Ancient Druid Civilization from Archaeological Texts

(Work in progress by David Olmsted, Illinois, USA)

(May 13, 2023) The past is Pagan yet Pagan history has been defined by those antagonistic towards it. All ancient texts until now have been translated by Non-Pagans and translated without standards. This has allowed bias and fraud to corrupt those translations. Without standards peer review does not exist but only group-think. Those who control ancient text translations define history and that control has been exercised by the dogmatic, faith based religions ... until now.

Ancient Druid Civilization is defined as the Akkadian speaking Neolithic farmer civilization which swept out of Mesopotamia and into Europe and around the Mediterranean starting around 8500 BCE. They are the ones who built Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments. The last holdouts of this pre Indo-European civilization were the Minoans, Phoenicians, Aegean Islanders, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Nordic/Germanic (Elder Futhark runes), and Israelites.  All their archaeological texts are all in Akkadian.

Spread of farming into Neolithic Europe
Druid civilization began in the Neolithic with the first farmers. Image shows the spread of farming from Mesopotamia and Levant through Anatolia and into Europe as determined by archaeology. These farmers started to migrate starting around 8500 BCE and the southern group reached Britain through Minoan Crete, Etruscan Italy, and Brittany around 4,100 BCE. Akkadian is the native language of northern Mesopotamia. (Map from Gronenborn/Horejs/Börner/Ober 2021.2 (RGZM/ÖAI). Online at: https://www.academia.edu/9424525/Map_Expansion_of_farming_in_western_Eurasia_9600_4000_cal_BC_update_vers_2021_2_
Image shows the matrilineal genetic closeness (green) of Neolithic farmers to a 5000 BCE Neolithic reference sample from central Anatolia.  This and other studies show that northern Mesopotamian genetics spread along with the farming culture and that means their native Akkadian language spread with them. This is further supported by survivals of their Akkadian writing on archaeological texts found in Europe. For example, the Minoans were the first European Akkadian writers as evidenced by their 1800 BCE Phaistos Disk. (Map from Haak and all 2010)
Image above shows the spread of the Indo-Europeans and their language who originated on the northern steppes. These invasions of Europe began around 3500 BCE. The Indo-European Bell Beaker culture did not reach Britain until around 2400 BCE just after the building of the last phase of Stonehenge was built. Were they settled they replaced 90% to 60% of the farmer genetics. (Image from: (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_expansions.jpg)
Chart showing the population replacement percentages in Britain. From David Reich: "Origins of Humans and Culture" below.

Stonehenge People Spoke Akkadian

(July 19, 2022) "Druid Civilization" or Druid Culture" is the term I use for the long lost European and Mediterranean wide culture which existed prior to the invasion of the Indo-Europeans. These were the Neolithic farmers who built megalithic monuments. Yet only now is their magic-based Akkadian speaking culture being illuminated by their archeological texts from their longer surviving civilizations not quickly conquered by the Indo-Europeans. This culture has also inspired some modern nature based spiritual movements. The new field studying the transition from hunter/gatherer Mesolithic to farming Neolithic is called Neolithisation (Hamon and Manen 2021) 

Surprising at first but obvious in hindsight, all these Druidic archaeological texts are written in Akkadian which is the language native to northern Mesopotamia. Genetic evidence shows that these Neolithic farmers migrated out of Mesopotamia starting around 8500 BCE (see images). The Indo-European invasion began around 3500 BCE. This means the builders of Stonehenge spoke Akkadian .

The earliest European/Mediterranean writing is the 1800 BCE Minoan Phaistos Disk and the 1700 BCE Minoan Linear A tablets and these are in Akkadian. All later alphabetic writing derives from these Minoan texts. Writing formally labeled as Celtic, Tartessian, Etruscan, Phoenician, Punic, Paleo-Hebrew, Archaic-Greek, and Aramaic are all really an alphabetic form of Akkadian.  These texts show Druid culture was the source for both classical philosophy and the authentic teachings of Jesus.

