Germany, the Germanic Tribes and their Origins

Shrouded within the uncertainty of Europe's distant past are many mysteries. Whilst we are relatively well informed about the Mediterranean with its mighty empires we know comparatively little about the heartland and the fringes of the European continent. It wasn't until the days of Julius Caesar that a new player stepped up onto the stage of European and – by extension to the modern age – World History: The Ancient Germanic Peoples. Caesar described them as even more brutish and uncivilized than the in the eyes of the Mediterranean World already savage Gauls and justified his campaigns into Gaul partially by claiming that they needed protection from the Germans. But before we venture too far into historical events involving these peoples the term “German” and its use in the context of Antiquity has to be clarified.

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 as fragments in our genetic code?

How linguistics helps us reconstruct ancient fire mythology — The Philological Society Blog

Report on the ‘Martin Burr Fund’ grant offered for a monograph on the Norse God Loki written by Riccardo Ginevra (Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University) The historical and comparative approach to Indo-European poetic language and myth has developed greatly in the second half of the 20th century, particularly thanks to the efforts of, among […]How … Continue reading How linguistics helps us reconstruct ancient fire mythology — The Philological Society Blog