Democritus Reformatorium Prehistoric Tribes

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Tribal groups in Ancient Roman Hispania

Clickable terms are red on yellow background

Map 36. The racial varieties of the Iberian Peninsula (after Biasutti)

Bell-Beaker Folk. The Nordic blond-haired stock was represented by the Franco-Swabian dolicho-cephalous tribes of tall robust stature and light yellow complexion. Archaeologists knew them as bearers of the Beaker Folk culture with campaniform pottery. They had a colony in the Portuguese Muge culture (8,000 BC) with shell middens on littoral sand-dunes. Beachcombing and search for shellfish, molluscs, oysters and frog legs provided them with the ignoble repute of ‘frog-eaters’.

The Iberian Muge culture (8000-4000 BC) was first unearthed from shell midden sites in the lower valley of the Tagus River northeast of Lisbon in 1863. The remains of 200 burials allowed A. A. Mendes Correia ¹ to generalise their osteal cranial skeletons as a special anthropological type called Homo afer, var. taganus. It was remarkable for tall stature and dolichocephalic cranial remains with an elongated head shape. The attribute afer expressed his belief that it descended from Negroid longheaded types of Africa. The Muge or Mugem complex was called also Tajo culture owing to its sites on the banks of Tagus-Tajo river. It continued northward along coastlines with the Asturian littoral culture. It was remarkable for heaps of shell midden called concheros. They resembled Danish køkken-møddinger and French escargotiers. Tribes of Brazilian littoralists of Macro-Gê family left behind shell midden dumps called conchales or sambaquis.

Later this culture gave rise to the Bell-Beaker Folk culture (2900–1800 BC) that bore conspicuous resemblance to finds of the Indo-European Corded ware. Its Portuguese name was cultura do vaso campaniforme and it showed marked correlation with African littoral cultures. Their migration travels, however, pursued an opposite direction, they spread from Gibraltar to the Gulf of Guinea and from here to Angola and South Africa. Their Europoid origin was confirmed by ethnologists, who noticed that Angola and its Congo estuary was visited by a race of surprisingly white-skinned people.¹

Gothids. The real Celts did not play the decisive administrative and military role in prehistoric Iberia, since this was firmly held by Ugrids (Ogres, Basques, Scots) and later by Hallstattian Sarmatids (Boii, Volcae, Yasi). The supremacy of the Bronze Age round-headed Ogres influenced also subdominant cultures of Europids and Mediterranids. The genuine Indo-Europeans were tribes of long-headed Gothic, Frisian, Franconian and Swabian Littoralids. They adopted the Basque custom of burying the dead in round cupola-shaped cairns remarkable for round short-headed skulls. British and Scandinavian Gothoids imitated their round barrows by building long barrows, which gave rise to Thurnam’s saying: “long barrows, long skulls; round barrows, round heads.”² These subterranean constructions served also as collective shelters for great families and a substitution for their traditional longhouses. Archaeologists date long barrows to 5,500 BP but their resemblance to American Atlantic long barrows and earth lodges with long-headed skeletons implies that they may have appeared in the late Mesolithic era. Earlier dating would make it possible to compare them to the Mesolithic Campignian, Asturian, Muge and Larne-Oban cultures. These groups probably belonged to the Y-haplotype I1-M253 and pointed to the common starting-point of Gothoid Littoralids, whose ethnicity can bear the labels of Britons and the Brittonic family. The Britons acted as the IE core of Celtic tribes before the invasion of Anglo-Saxons and anticipated their racial lineage and ethnic customs.

