4.3 Europe: 5000 to 3000 b.c.

Europe

It was warmer in Europe after about 5,000 B.C. than at any time before or since. (Ref. 91 ) The origin of the original Indo-European language speakers remains an unsolved mystery, with some claiming these people started on the Baltic shores, others in the Balkan portion of the Danube and still others in the steppes of southern Russia and on north of the Caspian Sea. The date of origin also remains undecided with some believing it dates back to between 6,000 and 5,000 B.C. and others, particularly some linguists, to a much later date. We shall begin our discussion of these ideas in the next chapter.

Southern europe

A race of dark whites, perhaps akin to the Iberians of Spain and the Georgians of the Caucasus, developed an island civilization as early as 4,000 B.C. centered on Crete, but apparently with colonies on Cyprus, Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily and southern Italy as important parts of the whole. Their language is uncertain and their early writing has not yet been deciphered, but they had early trade and contacts with Egypt and may very well have even preceded the classical known civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Reed boats and reed boat illustrations on pottery have been found throughout the Mediterranean from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the coast of Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, Malta, Italy, Sardinia, Libya, Algeria and out through the Straits of Gibralter. As mentioned in a previous chapter, recent carbon dating corrections indicate the possible presence of advance civilizations on some of these islands prior to the more classical ones on the continents. The old Roman belief that Lixus, on the Atlantic coast was the oldest city in the world, supports the possible hypothesis that civilization moved eastward toward Egypt and not the reverse.

An interesting side-light is the recent newspaper report from Russia, detailing the findings of ancient, buried human buildings and walls of a city far below the ocean surface about one-half way between Portugal and the Madeira islands. Again the question of the "Lost continent of Atlantis" is mentioned, but it is perhaps of some moment that the area described and allegedly photographed under water is almost directly out to sea from Lixus. We do know now that the spiral decorations of buildings on Malta date before 3,000 B.C. and that copper was mined on Cyprus probably as early as 4,000 to 3,000 B.C. (Ref . 95,178,224,18)

Just before the close of the period under review, a civilization called the "Cycladic" existed all along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and seems to have been the highest culture of the times. Inland at about the same time the ancient Helladic or Mycenaean civilization began to develop on the northern plains of Greece. Professor Ivan Benedikov, Bulgarian archaeologist (Ref. 171 ), says that there is evidence of an ancient Thracian, Indo-European culture in the area of Bulgaria and that they produced gold ornaments, figurines and pottery. This is reinforced by the beliefs of Professor Colin Renfrew (Ref. 179 ) who feels that the fantastic gold ornaments, some weighing thirteen pounds, found at Verna, Bulgaria on the Black Sea, represent the oldest gold-working known, antedating anything of this type in the Near East. Copper tools were made in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria as early as 4,500 B.C. This dating has been confirmed by the British Museum. (Ref. 164 )