7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion

“Asian varieties of millet made their way from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 5000 BCE or 7,000 years ago.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet

Origins of ‘Transeurasian’ languages traced to Neolithic millet farmers in north-eastern China about 9,000 years ago

“A study combining linguistic, genetic, and archaeological evidence has traced the origins of a family of languages including modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian and the people who speak them to millet farmers who inhabited a region in north-eastern China about 9,000 years ago. The findings outlined on Wednesday document a shared genetic ancestry for the hundreds of millions of people who speak what the researchers call Transeurasian languages across an area stretching more than 5,000 miles (8,000km).” ref

“Millet was an important early crop as hunter-gatherers transitioned to an agricultural lifestyle. There are 98 Transeurasian languages, including Korean, Japanese, and various Turkic languages in parts of Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia, and Siberia, various Mongolic languages, and various Tungusic languages in Manchuria and Siberia. This language family’s beginnings were traced to Neolithic millet farmers in the Liao River valley, an area encompassing parts of the Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the region of Inner Mongolia. As these farmers moved across north-eastern Asia over thousands of years, the descendant languages spread north and west into Siberia and the steppes and east into the Korean peninsula and over the sea to the Japanese archipelago.” ref

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Tracing population movements in ancient East Asia through the linguistics and archaeology of textile production – 2020

Abstract 

“Archaeolinguistics, a field which combines language reconstruction and archaeology as a source of information on human prehistory, has much to offer to deepen our understanding of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Northeast Asia. So far, integrated comparative analyses of words and tools for textile production are completely lacking for the Northeast Asian Neolithic and Bronze Age. To remedy this situation, here we integrate linguistic and archaeological evidence of textile production, with the aim of shedding light on ancient population movements in Northeast China, the Russian Far East, Korea, and Japan. We show that the transition to more sophisticated textile technology in these regions can be associated not only with the adoption of millet agriculture but also with the spread of the languages of the so-called ‘Transeurasian’ family. In this way, our research provides indirect support for the Language/Farming Dispersal Hypothesis, which posits that language expansion from the Neolithic onwards was often associated with agricultural colonization.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Genetic history of Europe, Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia, and Genetic history of the Middle East

PIE Speakers and Haplogroups R1b as well as R1a

“According to three autosomal DNA studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also very common in South Asia) would have expanded from the Pontic steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages. Studies that analyzed ancient human remains in Ireland and Portugal suggest that R1b was introduced in these places along with autosomal DNA from the Pontic steppes.” ref

“The subclade R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) is most commonly associated with Indo-European speakers. Data so far collected indicate that there are two widely separated areas of high frequency, one in Eastern Europe, around Poland and the Russian core, and the other in South Asia, around Indo-Gangetic Plain. The historical and prehistoric possible reasons for this are the subject of on-going discussion and attention amongst population geneticists and genetic genealogists, and are considered to be of potential interest to linguists and archaeologists also. Ornella Semino et al. propose a postglacial (Holocene) spread of the R1a1 haplogroup from north of the Black Sea during the time of the Late Glacial Maximum, which was subsequently magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward.” ref

“A large, 2014 study by Underhill et al., using 16,244 individuals from over 126 populations from across Eurasia, concluded there was compelling evidence, that R1a-M420 originated in the vicinity of Iran. The mutations that characterize haplogroup R1a occurred ~10,000 years ago. Its defining mutation (M17) occurred about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. Pamjav et al. (2012) believe that R1a originated and initially diversified either within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region.” ref

Yamnaya culture

“All Yamnaya individuals sampled by Haak et al. (2015) belonged to the Y-haplogroup R1b. According to Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015), autosomal tests indicate that the Yamnaya-people were the result of admixture between “Eastern Hunter-Gatherers” from eastern Europe (EHG) and “Caucasus hunter-gatherers” (CHG). Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA. According to co-author Dr. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge:

The question of where the Yamnaya come from has been something of a mystery up to now […] we can now answer that, as we’ve found that their genetic make-up is a mix of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and a population from this pocket of Caucasus hunter-gatherers who weathered much of the last Ice Age in apparent isolation.” ref

“Based on these findings and by equating the people of the Yamnaya culture with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, David W. Anthony (2019) suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language formed mainly from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gathers with influences from languages of northern Caucasus hunter-gatherers, in addition to a possible later influence from the language of the Maikop culture to the south (which is hypothesized to have belonged to the North Caucasian family) in the later neolithic or Bronze Age involving little genetic impact.” ref

Eastern European hunter-gatherers

“According to Haak et al. (2015), “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” who inhabited Russia were a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000-year-old Siberian from the Mal’ta-Buret’ culture, or other, closely related Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people from Siberia and to the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG). Remains of the “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” have been found in Mesolithic or early Neolithic sites in Karelia and Samara Oblast, Russia, and put under analysis. Three such hunter-gathering individuals of the male sex have had their DNA results published. Each was found to belong to a different Y-DNA haplogroup: R1a, R1b, and J. R1b is also the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among both the Yamnaya and modern-day Western Europeans. R1a is more common in Eastern Europeans and in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.” ref

Near East population

“The Near East population were most likely hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) c.q. Iran Chalcolithic related people with a major CHG-component. Jones et al. (2015) analyzed genomes from males from western Georgia, in the Caucasus, from the Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old) and the Mesolithic (9,700 years old). These two males carried Y-DNA haplogroup: J* and J2a. The researchers found that these Caucasus hunters were probably the source of the farmer-like DNA in the Yamnaya, as the Caucasians were distantly related to the Middle Eastern people who introduced farming in Europe.” ref

“Their genomes showed that a continued mixture of the Caucasians with Middle Eastern took place up to 25,000 years ago, when the coldest period in the last Ice Age started. According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), “a population related to the people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe.” According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), these Iranian Chalcolithic people were a mixture of “the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers.” Lazaridis et al. (2016) also note that farming spread at two places in the Near East, namely the Levant and Iran, from where it spread, Iranian people spreading to the steppe and south Asia.” ref

Northern and Central Europe

“Haak et al. (2015) studied DNA from 94 skeletons from Europe and Russia aged between 3,000 and 8,000 years old. They concluded that about 4,500 years ago there was a major influx into Europe of Yamnaya culture people originating from the Pontic–Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea and that the DNA of copper-age Europeans matched that of the Yamnaya. The four Corded Ware people could trace an astonishing three-quarters of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, according to the paper. That suggests a massive migration of Yamnaya people from their steppe homeland into Eastern Europe about 4500 years ago when the Corded Ware culture began, perhaps carrying an early form of Indo-European language.” ref

Bronze age Greece

“A 2017 archaeogenetics study of Mycenaean and Minoan remains published in the journal Nature concluded that the Mycenaean Greeks were genetically closely related with the Minoans but unlike the Minoans also had a 13-18% genetic contribution from Bronze Age steppe populations.” ref

Haplogroup R1a 

“Haplogroup R1a, or haplogroup R-M420, is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup that is distributed in a large region in Eurasia, extending from Scandinavia and Central Europe to southern Siberia and South Asia. While R1a originated ca. 22,000 to 25,000 years ago, its subclade M417 (R1a1a1) diversified ca. 5,800 years ago. The place of origin of the subclade plays a role in the debate about the origins of Proto-Indo-Europeans.” ref

