Thoughts of Truth…                    

    Much was sadly lost due to the utter destruction which ensued from the Great Deluge of the Tenth Millenium, yet we are a resilient race, as is shown down through the course of time.
    During the Ninth Millennium, what is termed as the Maglemose culture appears within Great Scania, although current finds are mainly discovered in northern Germany and central Poland. Settling in small, and tight-knit communities of anywhere between 10-40 long-houses, they are known to have hunted both reindeer and other herds, as well as to have gathered a vast assortment of the local sedentary plant life. Living for the most part along rivers, lakes, and estuarys, this was then a most opportune time to refine the boat. Also domesticating the dog was thought to have begun during this period, although a recent find in northern Israel has uncovered a 12,000 year-old canine puppy resting beneath the left hand of a human skeleton. This time frame is sadly thought by most -ogists to be settled with human habitat being in rude camps and dank caves and with an economy based on forage, wild species and tracking wild herds, but, tomorrow is yet another day…
    The Eighth Millennium hence gives birth to improved food-collecting techniques of a rising sea-level by capably utilizing boats, harpoons, spears, bows & arrows, hooks and nets, making it possible for these Ancient Ones to become yet more sedentary. Vast banks, or kitchen middens, full of oyster shells and fish bones many feet thick attest to this fact. This period also gives rise to the continuous application and increasing advancement of the domestication of both food supplies and of herd animals. For an example, in the Indus Valley, frozen in time near the Bolan Pass, both wheat and barley remnants have been found, further substantiating the fact of cultivation techniques being in full use at this time.
    During the Seventh Millennium the relatively complicated product of pottery was carefully prepared, molded, and fired either in the open or in kilns under direct supervision, depending upon the area it was crafted in. Developed for storing and cooking foods, pottery further enhanced sedentary life-styles and began to widely appear across the Known Lands, with each area creating its own decorative or symbolic designs. It is during this time that northern trees were chopped down with hafted stone axes, some of them still as sharp today as the day they were crafted. The Oslonki Settlement in Poland, and a number of other fortified Neolithic settlements in north-central Europe largely date from this time period.
    By the Sixth to Fifth Millennium the Age of Forging is in full force with the discovery and smelting of copper, but realize that stone tools were still being crafted and were more commonly in use. Acknowledge you must, that the harsh northern clime lets little survive indefinately. It was in 5,500 BCE, when the sea level rose above the Bosporan shelf, that salt water from the Mediteranian Basin shot wildly forth into the fresh water of the Black Sea and obliterated most, if not all, creatures in and around this unique basin of life. There are a few surviving and quite remarkable great cities dated to within this interesting time-frame. Jericho in the Jordan valley and Catal Höyük in central Turkey, both of which show a great diversity of many unique styles of inhabitations which are thought to possibly indicate busy trade centers of vast import and are known to be exceptional examples of this most wonderous type of community living. Yet, this does not mean the Teutones ~ as they were named by the Celts to mean 'outdwellers' ~ were barbaric hunter/gatherers simply because we have no factual proof… although there are new pre-norse styled discoveries continuing to be found every day.
    In the Fourth Millenium a Sumarian and Egyptian script came into existance, the wheel makes an appearance, and the plow is developed, as were military campains for expansion and wealth, for these were the orders of the day... literally. Also during this glorious period the Agricultural Age was at its peak. New settlements at this time appear to be more like village communities, in close proximity to one another and are for the most part located where rivers flow into large valleys and where these said streams of water may be easier to control. The dryer climate of this time, which appears to have started from 3500 BCE, makes it plausible that irrigation methods started to play an important role in the agricultural techniques of this age. Because of this wider control with, and over, the harvest and also improved animal husbandry, smaller and more intensively used agricultural fields seem to cause an increase in the food production, which then often did support the larger communities, while the close proximity of villages enables both communication and interaction easier. This then, in turn, stimulates the cultural and economic exchange on the one hand thus enabling the making of rules and agreements, but also enlarges the possibility of conflicts on the other which is seen as an important factor in the process of civilization. Realize that the above described development of village communities do seem to have been the rule, with tribal clans dwelling in the Norðlands well before this time, (we have the Bell~Beaker Culture of this time become the Danubian Clans in the Third millennium, who are then followed by the Battle–Axe Clans around the Second Millenium).
