Saturday, August 8, 2020

South Moravia and Unetice Princes

Via BRNO Daily of South Morovia:  "Prehistoric Burial Grounds Discovered by Brno Archaeologists"

Tessa Adamson tells us these cemeteries are turning up around the I/50 highway in Souther Moravia.  Work is being done by the archaeologist from Brno Institute of Archaeological Conservation “Ústav archeologické památkové péče Brno”

via UAPP Brno

Quite a few of these are from the early Unetice period, but the most interesting thing is that the man above appears to have worn a crown before his grave was robbed.  It's fascinating to see that the Unetice Culture continues to provide evidence of early principalities and almost photo-statehood both militarily and in regalia.

via UAPP Brno



9 comments:

  1. Could be a highly significant discovery, given the likely age, conditions and location of the graves.

    The other early Unetice princely sample in that region RISE431 bore a distinctive Eastern aDNA profile without Steppe signature which later appeared all over Europe, and (rarely for that time) had lactase persistence.

    I hope they carry out and publish a full analysis of the DNA.

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    1. All Unetice culture samples have plenty of steppe ancestry you idiot.

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  2. What earlier evidence is there of the use of crowns by European or Steppe elites?
    I'm aware of a golden crown found in a Varna grave.

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    1. About this same time in SE Spain there is the El Argar Culture which is also highly complex, probably a proto-state.
      A famous example is an important woman who wore a bronze tiara. Also recently there was an article (or paper) regarding a "court" in essentially a castle. https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2014/10/government-seat-of-el-argar-discovered.html

      Not too much of a stretch to think this is also an early example of European kingdoms forming. Certainly its beginning sputters routinely with Bronze Age chaos, but I think the evidence speaks for itself.

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  3. Iberian Bronze Agers bear what Olaide 2019 identifies as "ancestry derived from Central European Beaker/Bronze Age populations". However, this conflates two differing populations. The additional ancestry looks derived almost entirely from Central European Bronze Agers (Unetice) whom Olaide itself demonstrates only rose to predominance in Iberia around 1,800 BC (after Beaker had ended).
    The other good fit for Iberia Bronze Age newcomers is Austrian Neolithic (Otzi), so both aDNA components suggest a likely Moravian/Austrian point of origin for these Bronze Age newcomers.

    The stately. crown-wearing cultures of the Central European and Iberian Bronze Ages reinforce this link.

    (In my view, both ultimately look to derive from Varna.)

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  4. So what was the linguistic affiliation of the Unetice culture?

    Celtic? Italo-Celtic? Something else?

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  5. Perhaps Balto-Slavic?

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  6. Yes, I would even say likely Balto-Slavic, as the genetic profiles of Czechs, Poles and Lithuanians each look heavily (>75%) derived from Unetice.

    It is rare to find modern populations that so closely match a single culture from the Bronze Age. So if there appears little genetic admixture with other populations, I would suggest it is likely that there was little linguistic influence from other populations too.

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    1. So how do Unetice and the Bronze Age collapse cultures of the West that follow it, which are often associated with Celtic, relate to each other?

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