Berids. Bertil Lundman ³ introduced a special racial variety of Berids for ‘small-bodied dolichocephalics’, who probably arose as a result of Alpinisation of Nordic Littoralids of the Muge type. They bore typical Gothonic traits such as rectangular orbits, keeled vault, eminent glabella, dolichocephalic skulls and heavy muscular body. Yet owing to Alpinoid environment they exhibited shorter stature, low face and rugged appearance. The French anthropologist R. Riquet classified them as ‘Méditerranoïdes archéomorphes’ and included them into one larger grouping together with the Tage-Mugem types in Spain, Aquitanians and the Brittanic Téviec and Hoediec in western France.⁴

Another approach to the issue of Iberian short-statured dolichocephals is demonstrated by Joseph Deniker. He proposed to treat them as a sort of the Ibero-Insular race. A more common term for their group is the true West-Mediterranean race or Atlanto-Mediterranid race. Such terms for hybrid mesoraces are holistic hold-all phrases for recent racial phenotypes that originated by intermingling definite Mesolithic and Neolithic Gothoid archetype with allotypes adding admixture from their surrounding neighbourhood. A convenient solution is offered by the method that subtracts all incompatible additions and leaves alone the archetype eteo-race.

Gracile Mediterranids. The term of Mediterranids itself makes sense only if we separate Tungusoid Leptolithic and Turanid Microlithic cultures in the Mediterranean area. Both evolved from the stock of Altaic nomadic fishers called Denisovans or Early Gracile Neanderthals ⁵. Their older Tungusoid branch consisted from gracile lake-dwellers with long prismatic blades and knives, their younger Turanid branch specialised in producing small flakes inlaid into bone hafts. Iberian anthropology is confused by subtle detailed differences between Gracile and Atlantic Mediterranids, Trans Mediterranids, Dinaromediterranids and Eurafricanids. The Eurafricanids are regarded as an African subtype of Atlanto-Mediterranids and the Trans Mediterranids are elucidated as an intermediate type between Euafricanids and Gracile Mediterranids. Dinaromediterranids are rated as an intermediate ‘mesorace’ exhibiting Dinaric traits among Mediterranids. Their distinguishing markers are mostly secondary and obscure their taxonomy:

* Atlantic Mediterranids are Nordic Franco-Swabian Litteralids descending from the Beaker Folk.

* Trans Mediterranids are descendants of Pelasgoid Iberomaurusians (25,000 BP) and Cyrenaic Dabban culture (38,000 BC) and their sites range from Egypt to Algeria and south Spain.

* Eurafricanids are harbingers of Turanid microlith cultures embodied by the North African Capsians (8,000 BC), Hebrew Natufians and East African Iberians.

* Dinaromediterranids are a mixture of gracile Epi-Cardial Pelasgids and Dinaro-Armenids with prominent convex and leptorrhine noses.

Such a conglutination of racial categories can be disentangled only by reducing their complex to Gracile Mediterranids split into two remotely related lineages: darker Epi-Cardial Pelasgoids and lighter Epi-Aurignacian Tungids. Gracile Mediterranids display facial appearance with subtle, soft and gracile features. They are of medium or shorter height and exhibit mesocephalic cranium with a narrow leptoprosopic face. Their nose is as narrow as is common in hyperleptorrhine types. Their most conspicuous traits are small hands and feet.

Holistic approaches rate Mediterranids as a unique compact synchronic unity without realising that they contain several incompatible ethnic components. Their living progeny represents a hybrid hold-all abstraction composed from incongruous diluted remains of prehistoric populations. The ultimate goal of anthropology is to decompose them to elements corresponding to stocks of Palaeolithic ancestors. The core of Mediterranids is formed by two races of nomadic fishers, Aurignacian Tungids with Leptolithic industry and Madgalenian Turanids with Microlithic implements. Aurignacian Tungids have survived in a patent form in Polonians and Bulgarians. In a latent form they were absorbed in Chasséen people and La Tène tribes. Most of them exhibit gracile and slender appearance with whitish complexion.