“The split of R1a (M420) is computed to ca. 22,000 or 25,000 years ago, which is the time of the last glacial maximum. A 2014 study by Peter A. Underhill et al., using 16,244 individuals from over 126 populations from across Eurasia, concluded that there was “a compelling case for the Middle East, possibly near present-day Iran, as the geographic origin of hg R1a.” The ancient DNA record has shown the first R1a during the Mesolithic in Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (from Eastern Europe), and the earliest case of R* among Upper Paleolithic Ancient North Eurasians, from which the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers predominantly derive their ancestry. No early samples of R1a have so far been found in Iran.” ref

“According to Underhill et al. (2014), the downstream R1a-M417 subclade diversified into Z282 and Z93 circa 5,800 years ago “in the vicinity of Iran and Eastern Turkey.” Even though R1a occurs as a Y-chromosome haplogroup among various languages such as Slavic and Indo-Iranian, the question of the origins of R1a1a is relevant to the ongoing debate concerning the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-European people, and may also be relevant to the origins of the Indus Valley Civilization. R1a shows a strong correlation with Indo-European languages of Southern and Western Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and to some extent Scandinavia being most prevalent in Eastern Europe, West Asia, and South Asia. In Europe, Z282 is prevalent, particularly while in Asia Z93 dominates. The connection between Y-DNA R-M17 and the spread of Indo-European languages was first noted by T. Zerjal and colleagues in 1999.” ref

Proposed steppe dispersal of R1a1a: Indo-European migrations and Indo-Aryan migrations and R1a

“Semino et al. (2000) proposed Ukrainian origins, and a postglacial spread of the R1a1 gene during the Late Glacial Maximum, subsequently magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward. Spencer Wells proposes Central Asian origins, suggesting that the distribution and age of R1a1 points to an ancient migration corresponding to the spread by the Kurgan people in their expansion from the Eurasian steppe. According to Pamjav et al. (2012), R1a1a diversified in the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region:

Inner and Central Asia is an overlap zone for the R1a1-Z280 and R1a1-Z93 lineages [which] implies that an early differentiation zone of R1a1-M198 conceivably occurred somewhere within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region as they lie between South Asia and Central- and Eastern Europe.” ref

“Three genetic studies in 2015 gave support to the Kurgan theory of Gimbutas regarding the Indo-European Urheimat. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia) would have expanded from the Pontic–Caspian steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.” ref

Source of R1a1a1 in Corded Ware culture

“David Anthony considers the Yamnaya culture to be the Indo-European Urheimat. According to Haak et al. (2015), a massive migration from the Yamnaya culture northwards took place ca. 2,500 BCE or 4,622 years ago, accounting for 75% of the genetic ancestry of the Corded Ware culture, noting that R1a and R1b may have “spread into Europe from the East after 3,000 BCE” or 5,022 years ago. Yet, all their seven Yamnaya samples belonged to the R1b-M269 subclade, but no R1a1a has been found in their Yamnaya samples. This raises the question of where the R1a1a in the Corded Ware culture came from, if it was not from the Yamnaya culture.” ref

“Semenov & Bulat (2016) do argue for such an origin of R1a1a in the Corded Ware culture, noting that several publications point to the presence of R1a1 in the Comb Ware culture. Haak et al. (2015) found that part of the Yamnaya ancestry derived from the Middle East and that neolithic techniques probably arrived at the Yamnaya culture from the Balkans. The Rössen culture (4,600–4,300 BCE or 6,622-6,322 years ago), which was situated on Germany and predates the Corded Ware culture, an old subclade of R1a, namely L664, can still be found.” ref

Transcaucasia & West Asian origins and possible influence on Indus Valley Civilization

Kura–Araxes culture, Uruk period, and Origins of the Indus Valley Civilisation

“Part of the South Asian genetic ancestry derives from west Eurasian populations, and some researchers have implied that Z93 may have come to India via Iran and expanded there during the Indus Valley Civilization. However, according to Narasimhan et al. (2018), steppe pastoralists are a likely source for R1a in India.” ref

“Mascarenhas et al. (2015) proposed that the roots of Z93 lie in West Asia, and proposed that “Z93 and L342.2 expanded in a southeasterly direction from Transcaucasia into South Asia,” noting that such an expansion is compatible with “the archeological records of eastward expansion of West Asian populations in the 4th millennium BCE culminating in the so-called Kura-Araxes migrations in the post-Uruk IV period.” Yet, Lazaridis noted that sample I1635 of Lazaridis et al. (2016), their Armenian Kura-Araxes sample, carried Y-haplogroup R1b1-M415(xM269) (also called R1b1a1b-CTS3187).” ref

“According to Underhill et al. (2014) the diversification of Z93 and the “early urbanization within the Indus Valley […] occurred at [5,600 years ago] and the geographic distribution of R1a-M780 may reflect this.” Poznik et al. (2016) note that ‘striking expansions’ occurred within R1a-Z93 at ~4,500–4,000 years ago, which “predates by a few centuries the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation.” ref

Proposed South Asian origins

“Kivisild et al. (2003) have proposed either South or West Asia, while Mirabal et al. (2009) see support for both South and Central Asia. Sharma et al.(2009) showcased the existence of R1a in India beyond 18,000 years to possibly 44,000 years in origin. South Asian populations have the highest STR diversity within R1a1a, and subsequent older TMRCA datings, and R1a1a is present among both higher (Brahmin) castes and lower castes, although the frequency is higher among Brahmin castes. From these findings some researchers have concluded that R1a1a originated in South Asia, excluding a substantial genetic influx from Indo-European migrants.” ref

“However, this diversity, and the subsequent older TMRCA-datings, can also be explained by the historically high population numbers, which increases the likelihood of diversification and microsatellite variation. According to Sengupta et al. (2006), “[R1a1 and R2] could have actually arrived in southern India from a southwestern Asian source region multiple times.” Silva et al. (2017) noted that R1a in South Asia most “likely spread from a single Central Asian source pool, there do seem to be at least three and probably more R1a founder clades within the Subcontinent, consistent with multiple waves of arrival.” According to Martin P. Richards, co-author of Silva et al. (2017), “[the prevalence of R1a in India was] very powerful evidence for a substantial Bronze Age migration from central Asia that most likely brought Indo-European speakers to India.” ref

R-M458 (R1a1a1b1a1) 7,900 years old?

“R-M458 is a mainly Slavic SNP, characterized by its own mutation, and was first called cluster N. Underhill et al. (2009) found it to be present in modern European populations roughly between the Rhine catchment and the Ural Mountains and traced it to “a founder effect that […] falls into the early Holocene period, 7,900±2.6 KYA.” M458 was found in one skeleton from a 14th-century grave field in Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The paper by Underhill et al. (2009) also reports a surprisingly high frequency of M458 in some Northern Caucasian populations (for example 27.5% among Karachays and 23.5% among Balkars, 7.8% among Karanogays and 3.4% among Abazas).” ref

R-L260 (R1a1a1b1a1a)

“R1a1a1b1a1a (R-L260), commonly referred to as West Slavic or Polish, is a subclade of the larger parent group R-M458, and was first identified as an STR cluster by Pawlowski et al. 2002. In 2010 it was verified to be a haplogroup identified by its own mutation (SNP). It apparently accounts for about 8% of Polish men, making it the most common subclade in Poland. Outside of Poland it is less common. In addition to Poland, it is mainly found in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and is considered “clearly West Slavic.” The founding ancestor of R-L260 is estimated to have lived between 2000 and 3000 years ago, i.e. during the Iron Age, with significant population expansion less than 1,500 years ago.” ref