The word "Druid" is Akkadian and its means "Eternal Form - Channeler" which derives from the Akkadian words DR-ID (duru-id) (Olmsted 2022). Eternal forms are the invisible "platonic" forms into which amorphous matter (dust) flows to manifest itself as a physical object.

The word "Ovate or Vate" associated with "Druid" in Roman texts is another Akkadian word meaning "Motion-Magic.Crafter" from from 'W.T (’û-tû or a'u.tu). This word has the letter ayin as its first letter which does not exist in Latin or Greek so it tends to be either ignored or replaced with the letter "O" in Europe and "A" in the near east. This division between life priests who deal with the creation and growth of life, and magic crafters who deal with translational motions is a common one in ancient Druidic texts.

The Neolithic Druidry revealed by the archaeological texts is not exactly the same as the Druidry described 2000 years later by the Romans. Iron Age Druidry like all cultures had been corrupted by the lordification process from political centralization and by the dualism from the Persian Empire. This led to forced personification and feminine suppression of divine powers (deities) and their division into good and evil. This in turn lead to deity appeasement and worship with sacrifices and submission. 

The Indo-European people from the eastern steppe started invading Europe about 3,500 BCE. They were initially illiterate and had no native stone building traditions so they adopted much of the culture of the Druids. What they did bring was a more militant, godfather type culture with more intensive farming practices using crop/animal rotation to keep the farmlands fertile away from the flooding river valleys.

References

Spread of Farminghttps://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/bogucki_1996_spread_farming_europe_american_scientist.pdf
Genetics of Early Farmers at: https://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml
Curry, Andrew (August 25, 2022) ‘Phenomenal’ ancient DNA data set provides clues to origin of farming and early languages. Online at: https://www.science.org/content/article/phenomenal-ancient-dna-data-set-provides-clues-origin-farming-early-languages
Gronenborn, Detlef and Horejs, Barbara (2021) Expansion of farming in western Eurasia, 9600 - 4000 cal BC (update vers. 2021.2. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/9424525/Map_Expansion_of_farming_in_western_Eurasia_9600_4000_cal_BC_update_vers_2021_1_
Haak, Wolfgang and all (2010) Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities. Online at: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536)
Hamon, C. and Manen, C. (2021) The Mechanisms of Neolithisation of Western Europe: Beyond a South/North Approach. Open Archaeology Volume 7 Issue 1. Online at: https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0164
Olmsted, David D (2022) Mediterranean Akkadian Lexicon 3rd Edition -2022. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/66851810/Mediterranean_Akkadian_Lexicon_3rd_Edition_2022

Animation of Indo-European Genetic Spread

(May 5, 2023) An excellent video is by The Geographer. This correlates well with the linguistic evidence. The animation demonstrates how even with a minority genetic population, the language of a ruling class can come to dominate an area. The only exception to this correlation of language and genetics seems to be Etruria in northern Italy where the native Akkadian speakers remained in control until they were conquered by the Romans.

Origins of Humans and Culture

David Reich: "Origins of Humans and Culture" made in 2021. He is one of the leading researchers in the field. https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/

Druid Spirals (Vortices)

This is the common symbol of Druid civilization throughout its long history

Spiral on Sesklo Culture Pottery, North Greece (5500 BCE)

The first stop of the Neolithic farmers out of Anatolia was the Balkans (Vinca and Cucuteni–Trypillia cultures) and northern Greece (Sesklo Culture). Combined these cultures and their descendants are called Old Europe. They were the first ones to make copper tools and ornaments. Pot in National Museum of Archaeology, Athens, Greece via https://twitter.com/hermahai/status/1553753089706016768/photo/1
Triskelion at Winter Solstice cave at Newgrange in Ireland

Triskelion Spiral at Newgrange, Ireland (3100 BCE)

Top image shows a 12 inch diameter triskelion inside the cave-like Newgrange, Ireland tomb chamber. This chamber lights up on the morning of the winter solstice when the sun aligns with its doorway. This triskelion represents the three motion powers sourced by the night sky to complement the life powers represented by the sun. A single vortex represents a consolidated set of spiritual powers, that is, a perceptheistic deity.
Gold Medallion from Vindelev Viking hoard in Denmark Shows Spirals and Letters

