Proto-Indo-Europeans

Company

Just as the language of Proto-indo-Europeans (BLACK AND WHITE in summary), their religion and their social organization result from the comparison of the beliefs and the habits of the old Indo-European people. The comparison makes it possible to go up in time: when a habit is common to the majority of these people, it is that it is a heritage which dates from the proto-indo-European time.

A fact appears immediately: the war was the principal activity of the MAGPIE. They were certainly to fight other people against, but especially between them. One knows thus that the Gaulois were divided into tribes which delivered sometimes wild wars. In the same way, the Greek were in war two years out of three, and their cities fought especially between them. Plundering was also regarded as a normal activity: one organized raids in other tribes or other clans. To fly of the cattle to an enemy clan was a manner of living much nobler than to cultivate the ground. The Scythian , of Iranian language, hoped to kill as many enemies as possible before being themselves killed with the combat. To die of old age was regarded as a shame.

It should not be believed that this ideology was common to all ancients. There were relatively peaceful people, like the founders of the Civilization of the valley of Indus, who did not feel the need to protect their cities with ramparts. The walls (* dheighos ) of the MAGPIE were probably ground liftings on which lines of piles were planted. They surrounded of the villages called * woikos . This warlike character did not prevent the MAGPIE from having a very thorough direction of hospitality. It was on their premises a crowned value. At the time Homeric, the Greeks were to nourish the unknown ones who presented themselves on their premises before even asking for their name.

The king, * rēg- , was before a whole warrior. In Tokharien B, spoken language by people now missing, the Tokhariens, the king was called walo , term undoubtedly deriving from the root * welh- “to be strong” and corresponding to the Gallic vlatos “sovereignty”, like with the Latin valens “powerful”. Its capacity was perhaps more symbolic system that reality. The important decisions could be taken at the time of adult assemblies of men, who all were of the warriors. It seems that they initially had a legal function. It was the Germanic thing or the sabha of old India. The king incarnated to some extent his country. If it sick or were weakened, the nation, even the whole world, could suffer from it, this is why one did not hesitate to eliminate the old kings.

The capacity of the kings was also limited by that of the priests. It is a fundamental characteristic of the MAGPIE to have created a class of priests who opposed to the warriors. They took care in particular of the respect of the law. They did not live within the company, behind the ramparts, but in nature, it * rewos “space open and wild”. Their situation enabled them to transcend any distinction between clans, tribes or people. The Druide S of all the Gallic tribes met regularly in a single place, whereas no national conscience existed at the Gaulois. Hérodote mentions the Argippaioi , which were certainly priests tokhariens. They did not have any weapon, but nobody would never have had the idea to kill them, because they were crowned, and if somebody took refuge on their premises, it was safe from all its enemies. They lived permanently with the foot of a tree, which they surrounded only of one felt in winter. In the same way, Merlin, the prototype of the druid, lived far from the world, in the deep forests and the caves.

The principal task of the priests was of course to allow the communication between the men and the gods. They had the exclusiveness in the sacrifices. They were the holders of the knowledge, which was preserved in an exclusively oral form. The word was crowned and magic. They are not the Indo-Europeans who invented the writing, and when other people theirs communicated, the priests refused it. Texts crowned like the Vedas of the Indian or the Avesta of the Iranian were learned by heart during millenia before being noted.

The MAGPIE could cultivate the ground, but they preferred the breeding of the animals. The richness amounted in heads cattle. One raised horses, * markos or * ekwos , bovines, * gwous , pigs, * sū- , dogs, * kwōn- , as well as the caprine ones, but their name in common Indo-European is not reconstituable. The intensive practice of the breeding involved the appearance of forms of nomadism: it was a question of accompanying the animals at the time of the Transhumance. It is possible that the work of the ground, badly considered, was entrusted to the old men and to the women. It was for example the case at the Germains and some Celtes. Documents tokhariens mention old women and men like “workers”. In summer, to the Kalash, people of the septentrional Pakistan speaking an Indo-Aryan language and still polytheist, the men from go away on the pastures of altitude with their herds while the women cultivate the fields, in the valleys, close to their villages. The company of the MAGPIE was strongly patriarchal, the virile values being exacerbated. It was patrilineal: one was the son of his father and not of his mother.