“In Mesolithic Europe, R1a is characteristic of Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs). A male EHG of the Veretye culture buried at Peschanitsa near Lake Lacha in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia ca. 10,700 BCE or 12,722 years ago was found to be a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1a5-YP1301 and the maternal haplogroup U4a. A Mesolithic male from Karelia ca. 8,800 to 7950 BCE or 10,822-9,972 years ago has been found to be carrying haplogroup R1a. A Mesolithic male buried at Deriivka ca. 7000 to 6700 BCE or 9,022-8,722 years ago carried the paternal haplogroup R1a and the maternal U5a2a. Another male from Karelia from ca. 5,500 to 5,000 BCE or 7,522-7,022 years ago, who was considered an EHG, carried haplogroup R1a. A male from the Comb Ceramic culture in Kudruküla ca. 5,900  to 3,800 BCE 7,922-5,822 years ago has been determined to be a carrier of R1a and the maternal U2e1.” ref

“According to archaeologist David Anthony, the paternal R1a-Z93 was found at Alexandria, Ukraine ca. 4000 BCE or 6,022 years ago, Sredny Stog culture, “the earliest known sample to show the genetic adaptation to lactase persistence (I3910-T).” R1a has been found in the Corded Ware culture, in which it is predominant. Examined males of the Bronze Age Fatyanovo culture belong entirely to R1a, specifically subclade R1a-Z93. Haplogroup R1a has later been found in ancient fossils associated with the Urnfield culture; as well as the burial of the remains of the Sintashta, Andronovo, the Pazyryk, Tagar, Tashtyk, and Srubnaya cultures, the inhabitants of ancient Tanais, in the Tarim mummies, and the aristocracy Xiongnu. The skeletal remains of a father and his two sons, from an archaeological site discovered in 2005 near Eulau (in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and dated to about 2600 BCE or 4,622 years ago, tested positive for the Y-SNP marker SRY10831.2. The Ysearch number for the Eulau remains is 2C46S. The ancestral clade was thus present in Europe at least 4600 years ago, in association with one site of the widespread Corded Ware culture.” ref

R1a and Europe

“In Europe, the R1a1 sub-clade is found at highest levels among peoples of Central and Eastern European descent, with results ranging from 35-65% among Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, western Ukrainians (particularly Rusyns), Belarusians, Moldovans, and Russians. In the Baltics, R1a1a frequencies decrease from Lithuania (45%) to Estonia (around 30%). There is a significant presence in peoples of Scandinavian descent, with the highest levels in Norway and Iceland, where between 20 and 30% of men are in R1a1a. Vikings and Normans may have also carried the R1a1a lineage further out; accounting for at least part of the small presence in the British Isles, the Canary Islands, and Sicily. In East Germany, where Haplogroup R1a1a reaches a peak frequency in Rostock at a percentage of 31.3%, it averages between 20 and 30%.” ref

“In Southern Europe, R1a1a is not common, but significant levels have been found in pockets, such as in the Pas Valley in Northern Spain, areas of Venice, and Calabria in Italy. The Balkans shows wide variation between areas with significant levels of R1a1a, for example, 36–39% in Slovenia, 27%-34% in Croatia, and over 30% in Greek Macedonia, but less than 10% in Albania, Kosovo, and parts of Greece south of Olympus gorge. R1a is virtually composed only of the Z284 subclade in Scandinavia. In Slovenia, the main subclade is Z282 (Z280 and M458), although the Z284 subclade was found in one sample of a Slovenian. There is a negligible representation of Z93 in each region other than Turkey.” ref

“West Slavs and Hungarians are characterized by a high frequency of the subclade M458 and a low Z92, a subclade of Z280. Hundreds of Slovenian samples and Czechs lack the Z92 subclade of Z280, while Poles, Slovaks, Croats and Hungarians only show a very low frequency of Z92. The Balts, East Slavs, Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Romanians demonstrate a ratio Z280>M458 and a high, up to a prevailing share of Z92. Balts and East Slavs have the same subclades and similar frequencies in a more detailed phylogeny of the subclades. The Russian geneticist Oleg Balanovsky speculated that there is a predominance of the assimilated pre-Slavic substrate in the genetics of East and West Slavic populations, according to him the common genetic structure that contrasts East Slavs and Balts from other populations may suggest the explanation that the pre-Slavic substrate of the East Slavs consisted most significantly of Baltic-speakers, which at one point predated the Slavs in the cultures of the Eurasian steppe according to archaeological and toponymic references.” ref

R1a and Central Asia

“Zerjal et al. (2002) found R1a1a in 64% of a sample of the Tajiks of Tajikistan and 63% of a sample of the Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan. Haber et al. (2012) found R1a1a-M17(xM458) in 26.0% (53/204) of a set of samples from Afghanistan, including 60% (3/5) of a sample of Nuristanis, 51.0% (25/49) of a sample of Pashtuns, 30.4% (17/56) of a sample of Tajiks, 17.6% (3/17) of a sample of Uzbeks, 6.7% (4/60) of a sample of Hazaras, and in the only sampled Turkmen individual.” ref

“Di Cristofaro et al. (2013) found R1a1a-M198/M17 in 56.3% (49/87) of a pair of samples of Pashtuns from Afghanistan (including 20/34 or 58.8% of a sample of Pashtuns from Baghlan and 29/53 or 54.7% of a sample of Pashtuns from Kunduz), 29.1% (37/127) of a pool of samples of Uzbeks from Afghanistan (including 28/94 or 29.8% of a sample of Uzbeks from Jawzjan, 8/28 or 28.6% of a sample of Uzbeks from Sar-e Pol, and 1/5 or 20% of a sample of Uzbeks from Balkh), 27.5% (39/142) of a pool of samples of Tajiks from Afghanistan (including 22/54 or 40.7% of a sample of Tajiks from Balkh, 9/35 or 25.7% of a sample of Tajiks from Takhar, 4/16 or 25.0% of a sample of Tajiks from Samangan, and 4/37 or 10.8% of a sample of Tajiks from Badakhshan), 16.2% (12/74) of a sample of Turkmens from Jawzjan, and 9.1% (7/77) of a pair of samples of Hazara from Afghanistan (including 7/69 or 10.1% of a sample of Hazara from Bamiyan and 0/8 or 0% of a sample of Hazara from Balkh).” ref

“Malyarchuk et al. (2013) found R1a1-SRY10831.2 in 30.0% (12/40) of a sample of Tajiks from Tajikistan. Ashirbekov et al. (2017) found R1a-M198 in 6.03% (78/1294) of a set of samples of Kazakhs from Kazakhstan. R1a-M198 was observed with greater than average frequency in the study’s samples of the following Kazakh tribes: 13/41 = 31.7% of a sample of Suan, 8/29 = 27.6% of a sample of Oshaqty, 6/30 = 20.0% of a sample of Qozha, 4/29 = 13.8% of a sample of Qypshaq, 1/8 = 12.5% of a sample of Tore, 9/86 = 10.5% of a sample of Jetyru, 4/50 = 8.0% of a sample of Argyn, 1/13 = 7.7% of a sample of Shanyshqyly, 8/122 = 6.6% of a sample of Alimuly, 3/46 = 6.5% of a sample of Alban. R1a-M198 also was observed in 5/42 = 11.9% of a sample of Kazakhs of unreported tribal affiliation.” ref

