan double ax ). Isolated male deities would also have existed.
Cult
The Danube civilization had shrines and temples , but without a specific design canon. However, the Holy of Holies was often covered, provided with a forecourt and usually surrounded by a wall. Two-story temples were also possible. There were miniature altars , often as three-legged sacrificial tables for libations , but anthropomorphic altars or monumental altars also appeared. The clay idols that were so common were also related to religion. Cults can have affected fertility as well as water. Also processions may have been possible in which masks were very important, could indicate what clay models of masks. On the ceramics of the Danube civilization there are representations of music and dance, certainly also in a religious context.
Cult of the dead
The dead of the Danube civilization were buried a little further away, near or even inside the houses. There were burials in the ground and urns , individual and family / clan graves. Infants were buried in egg-shaped vessels. Urn burials took place in high-quality ceramic vessels. The dead were probably even buried twice, which is indicated by the lack of completeness of some skeletons. Even death masks were known.
Reception and criticism
Harald Haarmann's theses on Danube civilization are largely not recognized in research. The few scientific reviews of his book criticize one-sided interpretations, the pretense of a reliable source situation, an exaggeratedly positive image of Danube civilization, the classification as supposedly "oldest high culture in Europe", false assumptions for his conclusions regarding the settlement history, false claims about the allegedly widespread matriarchy and one incorrectly postulated early written form (" Danube script "), as well as statements that often ignore the data situation. Research does not speak of a “Danube civilization”. At that time there were interconnected communities in this region, but no politically unified high culture.
literature
- Harald Haarmann : The riddle of the Danube civilization - The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62210-6 .
- Harald Haarmann: The Indo-Europeans. Origin, languages, cultures. Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60682-3 , pp. 54ff.
- Harald Haarmann: History of the Flood. On the trail of the early civilizations. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49465-X , pp. 95ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harald Haarmann : The riddle of the Danube civilization - The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62210-6 , p. 50 f.
- ^ Karl-Heinz Best : Diversification of a single sign of the Danube script. In: Glottometrics 22, 2011, pages 1–4 (PDF full text ).
- ↑ Harald Haarmann: Lexicon of the fallen languages , Munich 2002/2004, p. 30
- ↑ Harald Haarmann: The riddle of the Danube civilization. The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62210-6 , pp. 147-158.
- ↑ Martin Kugler: Cradle of Civilization. The press of September 3, 2011.
- ↑ Raphael Brendel: Harald Haarmann: The riddle of the Danube civilization. Review on sehepunkte.de
- ↑ a b Detlef Gronenborn: Haarmann, Harald: The riddle of the Danube civilization - The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe. Back then, 03/2012.