    I should mention that the period from 3500 to 500 BCE is to be considered as the established Bronze Age, deteriorating into what some refer to as the darker Iron Age, which, according to scholars, is clearly dominated by Indo-Europian tongues. This later expansion is oft seen as spreading into India and Persia thru Asia Minor and Greece, and to the Italian and Iberian peninsulas by passing thru central Europe. However, it is uncertain as to the origin of the many diverse cultures which expired, and also came into existence, during this intense process of migration and societal re-creation, for many a proud decendant continues to this day to migrate as the climatic moods take them.
    In the Second Millenium, about 1800 BCE, the Norse begin working bronze in earnest, as the habitation of the great plains in the extreme south of Mesopotamia occurs around 1700 BCE. City-states begin forming an extensive and highly sophisticated pattern of power in the Fertile Cresent area begating Hammurapi's Codes of Laws, and in turn expanding civilization throughout Asia Minor where Hittite culture arose, which is thus eventually overrun by various Semitic, Indo-Europian Clans. In 1500 BCE northern ritual practices now begin including weapons, jewelry and other valuables, while China begins its bronze working. In 1400 BCE Maycenae Greeks raid Troy leaving destruction in their wake. By approximately 1300 BCE there was a florishing trade route betwixt the Central Home~Stone and the Baltic, as well as the Far Eastern areas, thus greatly expanding the then Known World. Again in the 1200's the City of Troy was invaded, this time by the Dorian Greeks. In the 1180's Palestine was raided and overrun with what the Egyptians called "sea–peoples", who settled in and around the coastal regions, who are actually described as 'lairding' over their neighbors.
    Shortly after 1000 BCE, in the First Millenium, the Phoenician town of Tyre expanded into prominance as the largest and strongest enterprising merchant center, and iron–working also begins to appear at this time. King Hiram (c. 970 - 940), a friend of the infamous King Solomon, develops trade for- and improves the harbour of- the island of Tyre, making it the major state of Phoenicia and thus leading to its great role in the further spreading of a florishing, unified civilization. By 825 BCE literacy reared its mandatory head among the Phoenician, Aramaic, Arabian, Egyptian and yes among the Teutonic. Mainly because of abundant trade, but also because of exploration there was a need for common, similar scripts. Approximately 800 BCE iron begins spreading throughout Europe. From 750 - 500 BCE the period known as the Westward Expansion of Greek Colonization dominates the western shores of the Mediterranian, (and our history books). Selling wares and luxuries of Near Eastern origin every place they could, gaining slaves and metals in return, and ultimately leading to wars of critical importance and final revolution and downfall after the Peloponnesian war. About 500 BCE iron is finally accepted in the north. During the mid 400's Atli the Hun spread his realm so extensively that Rome herself felt threatened. By 375 BCE the entire Known World was trading with itself; amber and tin from the North, gold and mercury from Southern Spain, copper from Italy, linen and glass from Egypt, wool and timber from Turkey, ivory and resins from Arabia, silk from the Orient, the list goes on and on...
    In the Second Century BCE expansions and migrations of the Norsk are recorded fact, and in 106 the Cimbri and Teuton Clans actually took advantage of Romes failing weaknesses and advanced; retrieving their homestones in the process, the former into Spain, and the later into Gaul. Why one just needs to look to the names of certain areas; Assur near Nineveh, Tyre in Phonecia, Himera near Syracuse, Ahwaz near Charax, Autun near Lyons, the list continues if you but look with open eyes: the Teutons were, and are, a far more cultured Clan than credit has been given them, extending their realm earlier than once thought, and perhaps in reverse order as well!

Or is this just wildly fanciful thinking on my part…