R1a and South Asia

“In South Asia, R1a1a has often been observed in a number of demographic groups. In India, high frequencies of this haplogroup are observed in West Bengal Brahmins (72%) to the east, Gujarat Lohanas (60%) to the west, Khatris (67%) in the north, and Iyengar Brahmins (31%) in the south. It has also been found in several South Indian Dravidian-speaking Adivasis including the Chenchu (26%) and the Valmikis of Andhra Pradesh, Kota (22.58%), and the Kallar of Tamil Nadu suggesting that R1a1a is widespread in Tribal Southern Indians. Besides these, studies show high percentages in regionally diverse groups such as Manipuris (50%) to the extreme North-East and among Punjabis (47%) to the extreme North West. In Pakistan, it is found at 71% among the Mohanna tribe in Sindh province to the south and 46% among the Baltis of Gilgit-Baltistan to the north. Among the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, 23% were found to be R1a1a (R-SRY1532) positive. Hindus of Chitwan District in the Terai region Nepal show it at 69%.” ref

R1a and East Asia

“The frequency of R1a1a is comparatively low among some Turkic-speaking groups like Yakuts, yet levels are higher (19 to 28%) in certain Turkic or Mongolic-speaking groups of Northwestern China, such as the Bonan, Dongxiang, Salar, and Uyghurs. A Chinese paper published in 2018 found R1a-Z94 in 38.5% (15 / 39) of a sample of Keriyalik Uyghurs from Darya Boyi / Darya Boye Village, Yutian County, Xinjiang (于田县达里雅布依乡), R1a-Z93 in 28.9% (22/76) of a sample of Dolan Uyghurs from Horiqol township, Awat County, Xinjiang (阿瓦提县乌鲁却勒镇), and R1a-Z93 in 6.3% (4/64) of a sample of Loplik Uyghurs from Karquga / Qarchugha Village, Yuli County, Xinjiang (尉犁县喀尔曲尕乡). R1a(xZ93) was observed only in one of 76 Dolan Uyghurs. Note that Darya Boyi Village is located in a remote oasis formed by the Keriya River in the Taklamakan Desert. A 2011 Y-dna study found Y-dna R1a1 in 10% of a sample of southern Hui people from Yunnan, 1.6% of a sample of Tibetan people from Xizang (Tibet Autonomous Region), 1.6% of a sample of Xibe people from Xinjiang, 3.2% of a sample of northern Hui from Ningxia, 9.4% of a sample of Hazak (Kazakhs) from Xinjiang, and rates of 24.0%, 22.2%, 35.2%, 29.2% in 4 different samples of Uyghurs from Xinjiang, 9.1% in a sample of Mongols from Inner Mongolia, 10% of a sample of Northern Han Chinese from Gansu and 8.9% of a sample of Northern Han from western Henan. A different subclade of R1 was also found in 1.5% of a sample of northern Hui from Ningxia.” ref

“In the same study, there were no cases of R1a detected at all in 6 samples of Han Chinese in Yunnan, 1 sample of Han in Guangxi, 5 samples of Han in Guizhou, 2 samples of Han in Guangdong, 2 samples of Han in Fujian, 2 samples of Han in Zhejiang, 1 sample of Han in Shanghai, 1 samples of Han in Jiangxi, 2 samples of Han in Hunan, 1 sample of Han in Hubei, 2 samples of Han in Sichuan, 1 sample of Han in Chongqing, 3 samples of Han in Shandong, 5 samples of Han in Gansu, 3 samples of Han in Jilin and 2 samples of Han in Heilongjiang. T-M70, R-M207 (a subclade of R1a), Q-M242, L-M20, J-P209, I-M170, H-M69, G-M201, C5-M356 and E-SRY4064 collectively make up only 6.79% of the total male population of East Asia (from samples in North Korea and China). The vast majority of East Asia is N-M231, C-M130 except for C5-M356, D-M174, and O-M175 which is 92.87% of the population and are all East Eurasian male haplogroups. R-M207 (a subclade of R1a) came into East Asia via the north from the Central South Asia region (CSA) during paleolithic times in the post-glacial period, especially R1a1a. R1a1a in East Asia is an extremely ancient subclade from the Central Asia-South Asia region and is older than the Western Eurasian (European_ and Central Asian-South Asian (CSA) R1a1*-M17, rivaling the R1a1*-M17 of IWest India in age from testing on variations in STR. The Europe and West Asian R1a1*-M17 split into 7 subbranches only after R1a1 came to North-East Asia, indicating R1a1 in East Asia is an extremely ancient one dating back 15,370 years ago juding from variation in STR (predating the more recent Aryan and Indo-European expansions).” ref

“In a 2014 paper, R1a1a has been detected in 1.8% (2/110) of Chinese samples. These two samples (R-M17, R-M198, R-M434, R-M458 for both) belonged to Han individuals from Fujian and Shanxi provinces. 40% of Salars, 45.2% of Tajiks of Xinjiang, 54.3% of Dongxiang, 60.6% of Tatars, and 68.9% of Kyrgyz in Xinjiang in northwestern China tested in one sample had R1a1-M17. Bao’an (Bonan) had the most haplogroup diversity of 0.8946±0.0305 while the other ethnic minorities in northwestern China had a high haplogroup diversity like Central Asians, of 0.7602±0.0546. In Eastern Siberia, R1a1a is found among certain indigenous ethnic groups including Kamchatkans and Chukotkans, and peaking in Itel’man at 22%.” ref

R1a and West Asia

“R1a1a has been found in various forms, in most parts of Western Asia, in widely varying concentrations, from almost no presence in areas such as Jordan, to much higher levels in parts of Kuwait and Iran. The Shimar (Shammar) Bedouin tribe in Kuwait show the highest frequency in the Middle East at 43%. Wells 2001, noted that in the western part of the country, Iranians show low R1a1a levels, while males of eastern parts of Iran carried up to 35% R1a1a. Nasidze et al. 2004 found R1a1a in approximately 20% of Iranian males from the cities of Tehran and Isfahan. Regueiro 2006 in a study of Iran, noted much higher frequencies in the south than the north.” ref

“A newer study has found 20.3% R-M17* among Kurdish samples which were taken in the Kurdistan Province in western Iran, 19% among Azerbaijanis in West Azerbaijan, 9.7% among Mazandaranis in North Iran in the province of Mazandaran, 9.4% among Gilaks in province of Gilan, 12.8% among Persian and 17.6% among Zoroastrians in Yazd, 18.2% among Persians in Isfahan, 20.3% among Persians in Khorasan, 16.7% Afro-Iranians, 18.4% Qeshmi “Gheshmi”, 21.4% among Persian Bandari people in Hormozgan and 25% among the Baloch people in Sistan and Baluchestan Province.” ref

“Di Cristofaro et al. (2013) found haplogroup R1a in 9.68% (18/186) of a set of samples from Iran, though with a large variance ranging from 0% (0/18) in a sample of Iranians from Tehran to 25% (5/20) in a sample of Iranians from Khorasan and 27% (3/11) in a sample of Iranians of unknown provenance. All Iranian R1a individuals carried the M198 and M17 mutations except one individual in a sample of Iranians from Gilan (n=27), who was reported to belong to R1a-SRY1532.2(xM198, M17).” ref

