My Understanding of Religion
Page 12
The religion of the Balts is primarily an agricultural religion, some aspects of which could have been introduced into Europe during the Neolithic period by farmers from Anatolia. If exposure to Anatolian influences is suggested by the habitation of Baltic deities, exposure to influences emanating from ancient Ukraine is implied by the equitation of the same deities. The horse was first domesticated in Ukraine about 4350 BC. It is plausible that the famous association of horse and Indo-European began in Ukraine.
Two thousand years after it had been domesticated in Ukraine the horse was introduced as a draft animal. Indo-European tribesmen who already possessed horses were the principal beneficiaries - although chariots had been first used in Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Tutub about 3000 BC horses had not pulled them. In the 2nd millennium BC horse-drawn chariots were facilitative of victories for the Hittites in Anatolia, the Mycenaeans in Greece, the Aryans in northern India, and the Hyksos in Egypt.
During the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD Ukraine was invaded by Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, Magyars, and Pechenegs. In the 5th and 6th centuries AD some Slavic tribes left their primordial homeland north of the Carpathian Mountains, and some of these (East Slavs) occupied the forest and forest-steppe regions of western and north-central Ukraine. In Baltic tradition the moon god was not as important as the sky god. However, in Slav tradition the moon was the primary object of veneration. Ukrainian peasants in the Carpathians freely confess that the moon is their god. Coincidentally, the patron deity and divine king of Ur (a city important to the origination of the chariot) was the moon god Nana.
Europe is an appendage of a landmass more than four times its size. It is the world's second smallest continent and occupies about four million square miles or one-fifteenth of the world's total landmass. The continent is named after a Phoenician princess (Europa) who was, according to Greek mythology, abducted and taken to Crete by Zeus. She bore him three sons: Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus. At one time it was thought Europa meant sunset. Now it is thought Europa means mainland.
On its seaward flanks the limits of Europe appear clear: the north is bordered by the Arctic Ocean, the west is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, and the south is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea. In the east the boundary runs along the Ural Mountains and the Zhem River. The highland regions of north and northwest Europe contain old mountains and plateaux. Medium age mountains and plateaux make up the central upland regions, and south of these are a series of young mountain ranges: Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, and Balkans. More than half of Europe is lowland that includes the East European Plain, the North European Plain, and the Romanian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian plains. Europe's major rivers are: the Volga, Dnieper, Don, Danube, Rhine, Rhone, Elbe, and Oder.
Much of Europe's prehistoric story may never be recovered as knowledge concerning it is derived solely through archaeology. Nevertheless, some scholars maintain migrants from north of the Black and Caspian seas introduced the Indo-European language into Europe about 3000 BC. Others assert farmers introduced it from Anatolia. However, there is no undisputed evidence to support either proposition. Furthermore, as language appears to have been a feature of European life for hundreds of thousands of years it is unnecessary to suppose the sixty or so languages spoken in Europe are extraneous - where there is evidence for languages spoken in Europe at the end of the prehistoric period it demonstrates that, with few exceptions (Basque and Etruscan), they were Indo-European.
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