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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7490668" data-attributes="member: 58172">My own area is Mideast archeology. So I am fond of biblical scholars.I am academically sensitive to what polytheism is, and what it is not. If your own focus is biblical studies, and you are immersing in Christian (?) biblical texts, I assume you take scientific precautions to avoid unconsciously projecting the Hellenistic anti-polytheistic polemics onto Non-Hellenistic, Non-Christian, non-monotheistic, and non-polytheistic cultures.The archeological summaries that I present in this Norse World thread come from mainstream Scandinavian archeology and linguistics. Note, the mention of the Nordwest Block material cultures derives from the Dutch archeologists and linguists. The German archeologists and linguists, themselves, emphasize that the socalled ‘Germanic peoples’ are a nonhomogeneous conglomeration of diverse ethnic groups, and that linguistic speculations about Germany before year 750 are uncertain.The statements in this thread are ordinary enough within scientific communities today.In general, regions like Scandinavia (and Ireland) tend toward relative remoteness and stability. By contrast, *Continental* Europe is a neverending quixotic flux of ethnographic admixtures and migrations, alternate placenames, shifting territorial borders, and linguistic drifts and replacements. Anyone with even casual familiarity with German ethnography should assume the formative German peoples are responsible for ‘mixing-it-up’.Personally, I am shocked that there are still (apparently serious) people today who come across as if believing in some kind of ‘racially pure’ monolithic ‘Germanic people’. Scientists today reject that Romantic-Era guess about a homogeneous socalled Germanic ethnicity.I am proficient in genetics, and because of archeology, am familiar with yDNA and its evidence for reconstructing premodern ethnographies. I am also familiar with challenges of correlating specific DNA with specific material cultures. But in Scandinavia, there are fewer ‘moving parts’ than in other areas of the world. Easier to track, in comparison.In regard to Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), the yDNA modal haplogroups are four: I1, R1a, R1b, and N3. I1 is ubiquitous and is a factor that makes Scandinavian ethnicity distinctive. R1a is somewhat more frequent in central regions. R1b is more prevalent in the south but scarce in the north. Conversely, N3 (one of the modalities that make Sámi ethnicity distinctive) is prevalent in the north but scarce in the south. All four haplogroups exist in Scandinavia in the Stone Age. N3 is paleolithic, I1 is probably paleolithic. R1a is neolithic, R1b is probably neolithic.The population of Scandinavia exists before the ‘Proto-Germanic’ language exists. None of these four brought a Germanic language with them. So where does the reconstructed so-called ‘Proto-Germanic’ language come from?Given the archeological contexts in Scandinavia, Scandinavian archeologists conclude the Nordic language likely evolved internally within Scandinavia. In other words, Grimms Law (a set of linguistic shifts that distinguishes Proto-Germanic from earlier Proto-Indo-European) happens in Scandinavia.Most archeologists correlate the arrival of the Proto-Indo-European language with Corded Ware material culture. In Scandinavia, this also correlates with the arrival of yDNA R1a. So, if Grimms Law happens in Scandinavia, the explanation is relatively simple. R1a was a successful culture that integrated peacefully. They were Proto-Indo-European speakers. Also they brought the economic tradition of cattle herding, which is an advantage to the Stone Age Scandinavian hunter-gatherers. A Scandinavian interaction of R1a with the local populations forms Battle-Axe culture.Later, Grimms Law evolves its linguistic shifts in the context of the languages of I1 and R1b. These shifts transpire a thousand-or-so years. The language consolidates as the dominant language of the Nordic Bronze Age material culture. In other words, the Nordic Bronze Age parent language and the socalled Proto-Germanic language are the same thing.Likewise, it is easy to explain how a Nordic language spreads southward into continental Europe. The far-flung tribal confederacies of Roman-Period Germania happen to include tribes from near the border of the Nordic parent language speakers. Because of developing political consolidation in the continent, some tribes adopted the languages of other tribes. This happened. Eventually, tribes as far away as the Franks are speaking a language that is non-identical yet related to the Nordic parent language.This is the prevailing view in Scandinavia. It also is the cleanest explanation for all of the known evidence.In the recent past, Pan-Germanism was flagrantly aggressive, even violently. It still is in certain communities. Indeed, if I see someone who seems to imply a "racially pure" homogenous "Germanic people", my first question is, are they some kind of German supremacist?Even linguistics itself and its nomenclature concerning "Proto-Germanic" is historically inseparable from the most egregious and unscientific expressions of Pan-Germanism.By contrast, to say, Scandinavians and Germans are different ethnic groups, is sane.Regarding yDNA genetic evidence. All of it is irrelevant, in the sense that none of it (N3, I1, R1a, R1b) represents ‘Germanic’ speakers during the Stone Age. Grimms Law happens later.By the way, none of the DNA that is in Scandinavia seems to come thru Germany. N3 comes from northern Eurasia. I1 seems to come thru Poland. R1a comes from Russia via the Baltics or Poland. The specific subclade of R1b that is in Scandinavia appears to come directly from Netherlands by sea (R1b-1a-2a1a-1a). This particular R1b subclade appears to originate from northern Italy.In any case, all of it Stone Age, and none of it is linguistically ‘Germanic’.</blockquote>

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