Baltic Sea: People, Geography, and Prehistory

    The People, The Land, and the Sea

 Toward an Exploration of Baltic pre-History

 A bit of geography. 

                    The Baltic Sea has been a tremendously important feature on the face of the Earth and on the course of our history. It has been called a brackish  inland sea the geological history of which is unclear. The surrounding territory has been said to have been populated Scythian and Slave and an indefinite people called Celts. Their cultures are said to have been influenced by their geography a lot of human migration, and by Amber. I am about to write just a bit about the geography of the area. I haven't chosen a map, but you may find any map of the Sea which includes some of the surroundings land could be useful and even interesting to you as we begin to explore the area.

                    This inland sea is marginal to the Atlantic Ocean at its northeast margin. It might be said to face west. This Baltic Sea drains into the Atlantic  through the Danish Straights by way of the Kattegat, Great belt and the Little Belt. The Sea includes geographic features such as the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdansk.

                    Kattegat is a area of shallow sea bounded by the the Jutlandic peninsula in the west, the Danish straights and the Baltic sea to the south, and the shore of Sweden to the east. Bothnia seems to have begun as an adjective referring to lowland shores. Even so, the Gulf of Bothnia is not shallow, but the land beneath it is rising from the release of its Ice Age burden of ice. It can still freeze over in the winter.

                    If you are dizzy from all the geographic references, take a look at the maps above. No need to worry as we go on our geographic orientation will improve. Take a breath there are more such references to come, but now with admixture of history and pre-history.

                    I still have more to learn geography to learn of the Bothnia Gulf, the gulf of Finland. If you know anything relating to the gulf of Bothnia, please tell us about it. I am fairly sure that it is important in the stories and histories of both Finland and Sweden.  A 15th century navigator may have referred to it as he Mare Gotticus. Ottar, a Viking age adventurer, in the 9th century may have referred to it as the Kven Sea.

 

                    Bothnia Bay may be though of as a northern extension of the gulf of Bothnia. Both Bay and Gulf still freeze over in the winter. 

Finland

                    The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost branch of the the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland on the north, Estonia on the south, and to Saint Petersburg, Russia in the east where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities on the present day gulf are Helsinki and Tallinn.

                    I am checking facts in Wikipedia here, but you can be fairly sure that errors are mine. Please note and/or correct them in the "comments" app below. You can make comments about content there too. 

                    In the post Ice Age of Finland the Gulf was preceded by the Littorina Sea. the level, of that sea was about 30 feet above present sea level. By some 4,000 years ago the Littorina sea had receded. 

Prehistory People                    

                    Archaeologist have found the lands along the Gulf of Finland began to be settled by about 9,000 BC, just after the last Ice Age. Coming back toward our days, as early as 1905, eleven Neolithic settlements had been found along the this gulf. Those settler have been referred to as survivors. Early culture on the lands around this gulf include: Finnic, Eesti, Votes/Chud, Izorians, and Korela.

                    We have begun to consider people! prehistoric people!

                    We have a lot to learn about people and little time to do it. There is considerable evidence that between about 700 AD to about 900 AD, East Slavs, Ilman Slavs, and Krivichs lived along the Neva river and the Gulf of Finland. The people of these cultures practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Between about 700 Ad and 1,200 AD the river Neva and the Gulf of Finland were an import part of the inland water way between Scandinavia and the Byzantine empire. From early times Norsemen practiced viking on these waterways.

                    From 850 AD when the Gulf was held by Russians and to 1229 when the Danes took control we begin to have much historic information available. during this period the city of Reval was established on what has become the area of Tallinn. There is a lot to find about this Baltic area.  Historic finds of the times after about 750 become more abundant. 

                    Tell me of your interests in the area and I will try to publish about them. Search History With RCS and it is possible you will find that I have already published something of interest.

Gulf of Riga

                    The gulf of Riga lies between Latvia and Estonia. We can learn more of this Gulf through a study of the histories and pre-histories of these two countries. A look at the histories of the cities of Riga, Parnu, Jumala, and Kuressaare could help too. If you would like me to publish a work of yours on these cities or counties tell me so and maybe we can work something out. I could live long enough to learn enough about their earliest days to write something, but probably won't.

            

Bay of Gdansk

                    Just now the Bay of Gdansk is taking my interest. It's history may include some of the histories of my Prussian , Polish and German ancestors. The  Vistula river flows into it. Some consider the Bay as widening to include Russia Kaliningrad and the coast of Lithuania. 

                    There be Kursenieki on this bay. They have been there long.. They call their language Curonian. Some see the language as related to Latvian. They have been called Prussian Latvians. They are a mystery to which their language may be a clue. They are certainly not a geographically isolated people. They are on a well visited sea coast and near the mouth of a long navigated river and so have seen much trade and commerce.

Geography

                    I am including a lot of geography in this little essay. As geography does affect culture, I am introducing the Baltic Sea ant its surroundings as a backdrop and the grounding for the people who have lived there. I also want you to know a local for the people and places I speak of.