Three functions

The religion of the MAGPIE was cosmic: it had as a reinforcement the design of a universe subdivided in three worlds, the Sky, the Earth and the Hells. This design is always alive at some Valaques, very preserving people of the North-East of the Serbia, of Latin language. The Hells were watery: they were represented like a sea located under the Earth, but which also surrounded it. Deaths thus went there in boat (like Ulysses in the Odyssée) or by a bridge. There existed moreover one original idea, according to which the Hells were connected to the Sky. There was thus a celestial ocean. A Cosmic Tree, probably a oak, * perkwus , connected the Three Worlds: its roots plunged in the Hells and its branches were spread in the Sky.

Georges Dumézil showed, through the myths of certain people indoeuropéens the existence, of three functions with classifying value:

power spiritual, magic, religious or political.
the physical force, being exerted mainly in the war.
fertility-fruitfulness, seduction related to the reproduction and richness.

It however did not connect these three functions to the Three Worlds, whereas the correspondence between the third function and the Hells is obvious. Deaths “live” the ground and ensure consequently the fertility of the ground. There is a constant association between death, sexuality and fruitfulness. This explains why at the time of the Russian marriages, for example, of the participants disguised themselves in deaths. The Hells of the MAGPIE were rich : one found there gold, jewels and cattle with profusion. The black was the color of the Hells and the third function.

The priests, representatives of the first function, were celestial. Their color, the white, was also that of the Sky. The Gaulois venerated their gods in wood crowned, Nemeton , of which the name derived from nemos “sky, vault of heaven”. These wood were to some extent pieces of sky projected on ground.

Lastly, the fact that the Earth, basically female, was related to the physical force explains an apparent anomaly: the existence of a large goddess of the war. In the MAGPIE, it was not of course to the women to make the war. This goddess is recognizable in Athéna among Greeks, Morrigan or Bodb among Irishmen, Durgā at the Indians. Besides among these the last two people, there existed only one goddess known under several names (one of them being Brigit/Brigantia among Celts). It was to be the same about it in the MAGPIE. A warrior reached the royalty only because it bound with this goddess, represented really or mythiquement by his wife.

A cosmic dualism is observed: the square and male Sky and the female and round Earth are opposite. To the Sky, the spirit, the passivity, peace and the joy stick. To the Earth, the force, energy, the war and the suffering stick. These opposite virtues are joined together in the Hells, according to an equation which can be written “Sky + Ground = Enfers”. One includes/understands then why certain creatures incarnating the Hells are twisted androgynes and , like the Fomoire in Irish mythology. These creatures have moreover only one eye, only one arm and only one leg.

Country of Proto-Indo-Europeans

The question of the hearth of the Indo-Europeans a long time was very discussed. Some even wondered whether there had really been a hearth similar to the area of Rome (the Latium) for the Latin languages: the family of the Indo-European languages could be born by interactions between people nonrelated and divided on a vast territory. It is for example the “thesis” defended by the archeologist Jean-Paul Demoule. Such a thesis actually rests on any argument, its authors being driven only by the desire to flee a problem of which they fear possible ideological consequences. Specimen, on this subject, is the point of view of a specialist in the Celte S, Jean-Louis Brunaux: “to want at all costs to locate with precision the geographic origin of the Indo-Europeans and to give them an ethnic identity holds of pure gamble and has only one very limited interest, even unhealthy by the ideological intentions which animate it”. But the characteristic of the scientific step is to put questions and to seek answers there. It only should be taken care that this step is done in all objectivity. The risk, in history, is that it is skewed by aimings Nationaliste S or Raciste S. In truth, the file of the Indo-Europeans suffered from it.

