Democritus Reformatorium Prehistoric Tribes

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The tribes of ancient Gallia

The clickable terms are red on the yellow background

Ancient Gauls

(from P. Bělíček: The Analytic Survey of European Anthropology, 2018, p. 126)

Map 32. Racial map of Europe (coloured after Joseph Deniker)

Legend to Map 32:

Nordique et Sub-Nordique race – Juto-Frisian Gothids (Nordids), Angles, Saxons, Prussians

Littorale ou Méditerranéene race – Franco-Swabian Littoralids or Franco-Gothids (Sub-Nordids)

Ibéro-Insulaire race – Mediterranids, Ibero-Turanids, Magdalenian microlithic culture

Nord-Occidentale race – Maglemosian Cimbrids and Teutonids (mixed with Belgae and Aurignacoids)

Orientale race – Eastern Mediterranids, Pontids, Ladogans, Polanids, Karelians, Euro-Tungids

Orientale Finnoise race – Uralids, Estomarids, Comb Ware cultures

Occidentale ou Cévenole race – Alpinids, Alpines, Gaelids, Gallids, Slavids

Lapons-Samoyeds – Saami race, Lapplanders, Samoyeds

Adriatique ou Dinarique race – Dinarids, Baskids, Scythids, Balkan Moesids, Hügelgräberkultur

Vistulienne race – Vistulians, Globular Ware culture, Baltic Megalithic, Baltic Scythids

Sub-Adriatique race – Noric and Hallstatt race, Sarmatids, la race aryenne

Turco-Mongols – Turanids, eastern microlithic cultures

Tab 33. The distribution of races in France (after G. Montadon)

The Archaeological Disambiguation of Ancient Romance Tribes

The complex of Romance peoples calls for a detailed dissection that might elucidate the anatomy of their inner ethnic factions. The very term ‘Romance’ is a controversial misnomer because its originators were the Roman Marsi, Sabini and Samnites, who descended from the Hallstatt horseback riders of Sarmatian origin. They imported the advanced Iron Age metallurgy to Noricum and spread its use also to southern Italic provinces. After winning privileged position in Latium, they took hold of entire Italy and finally they extended their boundaries to the huge complex of the Roman Empire. Such incredible feats permitted to install the Latin written standard in all provinces and create the false illusion of the compact Romance family. Paradoxically, the Hallstatt newcomers were the last to arrive but the first to claim all casteist privileges. Their administrative power relied on the military skills of Hallstatt ancestors, who imported inventions of horse-riding cavalry from Asiatic steppes to Danubian grasslands. Other advancements included horse-drawn two-wheeled chariots, iron swords and fortified oppida. Their main linguistic contribution consisted in infiltrating IE languages with Sarmatic analytic perfect tenses composed from auxiliaries and participles.

Hallstatt Sarmatids were not populous enough to give the IE language structures a definite Iranian and Uralic stamp, and so they were soon outnumbered by Gallic Celts and Iberian Mediterranids. As a result, in Italic, Gallic and Iberian languages the strong Celtic element prevails over Sarmatic peculiarities. When we abandon the pointless concept of the Romance family, it may be replaced by more suitable terms of Gallo-Romans of Tardigravettian origin. Its complex may however be analysed also as a part of the Epi-Aterian family or Epi-Magdalenian domain. Arguments for the former solution are that Arabic, Iberian and Italic languages group share one category of determination with very similar systems of definite and indefinite articles: French le, la – un, une and Italic il, lo – uno as compared to Arabic al- or el – -n. Articles represented a typical non-IE import of European Bascoid megalith-builders, who shared k-plurals and definite articles in -k with Abkhaz kurgan-builders.

Epi-Aterians. The idea of Epi-Aterian family or Basco-Scottish family is based on the structural unity of West-European megalith cultures, whose patterns were closely associated with the Berber megalithic complex in North Africa. Most archaeologists opine that the occurrence of megalithic constructions was promoted by the spread of a new giant race during the Chalcolithic Copper Age (4500–1500 BC). An earlier dating is however suspected and documented by its exhibits in the Anatolian Mesolithic site Göbekli Tepe (9500 BC) or the Israelite Early Neolithic complex Atlit Yam (7000 BC). Anatolian finds show a fluent continuation in artifacts of Greek Mycenaenan Cyclopes and in the Bronze Age tumuli cultures. They range from Moesia to South Bohemia, Bavaria and the Mosellians complex in North France. Their common denominator is today seen in the tall brachycephalic and large-headed race of Dinarids. Archaeological evidence ballots for two eventualities. One alternative assumes that Tumuli-Grave cultures with cupolar mounds represent a continuation of Mycenaean expansion (1600 BC – 1100 BC) in Anatolia and Greece. It hypothesises that it appeared as a second wave of Cyclopean constructions following after the first wave triggered about 3200 BC. Its numerous offshoots include the Balkan tumulus culture and also the Unětice culture in Central Europe.