“Malyarchuk et al. (2013) found R1a1-SRY10831.2 in 20.8% (16/77) of a sample of Persians collected in the provinces of Khorasan and Kerman in eastern Iran, but they did not find any member of this haplogroup in a sample of 25 Kurds collected in the province of Kermanshah in western Iran. Further to the north of these Western Asian regions, on the other hand, R1a1a levels start to increase in the Caucasus, once again in an uneven way. Several populations studied have shown no sign of R1a1a, while the highest levels so far discovered in the region appears to belong to speakers of the Karachay-Balkar language among whom about one-quarter of men tested so far are in haplogroup R1a1a.” ref

ref

Seeking the First Speakers of Indo-European Language

https://harvardmagazine.com/2022/08/indo-european-languages

“More than 5,000 years ago, Caucasus hunter-gatherers from the highlands between the Black and Caspian Seas traveled west to Anatolia and north to the steppe, splitting their Proto-Indo-European language into two branches. From the steppe, their Yamnaya horse-herder descendants spread their language and genes into daughter languages and cultures across Eurasia. Border colors indicate the geographic origins of five source populations before their migrations (shown by correspondingly colored arrows), while the pie charts show the post-migration admixtures in these regions. (2022).” ref

“A NEW STUDY OF ANCIENT DNA from 727 individuals who lived in the regions cradling the southern half of the Black Sea, and extending into the Levant and western Iran, narrows the hunt for the origins of Indo-European languages—spoken today as a first language by almost half the world’s population. The research also documents genetic homogenization and stability among the population of farmers living between about 15,000 and 7,000 years ago in what is now Turkey, sheds new light on how an early form of Indo-European language may have spread in ancient Greece, and reveals the surprising discovery that the ancestry of the population of Rome during the Imperial period was drawn principally from Anatolia. These findings are the result of a 206-person collaboration led by staff scientist Iosif Lazaridis of the David Reich lab at Harvard, and by Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg of the Reich lab and the Ron Pinhasi lab at the University of Vienna (Reich, a professor of genetics and of human evolutionary biology, and Pinhasi, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology, are co-senior authors of the three related studies published today in Science.) The group’s work more than doubles the amount of ancient DNA from this region, and extends Reich’s pioneering studies of early human origins forward into periods for which there start to be scattered historical records.” ref

“Indo-European languages are the first language of more than 3 billion people in Europe, across northern India, the Iranian plateau, and as far east as Siberia (and on other continents as a result of colonialism, including in the United States). Beginning almost 500 years ago, scholars began to notice similarities between languages such as Sanskrit and Latin, and as the field of linguistics matured, it became clear that hundreds of such languages were connected by common root words. But where and when did the original language arise, and who spoke it? Answering such questions has in the past been principally the work of archaeologists, linguists, and physical anthropologists. But more recently, as the analysis of ancient DNA has improved—aided by the 2015 discovery that DNA in the petrous bone of the inner ear can survive for millennia even in warm climates—geneticists, collaborating with experts in material culture and language, are making important contributions to the study of human history. (For a recent feature on the development of this science, see “Telling Humanity’s Story through DNA.”)” ref

“Among the startling discoveries of the past decade has been that Indo-European languages seem not to have been spread by Anatolian farmers living in what is now Turkey, as was commonly thought, but rather by horse-herding nomads who lived on the Eurasian steppe, a people called the Yamnaya. A host of linguistic evidence suggesting this possibility was first marshaled persuasively by archaeologist David Anthony in his 2007 book, The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppe Shaped the Modern World. “I made the right guesses,” says Anthony modestly, now working with Reich in retirement as an associate of the department of human evolutionary biology. In 2015, genetic evidence published by Reich and colleagues proved Anthony was on target. They showed that the Yamnaya spread more than language throughout Eurasia: beginning about 5,000 years ago, their genes began to appear everywhere from northern Europe to the Indian subcontinent.” ref

The new science data from a 206-person collaboration (2022) on the possible origins of proto-Indo-European that were addressed in the last video with a proposed origin in the general area of South Caucasus. “Stating that more than 5,000 years ago, Caucasus hunter-gatherers from the highlands between the Black and Caspian Seas traveled west to Anatolia and north to the steppe, splitting their Proto-Indo-European language into two branches.” https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/08/indo-european-languages

The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, which are sometimes collectively known as the Caucasian States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Caucasus

It was a scientific DNA and migrations model that offered reasoned speculations that contradicted past held beliefs or speculations such as the Kurgan hypothesis (the previously reasoned speculation) That the Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia, as speculated from DNA at the time (2015) stating back then that research seemed to suggest herders north of the Black Sea were early speakers of Proto-Indo-European, the ancient tongue that gave rise to hundreds of languages, including English which matched what is called the “Kurgan hypothesis.” https://www.science.org/content/article/mysterious-indo-european-homeland-may-have-been-steppes-ukraine-and-russia

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists.  PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BCE to 2500 BCE or 6,522-4,522 years ago, during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has provided insight into the pastoral culture and patriarchal (male-dominated power structure) religion of its speakers. The Pontic–Caspian steppe, stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea to the northern area around the Caspian Sea. Mainly southern and eastern Ukraine, across to the Russian Northern Caucasus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic%E2%80%93Caspian_steppe

But other scholars question the 206-person collaboration (2022) team’s conclusion about the origins of a different cultural shift, the spread of Indo-European languages. Nearly every language spoken in Europe today stems from a common root, shared with Indian languages. Researchers have for years traced it to the Bronze Age Yamnaya, who rode both east and west from the steppes which matchs what is called the “Kurgan hypothesis.” But the 206-person collaboration (2022) team of the new paper argues the Black Sea steppe “Kurgan hypothesis” wasn’t the birthplace of Indo-European, but rather a stop along a journey that began earlier and farther to the south, perhaps around modern-day Armenia. https://www.science.org/content/article/phenomenal-ancient-dna-data-set-provides-clues-origin-farming-early-languages

However, Guus Kroonen, a linguist at Leiden University, says this contradicts linguistic data. The early people of the Caucasus would have been familiar with farming, he says, but the deepest layers of Indo-European have just one word for grain and no words for legumes or the plow. Those speakers “weren’t very familiar with agriculture,” he says. “The linguistic evidence and the genetic evidence don’t seem to match.” Lazaridis says it’s possible the root tongue “was originally a hunter-gatherer language,” and so lacked terms for farming. The team agrees more evidence of “Proto-Indo-Anatolians” is needed, but says the Caucasus is a promising place to look. Throughout, the papers address some critiques of previous ancient DNA work. Some archaeologists have complained that earlier research attributed almost everything—status, identity, power shifts—to pulses of migration recorded in DNA. But the new papers acknowledge, for example, that some migrations into Anatolia may not have been relevant or even perceptible to those living at the time. “That’s a response to criticisms coming from the archaeological literature,” says Hartwick College archaeologist emeritus David Anthony, who is not a co-author but has worked with the team. “It’s really healthy.”  In another example, Yamnaya were buried in elite tombs after they moved into the region north of Greece, suggesting a link between ancestry and social status. But during the later Mycenaean period in Greece—the time Homer mythologized—the new data suggest Yamnaya descendants had little impact on Greek social structure. Some archaeologists still think the papers claim too much influence for ancestry. “DNA cannot tell us anything about how people shape their life worlds, what their social status was,” says archaeologist Joseph Maran of Heidelberg University. He says terms like “Yamnaya ancestry” suggest the Yamnaya spread by moving directly from place to place, rather than through a complex mingling of their descendants with local populations over centuries or more. “Equating history with ‘mobility’ and ‘migrations’ is … old-fashioned.”