Pelasgids. A special category of Gracile Mediterranids should be reserved for Epi-Cardinal Pelasgids. Their Y-haplogroup T is a Euro-African predecessor of the Tungusoid haplotype C and seems to date back to Levalloisian origins. They must have survived latently in their early ancestors known for manufacturing knapped flakes from a well-prepared platform. Their southern tribesmen colonised coastlines of North Africa as Iberomaurusians, while their Epi-Cardial brothers lined the northern Mediterranean coasts as Pelasgoid ‘Sea People’. Such taxonomic terms were anticipated by J. B. Fischer, who summed Mediterranids up in the category of Homo sapiens pelagius.1 Pelasgids descended from Lydia and Palestine and favoured a row alignment of conical roundhouses. In the Bronze Age their western seaside hosts were subdued to the Scoto-Basque megalith-builders who taught them to erect alignments of standing stones and menhirs. They always used to bury their dead heroes in pitgraves with stellae but Scoto-Baskids inspired them to rear rows of tall standing menhirs. Where the genuine megalith-builders constructed circular henges and ‘round tables’, Pelasgids favoured linear alleys of menhirs and row alignments of standing stones.

Elamitoid Bull-Leapers. Andalusian farmers on the Iberian peninsula were not kneaded out of the same dough as the Neolithic Dannubian agriculturalists but descended from oriental rootage. They did not inherit the Central European traditions of the Linear Band Ware but profiled as heirs of Anatolian field-cultivators. They showed consanguinity to the stock of oriental Elamitoid peoples, who lived along the long belt of arid dryland regions spanning from Asia Minor to India. Their cultural morphology reflected arid dry-land cultivation with inevitable irrigation and other methods of watering. Their common characteristic traits were flat-roofed multicellular houses on artificial elevated mounds.

The Spanish invention of agriculture probably drew inspiration from Africa but its penetration was not possible without local populations of autochthonous Acheulean plant-gatherers. They welcomed progress in tilling the land because they relied on vegetal sustenance and possessed innate preagriculturalist dispositions. The advent of the Neolithic agriculturalist technocomplex La Almagra (6,000 BC) may be explained as an import from the Iberomaurusian culture in North Africa. Its name suggested almagra ‘red ochre’ and derived from the production of red pottery. It was painted by special ochre dye appreciated by tribes of Tungids as a sacral blessing. Spanish links with oriental agrarian cultures were manifested in the cult of bovine divinities associated with bull-fighting, bull leaping and bull running known from Pamplona festivals. The bull embodied the supreme celestial deity identical to the Greek Zeus residing on the sacred mountain Olympos.

Iberids. The ancient as well as modern racial dominant of Spain is disclosed in the Mediterranids of Magdalenian origin. Mesolithic Microlithic cultures drifted from Central Asia in several streams. The first was probably due to the Janislawice complex and the Périgordian culture (30,000 BP) that was probably responsible for the early spread of microblade technology and knife-throwing weapons. They were hypothetically bearers of the Y-group R*-M173 peculiar also to Australian boomerang-throwers. The second wave brought the influx of Magdalenian cave-dwellers (17,000 BP) famous for their rock art and cave paintings. The third colonisation of Mesolithic Turcoids was announced by the Maglemosian bog people (9,000 BC). It comprised fishers who discovered gigging and harpooned fish with spears that had several prongs at the end. Maglemosian tribes could be identified with Cimbri and Ambrones, while Magdalenian reindeer hunters fell in with Eburones, Eburovices, Iberians and Welsh Cumbri. These ethnonyms were associated with the Pontic Kimmerians by adding r-plurals to the original root Hun or Cum. They earned living as pirates ambushing on cliffs of narrow straits, cut the seafaring passers-by’s throats and cashed up their treasures with precious metals. This is how the Cimbric inhabitants of ancient Cumae near Naples in Italy filled their caskets with gold. They were all united by microlith implements inserted into a wooden haft used as a cutting or throwing weapon.

Magdalenian, Turcoid and Iberian cultural morphology

Traditional architecture: rock shelters, rock-cut graves, caves, cave art, petroglyphs

Epi-Magdalenian, Epi-Azilian and Epi-Tardenoisian Turcoid languages: [Raetian – Etruscan – Umbrian – Sicilian] + [Iberian – Celtiberian – Cantabrian] + [Punian – Tartesian – Turdetanian – Turdulian] + [Ivernic (Ireland) – Cumbric/Cymraeg (Wales) – Humber (Northumbria)]

Eteo-Iberids (Madgalenian rock shelters, goat-keepers) → Iberi + Celtiberi + Germani + Tavri