Another viewpoint open to disputes speculates that the Chalcolithic megalithic builders may be remote descendants of the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician, Solutrean, Aterian, Szeletian people of Mousterian origin. They lived in caves, applied leaf-shaped lance-heads and buried the dead under piles of stones in front of their cave abodes. These cavemen were immiserated hosts of mammoth-hunters who wandered in quest for their herds to Siberia and later also to the New World. Nonetheless, their remains persisted in small numbers also in ancient Eurasian settlements. The revolutionary transition to pastoralism and cattle herding promoted them to higher level and inspired them to a new blooming revival. Such a look at prehistoric events allows us to synthesise diffusion with survival theories. It admits that the Balkan Dinarids were actually Moesids who transplanted genes of Epi-Szeletian ancestors with new Neolithic descendant striving for new reactivation.

Mario Alinei’s Palaeolithic Survival theories have breathed new life into diffusionist thought and make it possible to link prehistoric ancestors with modern survivors. They consider links between Aterians (30,000 BC), Basques and Berbers, who developed similar leaf-shaped lance-heads and funeral architecture with round dome-shaped mounds. Leaf-shaped points were cultivated also by Solutrean horse-hunters (18,000 BC) and flourished also in Lincombian, Ranisian and Jerzmanowician sites (43,000 BC) in North Europe. Bronze Age metallurgy was a new invention but megalith constructions were a new derivate of earlier pile-burials common in Transvaal and Namibia. They provided big-game hunters with permanent postmortal stone shelters for tribal chieftains and high dignitaries. Their burial tombs persisted for long ages while their commoners had to do with poor miserable beehive huts from straw and after death they slumbered in simple pile-tombs from stones.

The predecessors of western megalith-builders may have colonised their Atlantic sites in waves of several prehistoric colonisations:

* Aterian (c. 145,000 BP – 30,000 BP) was a Middle Stone Age industry jutting out of North Africa to Iberia. It was characterised by leaf-shaped bifaces and tanged, pedunculated points.

* Mousterians (70,000 BP) represented a Neanderthal culture extending from western France to its centre in the Pyrenees and occupied sites scattered along the southeast coastlines of Spain. They produced bifacially-worked leaf-shaped tools, retouched lance-heads and racloir scrapers.

* Châtelperronian (44,500 – 36,000 BP) was formed by a Mousteroid culture of denticulate tools that were situated in Catalonia and the Cantabrian region in northern Iberia.

* Solutrean (22,000 BP), a culture of horse hunters with leaf-shaped and pressure-flaked industry. It was located in western France and from here it ran out to the Pyrenees and coastlines of southeast Spain.

* The advent of the La Hoguette megalithic culture (4900 BC) in Brittany.

* The Andalusian Neolithic (c. 4800 BC) introduced the first dolmen tombs in southeast Iberia.

* The Chalcolithic Almerian culture (3600 BC) with megalith constructions that were lining the eastern coasts of Spain as far as the Pyrenees and influenced also the Balearic Islands.

* The Los Millares culture (2900 BC) developed a higher stage of the Almerian tradition of megalith-building architecture as its direct descendant. It prided on large concentric cupola-shaped mounds.

* The VNSP or Castro of Vila Nova de São Pedro culture (2700 BC) exhibited the mainstream of Iberian megalithic cultures importing the typical castro type of fortified oppida. Its architecture gave preference to circular roundhouses with round walls roofed by conical wooden construction.

* The nuraghe (Sardininia, 1900 BC) and talaiot (Menorca, Mallorca, c. 1200 BC) continued the West-European megalithic tradition of Scottish broch castles and cairn-burials.

Franco-Swabian Dolichocephalous Littoralids

Franco-Swabian dolichocephals. As far as populousness is concerned, the second position in the census of Gallia was held by the Nordic blond-haired stock of Franco-Swabians. Montandon called them ‘Littoralists’ but conceived this category inclusive of Epi-Cardial fishers. The genuine Franco-Swabians originated from the chalcolithic dolichocephalous Beaker Folk of tall robust stature and light yellow complexion. Owing to contact with Epi-Cardial colonies, Spaniards are today classified as moderate long-heads with cephalic indices below 78.9. Since the Beaker Folk in France was overpopulated by Alpinids, its modern descendants got into the zone of mesocephaly reaching the cephalic level of 82.9. Archaeologists seek their ancestors in cultures of bell-beakers and campaniform pottery. Their pottery-oriented approach omits to notice that their predecessors must have been Asturian and Campignian Littoralids, who are often mistaken with Epi-Aurignacian and Epi-Cardial Mediterranids.