Gold Medallion from Vindelev Viking hoard in Denmark Shows Spirals and Letters (550 CE)

The last Druid spiral design comes from post-Viking age of Denmark. Significantly, this also has Alphabetic Akkadian style lettering in the upper left. These are on their way to becoming  Nordic runes. 
This gold hoard is on display at Denmark's Vejlemuseerne at: https://www-vejlemuseerne-dk.translate.goog/viden-og-forskning/artikler/kaempe-guldskat-fundet-naer-jelling/?_x_tr_sl=da&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Minoan Phaistos Disk outer ring with phonetic sign assignments
Image shows the Minoan Phaistos Disk with phonetic sign assignments by Olmsted. Sign assignment charts here.

First European Writing is the Minoan Phaistos Disk.   (1900 BCE)

(Jan 10, 2023) The Minoan Phaistos disk is significant for these reasons:

  1. Its language is Akkadian confirming that was the language of Neolithic Farmers
  2. First European writing
  3. Source of all alphabets via Minoan Linear A
  4. First philosophical debate
  5. Shows tolerant nature-based culture
  6. Written on a Druid Spiral showing its role as a spiritual symbol
  7. Describes most of the Druid Pantheon
  8. First explicit mention of Yahu as I' or Y' (Med 3.11) which later became the national god of Israel as Yahweh (meaning "Power of Yahu" in Akkadian, the glottal stop letter ayin was often slurred into a "h" sound over time in Akkadian) 

This disk found at Phaistos on Crete is the earliest writing in Europe dating to 1900 BCE.  The text is a mix of phonetic signs (da, di, du, ad, etc.) and alphabetic signs which are just phonetic signs in which the reader provides the vowel. The spiral was the European wide cultural sign of the Neolithic farmer. Because these farmers built Stonehenge I call these Akkadian speaking farmers the Druid civilization.  This text essentially summarizes the Ancient Pagan Paradigm and shows the tolerance of differing ideas in Druid Culture.

The problem of archaeology today is that it has no overarching theory to guide the interpretation of archaeological finds. This started to change with the first Book by Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) published in 1982 in which she presented the Goddess Theory of European civilization to challenge the nationalist and patriarchal orthodoxy of Greek and Hebrew Source priority. At the time she was professor Emeritus of Archaeology at UCLA.
When the Goddess theory was later discredited what remained was the old nationalistic Greek and Hebrew Source Theory. This combined with the competitive nature of Academia these day is leading to a segmentation of archaeology and linguistics into narrow nationalist specialties pandering to nationalist funding sources. The result is fake history from academic linguists whose "translations" end up being mostly names representing their own nations language. Another result of this is the rise of pseudoarcheology from people who realize the old nationalist models are not valid and so are grasping at any alternative. 

Reference

https://www.opusarchives.org/marija-gimbutas-collection/

Druid Civilization Theory Supersedes European Goddess Theory

(Feb. 6, 2023) Before there was this Druid theory of European cultural origins there was the Goddess Theory by Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994). She was the first to realize that the archaeological evidence pointed to an earlier and different civilization existing prior to the traditional Greek and Hebrew sources of European civilization.  

Yet she failed in defining this earlier civilization for these reasons:

In Gimbutas’ last book The Civilization of the Goddess, which synthesizes the work and theses of her previous books (Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 1974/1982 and The Language of the Goddess 1989/1991), she wrote, 


  • “The primordial deity for our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors was female, reflecting the sovereignty of motherhood. In fact, there are no images that have been found of a Father God throughout the prehistoric record. Paleolithic and Neolithic symbols and images cluster around a self-generating Goddess and her basic functions as Giver-of-Life, Wielder-of-Death, and as Regeneratrix.” 

Further in Civilization of the Goddess Gimbutas outlines the symbolic understanding Old European societies had of the universe and the divine. She wrote, 

  • “The multiple categories, functions, and symbols used by prehistoric peoples to express the Great Mystery are all aspects of the unbroken unity of one deity, a Goddess who is ultimately Nature herself.”