Denmark and Jutes

                    Let me take you back to where Baltic waters meet the Atlantic waters near Denmark. Kattegat, the name of the little sea area near the Baltic entrance to the Atlantic, may be of Swedish origin, so we are near Sweden too. I seem to remember a queen Kattegat, This sea is certainly a place to be Scandinavian. The Jutlandic Peninsula juts out here. It is part of Jutland. Long ago this same peninsula was called the Cimbric or Cimbrian peninsula. Now it is part of Denmark; Jutes a and Cimbri used to live there.

                    Jutes have been named among powerful Germanic invaders of England. I might call them Scandinavians, or something else, but I have a lot to learn. It does seem that others have some confusion about the area, but there is a reason the peninsula is called Jute. There was much trade and commerce in the area before and after the Roman Empire. Anyway there that peninsula is, at the Kattegat Sea not very far from Denmark.

Cimbrian, Cimbri

                    Wait a minute, the Cimbri, an ancient people were also said to have lived on this peninsula. We humans do get around and it has been said that which  gets around goes around. What we have called the Jute peninsula has been called the Cimbrian peninsula. The Cimbri have been thought to be Gaulish or Celtic. Celtic to me has come to be much like German was to the Romans. Romans called everyone to the far west of them German. I of have yet to see good archaeological evidence or historical documentation of who the earlier inhabitants of the peninsula were.

                    It does seem that there is evidence of there being a long period of annual migrations from the Baltic area and England and Ireland to the Iberian peninsula and back with the seasons. That stirs the pot. It sounds right and amazing at the same time. There was even a  Cimbrian military expedition against 1st century Rome. Who were those Cimbrians? Could they have been some early Norsemen doing some large scale viking?

                    Some say that there were Belgians of Cimbrian origin, but I see no evidence for them being called Germans other than the Romans calling almost every one in the area German.

                    Did Cimbrians reach Ireland? How can we recognize or identify Cimbrians? I am not certain  what Celts were, but people whom seem a bit like Cimbrians, but were called Irish Celts, Joined Phoenicians to resist Rome.

                    Scythian has been called Cimerian. Are Cimerians, Cimbrians? I believe that Cimbrian were trading people and Scythians were great traders from before their Hellenization. Who can help me to get any of this straightened out?

                   The End. The end of this essay. I hope to learn more and to write more on these topics before I die. Please use the "comments'' section below to participate in the learning or writing. Blogs are useful for their interactivity.

                    On this same blog site check these posts:

                               

           

                   Thank you for reading.

                                                                                 rcs

                                                  

               

 

                 

Watson Break Mound Builders

A Vantage Point From  Which to Begin to View North American Pre-History

                I am using the Watson Break archaeological site as a beginning point to look at the prehistory of North America and at the people of that time. There is a lot to learn from what we learn about the pre-Columbian people of North America. This essay is a very brief  introduction to that which we are learning of these people.

History Can Provide Some Useful View Points

                With a bit of research we have learned from post-Columbian persons such as Hernando de Soto and his 1540 to 1542 travers of what is now the U.S. southeast and from other early Spanish visitors and colonists. They saw earthworks, many of which have been called mounds. We have also learn from the later French voyageurs and from men like the French artist wo saw Indian activity with an artistic eye, with perhaps, a view to later sales. A caption on a 1590 of his in what is now northeast Florida read, "Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it." His painting may have been exact, but his caption is likely to have been written with more humor than understanding. He saw mounds as did voyageurs and as did Spanish explorers, colonists and others.

                    The early Spanish and French who traveled up and down the Mississippi river and its large tributaries like the Missouri and Ohio rivers, one hundred and 200 years before the English, were privileged to see many mounds and other earth works still in use and cared for.

                    After about 1670 priests and others traveling the rivers were finding that most of the mounds were were becoming grown over with grass and some brush. However, some sites, like those at what was to become the present site of the U.S. city of saint Louis were still able to impress them. A very few, like those at Natchez were still occupied. So occupied that French colonists found it necessary to remove Indians by force.

                    Other information on Mound Builders may be gathered from writings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Haven, and John Wesley Powell. 

                    Archaeology has become an Important source of Information. Today archaeological sites, interpretation, and speculation is hot.

                    These days there is a great deal of fresh new archaeological information available. There is also more ethnological information available. You can find more interesting historical, archaeological, and pre-historic information here on this blogsite.

Watson Break Site

                    Some of the newer archaeological information deals with the Watson Break site. This site is in present da Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. It dates from what has been called the North American Archaic Period. What is now Ouachita Parish has been home to many succeeding Native American groups in the thousands of years before Europeans began to settle there. People of the Marksville culture, Troyville culture, Coles Creek culture, and Plaquemine culture built villages and earthwork mounds throughout the area. A notable example is the Filhiol Mound site located on a "natural" levee of the Ouachita river.

                    The name Ouachita is the Spanish version of the Indian people who lived in northeastern Louisiana along the Ouachita river and were known in the Ouachita mountains of the State of  Arkansas.

                    Watson Break earthworks date to about 5,400 BP, which is about 3,500 BC. The site seems to have been abandoned around 2,800 BC.