https://www.science.org/content/article/phenomenal-ancient-dna-data-set-provides-clues-origin-farming-early-languages

  Proto-Indo-European language

“Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 to 2500 BCE during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years.” ref

“According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The Kurgan hypothesis, first put forward in 1956 by Marija Gimbutas, has become the most popular. It proposes that the original speakers of PIE were the Yamnaya culture associated with the kurgans (burial mounds) on the Pontic–Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea. According to the theory, they were nomadic pastoralists who domesticated the horse, which allowed them to migrate across Europe and Asia in wagons and chariots. By the early 3rd millennium BCE, they had expanded throughout the Pontic–Caspian steppe and into eastern Europe. Other theories include the Anatolian hypothesis, which posits that PIE spread out from Anatolia/Turkey with agriculture around 9000 BCE, the Armenian hypothesis, the Paleolithic continuity paradigm, and the indigenous Aryans theory.” ref

“The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has provided insight into the pastoral culture and patriarchal religion of its speakers. As speakers of Proto-Indo-European became isolated from each other through the Indo-European migrations, the regional dialects of Proto-Indo-European spoken by the various groups diverged, as each dialect underwent shifts in pronunciation (the Indo-European sound laws), morphology, and vocabulary. Over many centuries, these dialects transformed into the known ancient Indo-European languages. From there, further linguistic divergence led to the evolution of their current descendants, the modern Indo-European languages. Today, the descendant languages of PIE with the most native speakers are Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, Marathi, Italian, and Gujarati.” ref

Indo-European language Trees fit an Agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8,000 – 9,500 years ago?

“Origins of ‘Transeurasian’ languages traced to Neolithic millet farmers. Research finds language family that includes modern Japanese, Korean and Turkish spread largely due to agriculture. A study combining linguistic, genetic, and archaeological evidence has traced the origins of a family of languages including modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian and the people who speak them to millet farmers who inhabited a region in north-eastern China about 9,000 years ago. The findings outlined on Wednesday document a shared genetic ancestry for the hundreds of millions of people who speak what the researchers call Transeurasian languages across an area stretching more than 5,000 miles (8,000km). The findings illustrate how humankind’s embrace of agriculture after the ice age powered the dispersal of some of the world’s major language families. Millet was an important early crop as hunter-gatherers transitioned to an agricultural lifestyle.” ref

Did Indo-European Languages Stem From a Trans-Eurasian Original Language

by Xavier Rouard

“In my study, The Odyssey of Gauls and Slavs from North-Western India to Europe, I conclude, on the basis of linguistic, genetic and archaeological studies that the peopling of Europe took place from N-W India, Pakistan, Iran, the Caucasus, and Anatolia, creating a proto-Indo-Mediterranean culture. These studies give credit to the linguistic matches I found between Gaulish, Slavic, Dravidian, and Burushaski (250 Dravidian and 160 Burushaski words out of 500 Gaulish/Slavic words).” ref

“A study published in Science, Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family, also tends to strengthen this theory. It states that there are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that these languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. Using Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages to model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses, this study concludes in a decisive support to an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin, as both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees it with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago.” ref

“A map from this study clearly places the origin of Indo-Iranian languages between North-Western India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Caspian Sea, and Zagros, which would before the original homeland of Dravidian and Indo-European languages, and shows close links between Indo-Iranian, Caucasian, and Anatolian languages, which clearly plead for a formation of Indo-European languages in this region from before 8.000 BCE, according to the dates indicated in this study. This theory could be also attested by the interesting Burushaski language of Northern Pakistan which, according to Michael Witzel’sstudy Origin and Development of Language in South Asia: Phylogeny Versus Epigenetics? mixes features from Dravidian, Sanskrit, and Caucasian languages and shares the vigesimal numeration with Dravidian, Caucasian, and Basque (vimsati, twenty in Dravidian, could even have given vingt, twenty in French).” ref

“The interesting study of Simon Greenhill, The shape and tempo of language evolution, places Burushaski between Kannada (a Dravidian language), Hindi, Caucasian languages, and Basque, which also supports its archaic character. The Ukrainian archaeologist Iurii Mosenkis also underlines the links of Burushaski, which he considers as very archaic, with Sino-Caucasian and Indo-European languages as Armenian, Phrygian, and paleo-Balkan languages.” ref

“According to the recent study Rapid radiation of the inner Indo-European languages: an advanced approach to Indo-European lexicostatistics, these languages stem from an original Eurasian language, which included Samoyedic languages from Siberia and split between 18.000 and 8.000 BCE. A very interesting study of the University of Québec, Classification of the Indo-European languages using a phylogenetic network approach, underlines the close links between Celtic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian languages, considering that this maybe the evidence of a much closer common ancestry between these families than generally thought, or of an intensive migration of the ancestors of the involved nations.” ref

“The timeframe set in these studies also its, besides the expansion of agriculture from Anatolia, with the development of megalithism, which expanded, according, in particular to the Ukrainian archaeologist Iurii Mosenkis, jointly with Dravidian religion and language, from Zagros (around 10.000 BCE) to Çatal Höyük (7.400-6.200 BCE), Vinča (6.000-4.000 BCE) and Gaul, where megalithism developed from around 5.000 BCE. It also is with genetic data from ancient DNA, which attest that 30% of the French genetic pool, mainly Anatolian and Basque, came at the Neolithic, as haplogroups Y-DNA H2, I-M170, and R1b, found from Iran, Anatolia, and the Balkans to Gaul and characteristic of megalithic DNA. The presence of DravidianhaplogroupsH2, as well as L-M20 (found in South CaucasusandSouthernEurope), attests of the Dravidian component of this Neolithic migration.” ref

“Another study, Global Picture of Genetic Relatedness and The Evolution of Humankind, published in Biology in 2020, underlines the major role of Central Eurasia (Central Asia, Iran, Caucasus) in the transmission of genes, the peoples which genes are the most diversified, as Uighurs, Azerbaijani, Uzbeks and Iranians, carrying roughly equal genetic contributions from the Middle East, Europe, China, and India.” ref

“As concerns Europeans, this study clearly shows that Neolithic migrations strongly modeled the European genome by bringing Middle-Eastern, and in particular Anatolian, genes (40%), in the same proportion as the genes of original hunter-gatherers (40%). Indian genes spread in decreasing proportion in Iran (20%), the Caucasus (14%), and Europe (5%). Arctic and Siberian genes mostly spread in North-Eastern Europe (15% against 5% elsewhere). Finally, African genes spread mostly in Southern Europe (10% in Spain and 7% in Italy). This study strengthens the theory of a major Neolithic migration from India and Central Asia to the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Europe by the Balkans and Northern Africa.” ref

“Central Asia, at the crossroad of these influences, appears as a very serious candidate original homeland of the ancestor of Indo-European, Dravidian, and Ibero-Caucasian languages, of which Burushaski, which could have come from Altay, bringing also Altaic linguistic elements, as well as haplogroups R1a and R1b, which originated from Southern Siberia and spread to Europe, would be an archaic remnant, as Kalasha, the archaic Indo-Aryan language of the Pamir. This spread is also corroborated by archaeological discoveries dating from the Gravettian in Altay, Pamir, and Uzbekistan, according to researchers as Marcel Otte, and this first migration brought haplogroup R1b in Italy (Villabruna, 14.000 BCE), in France (12.000 BCE), and in Serbia (11.000 BCE).” ref

