Fresco found in Knossos palace, Crete, Greece, dated 1600 – 1450 BCE. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Origins and Development of Europe, from the Proto-Indo-Europeans to the Conflicts of the 20th Century.

Established in 2018, European Origins is a blog focusing on the history of Europe, particularly from the period of Prehistory to the Early Middle Ages, but branching out into more recent historical events, as well as Mythology and Philosophy, too. If you like our content, don’t forget to subscribe at the bottom of the page.

Latest Posts

Short “Documentary” about the Indo-European Language Family

Hello! It’s been a while since the last post on the website but I’m happy to inform you that I’ve been busy working on other platforms. First of all I’d like to introduce yourself to European Origins on Instagram: We are close to 18,000 followers and the page has been growing rapidly. Secondly, I’ve started dabbling in the creation of videos for said Instagram, as well as other platforms. This is the first attempt at anything resembling a short “documentary”-type video: I hope you enjoy and am very much looking forward to your feedback! All the best, Marcel

Continental West Germanic Dialect Continuum

The Continental West Germanic Dialect Continuum. Today Dutch and German are thought of as distinct languages and justly so. But in actuality there was a fluent transition between what is considered Dutch and what is considered German today for most of history and in some places in the border area this still holds true today. In a sense the Northern German dialects and Dutch are more closely related to each other than either of these two to the southern German dialects.

A Neanderthal in Suite and Tie

What if Neanderthals hadn’t become extinct? This is a question the curators of a Museum in Germany must have asked themselves when they created this exhibit: A Neanderthal in a suit and tie. As many of you may know, research in Archaeogenetics has relatively recently revealed that all human beings north of the Sahara Desert carry a few percent of Neanderthal DNA in us. So strictly speaking, Neanderthals have never gone extinct but are a part of many of us today. But what do you think modern life would be like if other human species were still around, not just…

Y-DNA Haplogroups in the German Empire

The Haplogroup distribution across the German Empire prior to WW1 according to FTDNA and Robert Gabel.Haplogroup I is the oldest of them and probably resembles remnants of Hunter-Gatherer lineages whilst R1b and R1a are connected to Celto-Germanic and Slavic peoples.

The Etruscans

The maximum expansion of the Etruscans. The Etruscans were one of the many historic peoples inhabiting the Italian Peninsula before the Rise of Rome and influencing the Empire from within after their subjugation. It is thought that the Romans incorporated some of the Etruscan deities in their own pantheon and that even the Latin language underwent some phonetical changes as a consequence. Some words in modern English ultimately come from the Etruscans via Latin, such as ‘person’. Today their legacy lives on in the name of the modern region of Tuscany.

The Migration of the Cimbri and Teutons

The migration of the Cimbri and the Teutons from Jutland across Central and Western Europe and into Northern Italy.The Cimbri and Teutons were the first Germanic people mentioned in history, although the term Teuton itself may in fact be of Celtic origin. They left their Northern European homeland for unknown reasons and made their track south in search for new lands to settle.But the Roman Republic, gaining in strength and power across the Mediterranean saw them as a threat and intervened, being beaten back by the Germans multiple times before defeating them.

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