Etruscoids (funeral rock-cut necropoleis) → Raetians + Etruscans + Umbrians + Sicilians

Epi-Azilians (cave-abodes, rock shelters, cave art) → Cantabri + Turmodigi + Concani + Artabri + Cileni

Punids (rock-cut graves) → Punici + Poeni + Tartesani + Turdetani + Turduli + Cunetes + Counei

Table 40. The disambiguation of Mesolithic microlith cultures

Tardenoisians. When we exempt Tungusoids out of the large catch-all term of Mediterranids, we get Altaic Turanids of three lineages: Maglemosian bog-people (Y-hg R1a), Etruscoid and Punoid coastlanders and Magdalenian reindeer hunters (Y-hg R1b). In the Neolithic the former two tribal branches passed from fishing to seafaring, while the third group of Magdalenian and Azilian drylanders switched from reindeer hunting reindeer to goat keeping. The hordes of Mediterranean Etruscoid coastlanders probably recruited from the Tardenoisian culture (cca 8000 BC). It did not occupy connected dryland plantations but joined isolated islets of fishermen’s colonies. They crisscrossed the Mediterranean Sea, sailed along the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea and cruised from the prehistoric seats of Etruria as far as Sicily. Their populations were united by the Etruscan haplogroup R1b-U152, whose occurrence in Spain is confined only to Catalania. The high occurrence of the haplogroup R1b-U152 in Italy, Etruria and Sicily proves that the origins for Etruscan and Sicilian pirates can be due to Tardenoisians dated back to cca 8000 BC. Punoids were their close brothers but came later cca 800 BC. This fact does not exclude that their progenitors sailed in Ligurian waters a few millennia earlier.

Rock-cut necropoleis were built in native Etruscan centre Cerveteri as well as in Sicilian Pantalica. Their architectonical style originated in Abydos in Upper Egypt and from here it spread to the west. Abydos served as a necropolis of Upper Egyptian and Nubian dynasties that were related to the Semitic Ichthyophages fishing on the Red Sea. Punic seafarers sought out seaside rock shelters and straits full of reefs and crags. The ancient world knew them as dangerous pirates and ‘sea peoples’ (peuples de la mer), who assaulted ships of peaceful merchants. The bloom of Phoenician and Punic naval colonisation is dated to the 8^th century BC but revived colonies of earlier ancestors. On the Iberian Peninsula it came across the tribes of Iberi and Celtiberi, dryland goat-herders, who descended from Magdalenian and Azilian reindeer hunters. Both groups underwent gradual Celtisation without losing their ethnic identity.

Punids. Phoenicians resembled Etruscans by their addiction to seafaring in naval piracy but got hold of colonies in southwestern Iberia as late as 800 BC. Their people were referred to as Turduli, Turdetani and Tartesani and huddled around their cultic centre in the semi-mythical harbour Tartessos. This locality served as the seat of a large Phoenician necropolis with rock-cut graves. It became a synonym of Phoenician hell and the final destination of the dead on their voyage through the underworld. Tartessian colonies extended from Gibraltar along the Portuguese coast as far as Cantabria.

†Atlanto-Mediterranids. One of confusing misnomers are Atlanto-Mediterranids because their group arose from the Franco-Swabian Littoral Nordids and had nothing in common with Epi-Cardial and Epi-Magdalenian Mediterranids. Their core consisted of Europoid dolichocephals in contrast to the genuine Mediterranids who were composed of Altaic mesocephals. When Carleton S. Coon defined Atlanto-Mediterranids, he wrote: “The face is of medium length and of moderate width; the orbits are of medium dimensions, and in many instances slope downward and outward, as if the confines of the face were too narrow for them.” He mentioned their mesocephaly and compared them to tribes burying their dead in long barrows. He obviously took over Joseph Deniker’s term ‘race littorale au atlanto-méditerranéene’, which actually applied to the Muge culture of shell midden and ancestors of the Bell-Beaker Folk.

Extract from Pavel Bělíček: The Analytic Survey of European Anthropology, Prague 2018, pp. 127-136.