Campignian Littoralids. Epi-Aurignacian fishers searched for lakes in lacustrine localities and plain depressions below sea level, whereas Epi-Cardial fishers contented themselves with seaside deep water shores suitable for harbours. Cimbrian, Etruscan and Punic pirates preferred rocky cliff-dwellings along narrow straits and dolichocephalous Littoralids favoured sand dune beaches full of washed-up shellfish. Archaeologists pay less heed to their Late Mesolithic predecessors denoted as Campignians (12,000 BP). Their type site was situated in Le Campigny along the Seine Inférieure.1 Its nearest relatives were found in the Asturian culture (9280 BP) settled in Eastern Austuria and Western Cantabria. Asturian sites were linked with the contemporary Muge culture in the Tagus Valley in Portugal. Both localities were noticeable for finds of pick-axes, whose heads were attached in a perpendicular direction to the handle. Another typical product of Campignians was the large hand-axe that gave them the nickname of ‘men of the halberd’.2 The second phase of the Campignian civilisation is referred to as Robenhausean culture. Its typical left-overs were shell-middens, known as kjökkenmöddinger in Denmark in Spain and as concheros in Spain. They looked like heaps of waste and kitchen refuse thrown out of windows of longhouses. Its debris were piled up and formed mounds of sand dunes dubbed as ‘raised beach’. This life-style characterised them as beachcombers and shellfish eaters. Their northern outposts were excavated in the Nøstvit culture near Antrim beech in south Norway. Their westernmost seats were dug up in the Raised Beach of the Irish Larne culture1 and the nearby Magee Island.

The inner taxonomy of Gothoid tribes may be set up by using data of population genetics. According to the high rates of the Y-DNA haplogroups I1 and I2 in Map 34, it is possible to distinguish several filial plantations of Neolithic farmers with the Y-haplotype I. Their leading dominant was formed by the Danubian Linear Band Culture with the haplotype I2. Its people managed to avoid Germanisation brought about the avalanche of Tardenoisian and Beuronian microlithic cultures from the east. They were IE Gothids preserved under the umbrella of Slavonic Subnordids. Their fraternal civilisations with the Y-DNA J operated in southern Spain, France, Italy and Greece. Their cultures were created by the oriental Elamitoid Gothonids with bovine cults, bull-fighting rites and flat-roof labyrinths.

The Phenotypes of Racial Groups in France

French anthropology was studied in detail by the famous naturalist Joseph Deniker of Russian origin. He opposed racism and proposed to treat races as equal nationalities and ethnic tribes. In his Races et peuples de la terre (1900) he classified Iberian Mediterranids as race ibéro-insulaire, Alpinids as race cévenole and Franco-Swabians on coastlines of the Balearic and Ligurian Sea as race littorale or Atlanto-Méditerranéene race. Moreover, he recognised brachycephalous Dinarids as adriatiques and people of Germany as sub-adriatiques. In contrast to them people in northern Europe featured as race nordique and sub-nordique (Map 32). His democratic views and ardour for anthropologie scientifique were attacked by the Swiss racist and antisemitist anthropologist George Montadon. His distribution of French racial groupings is sketched briefly by Map 33. He divided race blonde into sous-race nordique and subnordique, race alp-arménienne into sous-race dinarique and alpine. His race méditerranéene fell into three subtypes: race ibéro-insulaire, littorale and special groupe somatique basque.

Epi-Cardial Fishers. The southern parts of France were settled by two distinct races of Mediterranids. The western regions belonged to Iberians with artificial rock-cut galleries, while the southern Mediterranean coastlines were inhabited by descendants of the Impressed Cardial Ware of Pelasgoid origin. Montandon incorrectly calls them ‘Littoralists’, which led to confusing the mesocephalous ‘Sea Peoples’ and dolichocephalous Beachcombers. Pelasgoid ‘Sea Peoples’ were maritime fishers, whose settlements lined northern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea from the Hamangia culture in Romania to La Almagra culture in Spain. Their original waterside habitus characterised them as either inland lacustrine lake-dwellers or seaside mariners. They were known as short slim gracile people with high skulls, small hands and feet. Their abodes differed from the rectangular post-dwellings of their remote Aurignacian brothers by the architectural style of conical rondavels. Epi-Cardial civilisations occupied the northern coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea and had a natural homeland in the Byblos cultural centre and Palestine. Nevertheless, their South-European branch looked as a natural continuation of East-African Kafrids inhabiting similar conical rondavels.