A Little About the People of Watson Break 

                    The arrangement of mounds at WB was constructed over centuries by what is thought to be a hunter harvester society. It is located near Watson Bayou.

in the flood plain of the Ouachita river. By the way, bayous might be constructs of Native Americans. The Break site consists of of eleven mounds connected by ridges and causeways to form a large oval, nearly 900 feet across. Researchers believe that it is older than the Poverty Point site. Poverty point is worth writing about. We can write about Poverty Point when you comment.

                    Watson Break people seems to have planned and organized work forces to accomplish their earthworks.

                    You can find more about  Native Americas on this blog and hope to publish more from time to time. You can tell me about content you would like to see here in "comments." I really like it when you offer help and suggestions. Have in mind that when you have corrections, additions, questions, or feel like making a comment, there is a ''comments'' app just below.

                    Thank you for reading!

                                                                                                rcs  

Rio Before 1900: A Pictorial History

It's all part of history: Informed speculation, peeks into the past, paintings, drawings, photographs, and history talk all centered on Rio before 1900.

Enjoy

                                                                                                                        rcs

Europeans, Vampires, Republicans, and Democrats.

                     Perhaps we are at the point of losing our right to take care of ourselves, which is our right to self-governance, because we do not know who we are. We do not know each other because we do not practice good organization and communication. While we do not talk among our selves well a co-operate well, how are we to know who we are? While we did not do well together that which we were doing together 40 years ago, and do not remember much of what we were doing 300 years ago, and practically less what was happening to us only 2,000 years ago, and are not even sure how we nearly lost it all, what Have we decided to do to take care of ourselves tomorrow? How do we intend to send to participate in our governance to give our next generation a good chance of surviving and thriving? Are we acting like we don't care or pleading ignorance?  I think that most of us do care most of the time. Ignorance is not an excuse. We mostly learn by doing and paying attention to that which we do. Let's do something now. We can attend to or doing and to the results and then use our observations to make our doings good. You and I do not have too much to do because their are millions to help us. We are the people. Even just you and I personally co-operating with 30 or 40 need not have much to do.

                    The more we are careless of ourselves the more we are likely to become slaves of a new kind. The kind that are not valued, even as slaves, because most no longer have any use for slaves. They become almost at type of sub-human who have not practiced self-governance and cannot even imagine self-governance, much less than practice it. I am talking about us. I still have some memory of an us which practiced much more civic organization and who, at least practiced local self governance, and some organization to protect ourselves from some of the natural depredations from farther afield. 

                    When we care so little for ourselves that we seem careless of ourselves, might not others finally take advantage of us, or just push aside from the goods of this world and Earth. We remembered ideas of fairness and justice and concepts of governance to support fairness and justice among us. We called those ideas republicanism and democracy and loved them enough to pay dearly for them. Many of us did much toward the development of democratic republics.

                    We had a good game going. It has a kind of great rally. Then, often real reasons, we dropped the ball, then lost it, and then forgot it. Some of our great grandfathers did not learn about about self-governance well. A look at history can tell you why.  Our grandfathers learned a bit about it, but began to see it as something in the hands of others and did not support their schools in teaching its nature and practice. Our parents scarcely imagined supporting our schools in teaching us our history or that which once seemed to be our birth rights. Some us are learning some of our history now, and perhaps a few more are remembering that we are collectively responsible for taking care of ourselves. Some say it is never to late to learn and never to late to value our responsibly. I wonder if one dinosaur ever told another dinosaur that they would never lose their position and perhaps their very being. 

                    Some learned that Vlad was bad vampire. It seems that the truth of the matter is, he represents an example of the best of many of, perhaps all, of us of European extraction. He did much to save Europeans from invasions from the East. But more importantly he represented those Europeans who were not crushed by Greco-Roman culture of classical times after the fall of the Late Bronze Age, but learned from it and learned to adapt it to their own benefit. A part of that new culture to which they adapted seemed congenial to many of them. It came with the name "democracy." "Democracy" gathered and named a whole little bundle of ideas and values they already had, and clarified them. Vlad may have never been a republican or democrat, but he was one of those who adapted Greco-Roman culture to greater Europe. He even came to speak a Latinized language.

                The classical culture of the longish Greco-Roman have been heading toward Vlad by 2,000 BC or not long after the fall of the Late Bronze Age cultures. It continued to reach him and beyond to as recently as the recent 1400s! That culture touches us less, but still with some meaning to this very day. It seems we have had to reclarify the meaning of democracy a couple of time since Vlad's time. Maybe we can revivify it again today. We need to take up our responsibility in some way soon, or it is likely that we will believe that we no longer deserve the power of responsibility and freedom. Our continued loss of the "weness," which we have called unity, will, for a time, be more unpleasant than that we have already begun to experience.

                When we fail to enjoy our responsibility we lose our civic strength, energy, and power and finally our being. We could lose our all, even with good use of our power of responsibility, but with responsibility our power to survive and thrive is strongly supported. 

                Please help me to proof read this piece.

               Let hear from you. I love to hear comments on content.

               Thank you for reading!

                                                                                                                            rcs