Several theses clash today still. For Hake Renfrew, these people would be originating in the the Middle East and its expansion would have coincided with that of the agriculture, appeared in this area before the culture of the Kourgane S. This thesis encounters a serious problem: no known Indo-European language seems to be originating in the Middle East. Gramkrelidze and Ivanov locates the hearth of these people in Anatolia, in a country of high mountains. This thesis rests on linguistic solids considerations but has (opinion even of its authors) few archaeological bases. The recent publications of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza as regards genetics of the populations seem to confirm this assumption;

However, a large majority of specialists joined with a thesis worked out as from the years 1950 by the American archeologist of Lithuanian origin Marija Gimbutas, according to which the MAGPIE lived in the north of the Black Sea. Their culture, known as of the Kourganes, was constituted towards 5000 av. J. - C. It is necessary to take care not to believe that the Indo-European people current (and even old) go down from the MAGPIE: it is not because the French speak a Latin language that the Romains are their ancestors. It is true that MAGPIE migrated towards foreign territories and brought their language and their culture there, but these territories were by no means desert. It was there even, as in the area of the the Danube, of very advanced civilizations.

The thesis of Marija Gimbutas does not miss arguments:

the monuments most characteristic of the culture of Kourganes are its Tumulus, called kurgan in Russian. The majority of the Indo-European people also knew this mode of Inhumation. Deaths were lengthened there on the back, the folded up legs. This rare position and Archaïque are still observed in the east of the the Ural in the culture of Sintashta of the beginning of III, which generated the Indo-Iranian culture of Andronovo, like with the south of the Bassin of Tarim about year -500, roughly on the territory of the Tokhariens.

the horse held a considerable place in the history of all the Indo-Europeans, but it is the culture of the Kourgane S which domesticated it. The first cranium of horse with teeth used by a bit was found on the site of Dereivka, close to the Dniepr. There was an occupied village from -4200 to -3700.

In addition to the horse, the men of Kourganes raised bovines, sheep, goats and pigs. They had two types of dwelling: large houses, which could exceed the ten meters length, and huts. One can reasonably suppose that the large houses (also known of the culture of Andronovo) were actually cattle sheds and that the men lived in the huts. This would thus attest practice of the great breeding, known of all the Indo-Europeans.

the MAGPIE used vehicles with Roue S, because they had a whole vocabulary which was referred to it, like * kwekwlo- “wheel”, derived from the verb * kwel- “to turn”. The oldest vehicles with wheels date from. They were found in Mésopotamie and in the culture of Kourganes.

the MAGPIE fought with bludgeons, * wagros , lances, arcs and arrows (the Yuezhi, which were Tokhariens, and the Scythes were archers of an incredible skill). The kourganes delivered many bludgeons, out of stone or Porphyre, sometimes carved, as well as abundant points of lances and arrows. One also found in these tombs of long knives in Silex, which evolved/moved later to become swords. The presence of all this armament shows that the men of Kourganes were warriors.

In addition to the Gold and the money, the only known metal of the MAGPIE was the Cuivre, * ayos- . They did not have a word to indicate the Fer. The culture of Kourganes is precisely of time Chalcolithique (she knew only the metallurgy of copper).

the culture of Kourganes knew an expansion at the same time towards the Central Europe and Asia which explains the distribution of the Indo-European people. It is towards the Central Asia, territory of future Indo-Iranian and Tokharien S, that this expansion is clearest.

The proto-indo-European unit goes back inevitably to a high time. It is known indeed that the Iranians and the Indo-Aryen S, two branches of the Aryan subfamily , separated during the OJ. The Aryan subfamily (also called Indo-Iranian) was in its turn resulting from the scission of the unit proto-indo-European, which was to thus date at least from. The culture of Kourganes is the only sufficiently old culture which has the characteristics awaited in the MAGPIE.

One can mention a thesis of Colin Renfrew, which locates the hearth of the Indo-Europeans at the the Middle East. It makes coincide their expansion with that of agriculture, appeared in this area there is ten thousands of years, and thus with the beginning of the Neolithic . This thesis meets a serious obstacle: no known Indo-European language seems to be originating in the Middle East. Moreover, the people of the Middle East, at the time Neolithic, were unaware of the horse. They could not attach the importance to him which one finds in the MAGPIE (two words to indicate this animal, a whole mythology which refers itself to it, etc). The remainders of pets found in the culture of Kourganes come in majority from horses. In addition, the existence of a specifically Indo-European term to indicate copper shows that the MAGPIE knew this metal. The people of the beginning of the Neolithic were unaware of it.

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Proto-Indo-Europeans

Company

Three functions

Country of Proto-Indo-Europeans

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