Epi-Aurignacian Mediterranids. Descendants of Aurignacian colonisations differed from the Epi-Cardial progeny by constructing rectangular stilt-huts and post-dwellings. Such a rectangular make-up characterised especially the Chasséen complex (4500-3500 BC). It got its name from the type site near Chassey-le-Camp in the Saône-et-Loire department. Its architecture with dammed settlements on vertical piers and platforms on horizontal trunks looked similar to two contemporary Swiss groups: the Cortaillod Culture (4300-3900 BC) in the west and the Pfyn assemblage (3900-3500 BC) in the east. Their daugherly derivations appeared in the Lombardian and Venetian Polada culture (2200 to 1500 BC). Its younger continuation loomed in the Terramare technocomplex (1700-1150 BC) in the Emilia-Romagna region along the the central Po valley. Their hair, eyes and skin are visibly lighter than in Epi-Cardial types. What unites them is a slender leptosome constitution, tall-headed skull and and leptorrine noses.

Bell-Beaker Folk. Campignian shell-fish eaters later turned into the culturally advanced Bell-Beaker Folk and Franco-Swabian frog-eaters. Their seats and travels are sketched in Map 31. It illustrates the spread of the Beaker Folk by terms of chronological data in violet colour. In addition, it matches its tribal colonies (orange colour) with ethnonymic groupings recorded in maps by Ancient Roman geographers (black colour). The Beaker Folk lived in long communal houses and excelled in high maritime mobility. Their beachcombing life-style promulgated the Gothoid white-skinned race and campaniforme pottery along the eastern coastline of African as far the Cap of God Hope. About 2500 BC their hosts landed on the British Isles and installed a local littoral tradition here. They seem to be identifiable with the Brigantes, who were centred in Brigantia in North England, today renamed as Yorkshire. Moreover, they had relatives in the Brigantes of south Ireland and fraternal links with several tribes in Gallia. One of them resided in the ancient Austrian Brigantium (now Bregenz).

Trichterbecherkultur. The Beaker Folk settlements often ran across the sites of the Funnelbeaker culture (Trichterbecherkultur, 4300 BC) in North Europe. Its core seems to have grown out of the local Gothoid handaxe traditions and suggests association with the Rugians. Their ceramic style was soon affected by the influx of megalithic dolmen burials inspired by techniques of the Globular Ware pottery. Its main tribal branches are linked with ancient Rugii and Pomeranian Rugini. In Britain they left several promising ethnonyms such as Ragae and Rigodunum. Since their phratries often included the tribes of Senones, they may be associated with the British Cenimagmi. One of their affiliated clans resided also in the Seine-et-Marne department.

Megalith mounds have to be considered as a higher stage of simple pile-burials and straw beehive huts in the period when Scythoid chieftains began to subdue neighbouring tribes and acquire greater social influence. They spread from Andalusia to Brittany and later also to North Germany. At that time North Europe was occupied by the Funnel Beaker culture (Trichterbecherkultur, 4000-3300) BC) without megalithic constructions. After their arrival from the south the typical beaker pottery was infiltrated by amphorae produced by megalithic builders. A sound judgment recommends us to attribute funnel beakers to Gothoids and amphorae to megalith-building Scythoids.

Campignian Littoralids. The first Gothids with the Y-haplogroup I1 came to Iberia with the Beaker Folk culture (c. 2900 BC). They were remarkable for campaniform, bell-shaped drinking vessels. Their original birthplace was in the Netherlands and had much to do with the Franco-Swabian lineage of European axe-tool makers. Around 2800–2700 BC a prominent centre of Beaker Folk culture appeared in Portugal and along the Tagus valley. Both sites seem to have had predecessors in the Mesolithic shellfish-eaters, who lived on seaside dunes as beachcombers and left behind heaps of kitchen shell midden. In France they formed the technocomplex of the Campignian culture (10,000 BC) that jutted out to Denmark in assemblages of kjökkenmöddinger. The same date is ascribed also to the Muge Culture (10,000 BC), its Portuguese variant in the Tagus valley.

(Extract from P. Bělíček: The Analytic Survey of European Anthropology, 2018, p. 118-126)

1 L.-R. Nougier: Les Civilisations campigniennes en Europe occidentale. Le Mans, 1950.

2 R.A.S. Macalister: Men of the Halberd, chapter in his Ancient Ireland: A Study in the Lessons of Archaeology and History. London: Routledge, 2016.

1 C. Blake Whelan: Studies in the Significance of the Irish Stone Age: The Campignian Question. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature. Vol. 42, 1934/1935, pp. 121-143.