5.3 Europe: 3000 to 1500 b.c.  (Page 3/6)

Upper balkans

Excavations at Maliq, Albania, have proved that people lived there in 2,800 B.C., perhaps before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, and they may have maintained some relations with Mycenaea. In the third millennium B.C. and for awhile after 2,000 B.C. most of the Balkans was occupied by the Tumulus, Battle Axe and Corded Ware peoples (Please see B. CENTRAL EUROPE, this chapter) who may have descended from the copper and goldsmiths described in the previous chapter. In the early second millennium, however, the area was crisscrossed with migrating tribes, particularly the Greek peoples, described immediately above. The Illyrians, settling in Yugoslavia, were an Indo-European group related to the pre-Celts who were located just to the northwest in the present areas of Hungary and Austria. With the development of agriculture in the sandy, glacial soil of northern Europe at the end of this time-frame, the Balkans became something of a backwater. (Ref. 8 , 178 )

Italy

The basic people of ancient Italy were the Western Iberians of the original Mediterranean race, and they were essentially the sole inhabitants of all Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica except for some coastal settlements by the eastern Mediterranean people, until about 2,000 B.C. when invaders descended from the north. The latter were the Italics, part of the western branch of early Indo-European speakers, related to the "Ligurian Celts". They built homes on foundations of piles (Terramara) and their descendants became the basic stock of present day Italy. By 1,850 B.C. these people had occupied all of Italy except the northwestern one-quarter which was occupied by Etruscans, who McEvedy (Ref. 136 ) insists, were remnants of the Western Iberians. Ancient peoples also remained on Sicily and the western islands, although by 1,600 B.C. so-called "Celto Ligurians" from southern France had occupied Corsica and Sardinia. (Ref. 136 )

Central europe

By 3,000 B.C. all Europe but northern Scandinavia had farming communities. Indo-European speaking groups lived throughout central Europe from the beginning of this period’s various modifications of the basic language. Professor Jan Filip (Ref. 194 ), patriarch of Celtic history of Charles University, Prague, described a "Corded Ware" or "Battle Axe" people representing the first Indo-European speakers of this area, living there about 2,300 B.C. as the precursors of the Celts, and dominating the earlier Neolithic Cultures of northern central and western Europe. The Austrian Salzkammergut was settled about 2,500 B.C. with the inhabitants getting salt from salt wells. (Ref. 91 ) As a general westward migration occurred the area became dominated about 1,850 B.C. by the Bell-beaker Culture, named from the bell shaped cups found in their graves. The origin of this pottery society has been much disputed, some claiming it started in Spain and spread east to Germany, and some the reverse, but if it was, indeed, a culture endemic with the early Indo-Europeans, then the expansion must have been westward from the original Indo-European zone. The Aunjetitz Culture, a variation of the Bell-beaker, flowered in southwestern Germany and Austria from the 18th to the 16th centuries B.C. Excavations in the latter country have revealed bronze needles, arm spirals, daggers and ceramics with intricate detail. As agriculture spread, sometimes as seeds were moved to new climes they would scarcely grow and weeds would take over the fields. On some of these occasions, however, it was discovered that the weeds themselves could be used and cultivated instead. In this manner rye and oats developed in northern Europe. (Ref. 45 , 136 , 194 , 211 , 91 )