6.3 Europe: 1500 to 1000 b.c.  (Page 3/4)

Upper balkans

Thrace, in the area of present Bulgaria and a corner of present Greece along with European Turkey, began a lively period with identifiable rulers and Indo-European gods, at about 1,500 B.C. This country had two coasts - one on the Aegean and the other on a corner of the Black Sea - and thus was at the cross-road of West and East. The Thracians were formidable horsemen with a taste for battle, banditry and elegant gold objects. Their goldsmiths were producing masterpieces in the 13th and 12th centuries B.C. One of the largest gold finds of Europe's Bronze Age comes from Vulchitrun, Bulgaria and dates to this period, with many resemblances to the art of Mycenaea. They did not have a written language and knowledge of them has come chiefly through their Greek neighbors and recent Bulgarian excavations. This was the homeland of the Phrygeans, who began at this time to spread to Asia Minor. (Ref. 171 )

Italy

As noted in the last chapter, before 1,200 B.C. Italy was inhabited by a thinly scattered, backward population of dark whites of the Iberian or Mediterranean race. Then migrating Aryan Italics moved down, certainly by the end of this period, at 1,000 B.C., settled most of northern and eastern Italy, intermarried with the natives and established the Italian groups of Aryan languages. This included the Latin tribe south and east of the Tiber, and the Umbrians and the Sabines. These latter, living near Villanova, may have been the first Europeans to learn the use of iron. Extreme northern Italy, as well as the Mediterranean coasts of France and part of Spain, was originally peopled by a non-European speaking group called Ligurians. They were apparently pushed north by the Italics, where they came in contact with early Celts so that about 1,200 B.C. this Ligurian culture was absorbed into the Celto-ltalic (Apennine D) and the people gave up their own language to take on the Celtic-P tongue. Subsequently they were referred to by some European historians as Celto-Ligurians. They soon adopted the cremation rituals of the Urnfield Culture. The Italics at the toe of Italy pushed the Sicles toward Sicily, which was inhabited at the time by the Sican tribe, of unknown origin and language. In Etruria, of central Italy between the Tiber and the Arno, there was a Bronze Age Culture called Apennine and there was an abundance of copper and some tin for the making of bronze. Copper from the island of Elba was used throughout the 2nd millennium B.C. South Italy began to receive contacts from Mycenaean Greece as early as 1,300 B.C., particularly on the island of Pithecusae on the west, and Vivara and Lipara, and by the 13th century B.C. Mycenaean imports were already common. (Ref. 136 , 75 )

For hundreds of years the peaceful farmers of Corsica had buried their dead in great stone chambers with nearby single, standing menhirs which were roughly-shaped, unadorned, raised stones, and some seven feet high. After 1,500 B.C. there was a dramatic change and these menhirs became distinct sculptures with carved heads, tunics, daggers and swords. Whether they represented war trophies or memorials to a courageous enemy is still debatable. At about this same time, or at least between the 14th and the 12th centuries B.C., a tribe of the Sea People, the Shardana, came by way of Libya across the Mediterranean and overran the southern part of Corsica, pushing the remnants of the original Corsicans north, and by 1,000 B.C. the latter had disappeared. The conquering Shardana burned their dead and did not put up monuments. (Ref. 176 )