“This major early migration for the peopling of Europe from Anatolia and the Caucasus is also corroborated by the study A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe, by Natalie Myreset al. The alleged Pamirian origin of haplogroup L-M20, carried by 15% by the Burushos and25%oftheKalash,foundintheCaucasus,butalsoinSouthernEurope,aswellasthePamirianorigin of Bulgarian genes, as according to a study of Slavyan Stoilov, and the proximity of the genes of Pamirian Tajiks and European genes according to Evelyne Heyer also plead in this direction. The presence of features of Pamirian languages in Thracian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, and Aromanian, the language of Vlachs, as bac, a sheepfold in Burushaski, bacijain Balkan languages, and zamiina, earth in Burushaski, close to zemlja, earth, reinforces this theory. It could explain that the name of Zalmoxis, Thracian Grand Priest considered as being at the origin of Druidism, would come from Dravidian.” ref

“The presence even in French of wordsclose to Burushaski linked to pastoralism and agriculture (terre, earth, close to ter, mountainpasture, bélier, ram, close to belis, ewe, lamb, bouc, he-goat, close to buc, he-goat, charrue, plow, close to har, plow, pomme, apple, close to phamol, fruit), family (maman, mother, close to mama, mother, papa, father, close to bapo, father), human body (cœur, heart, close to guru, heart, bouche, mouth, close to buk, throat), as well as feu, close to phu, servir, serve, closet ser, serve, je, I, close to je, I, also close to ja, I in Slavic, le, the, close to le, the, and to articles found in Balkan languages, and the presence in Gaulish, French, and Slavic of many Dravidian and Burushaski words quoted in this study, undoubtedly plead for a migration linked to the expansion of pastoralism and agriculture from Central Asia and the confines of India to the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkans, and Western Europe at the Neolithic.” ref

“This migration is attested by the arrival in France of goats carrying genes from Central Asia and Pakistan. It brought to Europe an archaic Euro-Asiaticlanguage, mixing features of the most archaic Indo-European languages of India and Anatolia, Dravidian, Elamite, Altaic, and Ibero-Caucasian languages, taking part in the formation of Indo-European languages, of which Burushaski, classified by the famous linguist Eric Hampas the most archaic Indo-European language linked to Indo-Hittite, is a remnant.” ref

“According to Csaba Barnabas Horvath’s study, How Eurasia was born, published by International relations quarterly, Burushaski was the first language spoken on the Iranian plateau, before being replaced by Elamo-Dravidian and later Indo-European. This tends to confirm the anteriority of Burushaski and the theory that this language, as well as Elamo-Dravidian, contributed to the formation of Indo-European languages. I will quote Rongxing Guo’s Chinese study Wadier: A New History of Civilizations -What do the Ancestral Voices and Glyphs Say? according to whom all ancient civilizations, Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, European, but also American would stem from an ancestral civilization in which wadi and various variants as wan, meaning river, valley, forest, mountain, mother-earth, can be found with a religious connotation in numerous languages as Dravidian and Gaulish.” ref

“The root was can also be found in names of Gods as Dewa, Siwa, or Yahweh. Other words as mako, child, or mena, think, which can be found in many languages as Gaulish, could also come from this original language. As a conclusion, I can agree with Mel Copeland who, in his review of my paper below, underlines, on the basis of his paper Eurasian linguistic foundations, published on Academia, that the formation of Eurasian languages appears to have occurred on a stretch reaching from the Balkans to the Altaï mountains, together with the expansion of pastoralism, probably from at least 10.000 BCE.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:

• (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
• (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
• (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
• (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
• (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
• (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
• (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
• (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)

“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…

Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.

“Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism & Progressed organized religion”

Understanding Religion Evolution:

• Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
• Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
• Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
• Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
• Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
• Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
• CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
• Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)

“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”

It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.

 

Quick Evolution of Religion?

Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago)  with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).

Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.

Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.

I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.

Here are several of my blog posts on history:

• To Find Truth You Must First Look
• Archaeology Knowledge Challenge?
• Beware of Pseudo-History like the Claims of a Hammer in a 400 Million-Year-Old Rock
• The Evolution of Fire Sacralizing and/or Worship 1.5 million to 300,000 years ago and beyond?
• Proto Religion: Superstition around 1 million years ago, to Pre-Animism 300,000 years ago, & then Animism Religion 100,000 years ago
• Stone Age Art: 500,000 – 233,000 Years Old
• Around 500,000 – 233,000 years ago, Oldest Anthropomorphic art (Pre-animism) is Related to Female
• 400,000 Years Old Sociocultural Evolution
• Burial-pits, Cave-tombs, and/or Shallow-graves begin with Homo
• The Emergence of Pre-Religion 300,000 years ago, with Pre-Animism?
• Pre-Animism: Portable Rock Art at least 300,000-year-old
• Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
• Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses.
• Homo Naledi and an Intentional Cemetery “Pre-Animism” dating to around 250,000 years ago?
• Neanderthals “Primal Religion (Pre-Animism/Animism?)” Mystery Cave Rings 175,000 Years Ago
• 130,000 years ago – Earliest evidence for burial and it’s Neanderthals…
• Did Neanderthals teach us “Primal Religion (Pre-Animism/Animism?)” 120,000 Years Ago?
• What about Neanderthals and Religion?
• Animism: an approximately 100,000-year-old belief system?
• Animism: a belief among some indigenous people, young children, or all religious people!
• The Origin of Language: Starts in Symbolism Around 100,000 years ago, to Early Proto-Writing 44,000-5,000 years ago with Unrealized Connections
• Rock crystal stone tools 75,000 Years Ago – (Spain) made by Neanderthals
• Prehistoric Child Burials Begin at Least Around 78,000 Years Ago
• Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago
• Similarities and differences in Animism and Totemism
• Did Neanderthals Help Inspire Totemism? Because there is Art Dating to Around 65,000 Years Ago in Spain?
• History of Drug Use with Religion or Sacred Rituals possibly 58,000 years ago?
• Totemism: an approximately 50,000-year-old belief system?
• Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
• Australia & Aboriginal Religion at least around 50,000 years old
• Modern Humans start around 50,000 years ago Helped by Feminisation
• Out of Africa: “the evolution of religion seems tied to the movement of people”
• Totemism and Shamanism Dispersal Theory Expressed around 50,000 to 30,000 years ago
• Back-migrations to Africa, Starting with Eurasia to North Africa around 45,000 years ago
• Possible Religion Motivations in the First Cave Art at around 43,000 years ago?
• 43,000-33,000 years old Aurignacian Figurine Marks, like at the Swabian Jura caves in Germany
• 41,000-20,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic Tally sticks
• 40,000 years old Aurignacian Lion Figurine Early Totemism?
• 40,000-35,000 years ago “first seeming use of a Totem” ancestor, animal, and possible pre-goddess worship?
• Prehistoric Egypt 40,000 years ago to The First Dynasty 5,150 years ago
• 38,000 Years Old Engraving of an Aurochs with Seeming Totemism Expression?
• Aurignacian Period female ‘Venus’ carvings start at 35,000 years ago, then Transfer on to Other Cultures?
• Sacred Bulls, the Moon, and Fertility begins at least around 35,000 years ago?
• Women were the focus of religion, from at least around 35,000 years ago, until 2,000 years ago?
• Stars: Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities (around 6,000 years ago, with connections to shamanism at 30,000 years ago and possibly further back to 40,000 years ago with totemism)
• Sacred Bulls, the Moon, and Fertility begins at least around 35,000 years ago?
• 34,000 years ago Lunar Calendar Cave art around the Time Shift From Totemism to Early Shamanism
• 34,000 years old Russan “Sungir” Early Totemistic-Shamanism
• 31,000-25,000 years old Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic Totemistic-Shamanism
• Shamanism: an approximately 30,000-year-old belief system
• Could the Phallus Phenomena (A Bull Horn) and the Shamanism Phenomena beginning around 30,000 years ago
• Lenticular Cloud Formations may connect to Ancient “House of Gods” Mythology
• “Sky Burial” and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older.
• The Peopling of the Americas Pre-Paleoindians/Paleoamericans around 30,000 to 12,000 years ago
• Hunter-Gatherer/Indigenous Peoples Religiosity, Beliefs, and Practices
• Starting 30,000 Years Ago is the Sitting Venus Phenomena
• Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
• Trinity Evolution Started over 30,000 years ago, Maybe?
• Paleolithic Totem Venuses become the later Goddesses of the Neolithic and beyond?
• The “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” as well as the “Eurasian Steppe Corridor” and Repetitious Migrations
• Who were the Groups migrating and merging with the previous Groups of Europe?
• 27,000 to 25,000 Years ago Oldest Shaman was Female, Buried with the Oldest Portrait Carving
• Could a Gravettian carving around 25,000 years old relate to Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk
• Gravettian burial of Caviglione Woman, (shaman?) dated to around 24,000 years ago
• The Gravettian culture (Europe) shared ritual ideas and The Ancient North Eurasian culture (Asia) 24,000 years ago
• 24,000 Years Old Sacred Burial of a Siberian Mal’ta Boy
• Mal’ta–Buret’ culture of Siberia and Basal Haplogroup R* or R-M207
• Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians
• Leda and the Swan: possibly relates back to 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta–Buret’ culture, Lake Baikal, Siberia?
• Similarities in Shamanism?
• Black, White, and Yellow Shamanism?
• Shamanistic rock art from central Aboriginal Siberians and Aboriginal drums in the Americas
• Horned female shamans and Pre-satanism Devil/horned-god Worship?
• Epipalaeolithic Near East 20,000 to 9,000 years ago and the Emergence of Advanced Culture as well as New Religion?
• Sifting through the relation of Bird spirits/deities of the sky (20,000 to 5,000 years ago)
• (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
• 16,000 to 12,000 years ago Magdalenian Sacred Ritual and Symbols
• Are the Natufians of Israel around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago who you thought they were?
• Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
• Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
• Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
• Genetic studies on Jewish DNA is not 6,000 years old but has origin links to about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago?
• Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
• My Reasoned Speculations on the Early Migrations of Paganism 13,000 to 3,000 years ago, Cultural Transfer
• 13,000-12,000 years ago Culture Leading to New Oppression changed everything and it was not always this way.
• The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
• Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
• 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
• Paganism: spread of Haplogroup J and its Seeming connection of Bull Worship
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic (10000 – 6500 BCE) and Pottery Neolithic (7000–5000 BCE)
• 12,000-year-old Gobekli Tepe: “first human-made pagan temple”
• Gobekli Tepe is more like Shamanistic early Paganism, Not Adam, Eve, and Cain or Bible anything!
• Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
• Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
• Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?
• Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
• Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
• Epigravettians Join the Religious Partying at Gobekli Tepe?
• Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
• Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
• First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
• Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
• J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
• Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
• Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
• Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
• Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
• 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
• Ancient Egypt: Epipaleolithic, Neolithic, and Predynastic from 12,000 to 5,000 years ago
• 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
• Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
• Masked Head Hunters of “Karahan Tepe” 11,400-year-old monumental site from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to B
• 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
• Evolution of human skin color, white-skin is really under 10,000 years old?
• Indo-European language Trees fit an Agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8,000 – 9,500 years ago
• 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
• Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
• Goddesses/Demigoddesses/Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits from Catal Huyuk?
• Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
• Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
• New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
• Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
• Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
• Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
• First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
• 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
• 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
• 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
• Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
• 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
• Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
• Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
• My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
• Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
• Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
• 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
• Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
• 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
• Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
• Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
• My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
• “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
• Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
  
• The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
• Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
• 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
• Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
• The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
• Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
• Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
• Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
• Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
• Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
• The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
• White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
• Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
• Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
• 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
• First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
• 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
• KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
• Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
• “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
• Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
• Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
• 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
• Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
• Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
• Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
• 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
• “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
• Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
• Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
• Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
• Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
• The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
• Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
• China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
• Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
• Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
• Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
• Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
• Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
• 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
• Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
• Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
• Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
• The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
• Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
• 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
• “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
• 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
• 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
• 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
• Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
• Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
• Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
• When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
• Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
• Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
• Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
• Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
• Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
• Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
• Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
• Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
• The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
• Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
• Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
• Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
• Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
• The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
• Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
• Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
• Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
• Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
• An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
• Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
• Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
• Yamnaya culture or at least Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions may actually relate back to North Asia?
• The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
• Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
• No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
• Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
• Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
• Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
• Archaeology Disproves the Bible
• Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
• The Jericho Conquest lie?
• Canaanites and Israelites?
• Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
• Let’s talk about Christianity.
• So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
• Misinformed christian
• Debunking Jesus?
• Paulism vs Jesus
• Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
• Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
• His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
• Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
• I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
• Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
• Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
• Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
• The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
• Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
• Religion is an Evolved Product
• Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
• 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
• Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
• Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
• Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
• Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
• Religion Dispersal throughout the World
• I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
• Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
• Main deity or religious belief systems
• Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
• Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
• Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
• Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
• Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
• Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
• A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
• Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
• Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
• Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
• Primate Death Rituals
• Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
• Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
• You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
• Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
• I think that sounds like the Bible?
• History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
• Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
• Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
• Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
• Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
• Atheists rise in reason
• Mistrust of science?
• Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
• ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
• Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
• Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
• Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
• Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
• “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
• Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
• Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
• Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
• Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
• Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
• An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
• Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
• Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
• Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
• Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
• Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
• Afrocentrism and African Religions
• Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
• Empiricism-Denier?

I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref 

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

• Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
• Domovoy (Slavic)
• Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
• Húsvættir (Norse)” ref

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

 

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Knowledge to Ponder: 

Stars/Astrology:

• Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
• The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
• Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
• Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
• “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.

“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref 

Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref

Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref

Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref

Hinduism:

• 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
• 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Judaism:

• around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
• around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed

Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths

• Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
• Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
• Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
• Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
• The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
• The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
• The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
• The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
• Henotheism:
• Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
• Polytheism:
• Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
• 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
• Monotheism:
• Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.

Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Show one: Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses.

Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

Show seven: Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)

Show eight: Paganism 4,000 years old: Moralistic gods after the rise of Statism and often support Statism/Kings: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)

Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO

Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO

Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO

Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO

Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO

I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.

The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.

An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”

My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?

I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.

I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.

This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO

Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“

Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)

Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Eridu: First City of Power)

Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)

Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)

Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)

Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (King Lugalzagesi and the First Empire)

Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)

Show #8: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Naram-Sin, Post-Akkadian Rule, and the Gutians)

Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)

Show #10: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Third Dynasty of Ur / Neo-Sumerian Empire)

Show #11: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Amorites, Elamites, and the End of an Era)

Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.

Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?

Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.

I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.

Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.

At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.

Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d  

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)

Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft

Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie

Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.

Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”

I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist. 

To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so. 

My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?

Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.