Greed, murder and retribution?
One of the graves that were excavated by archaeologists in the vicinity of Stonehenge (rather than in Stonehenge itself) may have belonged to a shipping magnate whose family had profited from the discovery of tin deposits in Wales, and I will now tell a story about his grave and that of a close relative of his.
This man was obviously very rich, judging by his grave goods, and he had eclectic Continental tastes. Further investigation revealed that he had been born in the Mediterranean region and had been brought to the Isle of Britain while he was a young boy.
Amber that was found among his grave goods narrows down his likely origin to the Nuragic culture, which was centered on Sardinia, whose merchant fleet carried valuable cargoes such as copper and extremely valuable cargoes such as tin and amber (from tin mines in Cornwall and amber deposits in the Danish peninsula) across the ancient world. They sailed along routes that stretched from Scandinavia to the eastern Mediterranean.
The date of his death and interment would indicate that he could have been among those who had been involved in bringing bluestones from Wales to Stonehenge. (These tall blue stones now form the inner circle of stones at Stonehenge.) The possibility of such a connection was strengthened by the finding of another grave, about three miles away, that contained the remains of a close relative of his, perhaps a son or a nephew.
This younger man, who had been perhaps 25 years of age when he died, was born in Wales (near the site of a second monument that had been robbed of the bluestones) and had a gold hair ornament that was identical to the two that were among the grave goods of the older man. But his had been stuffed into his mouth!
Another interesting thing about the two graves is that the older man had a large number of finely crafted arrows in his possession, as well as a bow with which to shoot them -- the younger man had no such weapons in his possession. We might surmise that the older man needed such weapons in order to take revenge on whoever killed him, and a prime suspect is the younger man, who was not equipped with such weapons -- the deaths are suspicious because of the immense wealth of the two close relatives and the early death of the younger man. There might have been a quarrel between the two over the wealth possessed by the older man.
The place of origin of the older man, in the Aegean region suggests that perhaps his family had been involved in the transport of copper and tin from the Isle of Britain to the eastern Mediterranean, where copper was alloyed with tin to make bronze, which is considerably harder than unalloyed copper.
The Isle of Britain was the only known source of tin in the ancient world, so it must have been immensely valuable by the time it reached the eastern Mediterranean region. And I don't doubt that the older man, being a shipping magnate, could have paid for the bluestones, and the cost of transporting them to the Salisbury Plain, without blinking an eye. Yet he and presumably his family preferred a burial site that was outside of Stonehenge itself.
The origin and destiny of the Nuragic Culture
The Nuragic Culture, to which the older of the two men probably belonged, had an origin that can be traced back to a much older culture -- that of the Minoans, who had lived on Crete, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
About the time that the Nuragic culture appeared on Sardinia, the Minoan culture on Crete underwent a dramatic transformation in which the elite families that owned the merchant ships were displaced by a new elite which was more interested in building palaces than in building and sending out merchant ships.
in engaging in commerce. Interestingly, both the old elite and the new elite consisted of wealthy families that were headed by women, and that women commanded the rebel army that defeated the old elite. This conclusion can be drawn from the fact that the old elite was deeply hated, as evidenced by the desecration of graves that followed the rebellion -- women, rather than men had reason to deeply hate the old elite, which robbed them of their husbands.
After the rebellion, the new elite celebrated their victory by digging up and despoiling the graves of the old elite. After the graves had been despoiled, it was covered up with a fresh layer of dirt, and then the new elite celebrated by holding a great feast nearby..
The Minoan merchant fleet was replaced by Nuragic, Carthaginian, Etruscan and finally Roman fleets that must have continued to visit the islands. This continued mercantile influence in the Aegean Sea is evidenced by the romantic literature of Lesbos, where sisterly love is idealized, as it must have been among women who had been deserted by their seafaring husbands.
Sardinia, off the coast of the Italian Peninsula, must have been of particular interest to the Minoan fleet, because deposits of copper and tin (the ingredients of bronze) could be found there. When the merchant class on Crete was defeated, another seafaring culture sprang up on Sardinia among indigenous people who had been associated with the Minoan merchant fleet in one way or another. This new seafaring culture, the Nuragic Culture, was illiterate (apparently by choice) but its ships plied trade routes stretching from Scandinavia to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Later on, the Nuragic Civilization was almost overcome by multiple invasions of the island, probably by the same invaders that put an end to the Mycenaean Greek Civilization, and waves of refugees fled Sardinia at that time, carrying important technologies with them. The Nuragic Civilization on Sardinia survived the invasions, only to be overcome still later by invaders from Carthage and then Rome.
The refugees who fled to the mainland during the many invasions continued to speak their own language, and belatedly invented a written version of it, based on a version of the Greek alphabet. This written version, which they used for inscribing messages on tombstones, is what is known to us as the Etruscan language.
The earliest tombstone inscriptions appeared in the Tuscan region, so that is probably where the Nuragic community was located. Nuragic/Etruscan burials (probably based on burial customs on Sardinia) were very similar to burials elsewhere on the mainland, so the inscriptions are virtually the only clue to the ethnic identity of those who were buried there. Moreover, since the Nuragic language was the only local language that had a written version, such messages were later inscribed on tombstones elsewhere.
The Nuragic/Etruscan culture on the mainland was also a seafaring culture, and its fast cargo vessels (which sometimes engaged if opportunistic piracy) plied the Mediterranean from one end to the other and also sailed along the Atlantic coast of Europe.
The Etruscans, perhaps attracted by salt mines near the mouth of the Tiber River, made the mistake of subjugating Romans to their rule and teaching them the arts of war and shipbuilding. Subsequently, the Romans shook off their Etruscan king and set to work at conquering Etruscan city states that were so busy fighting each other that they neglected to deal with the upstart Romans. The Romans conquered and sacked Etruscan city states until all of Etruria came to accept the superiority of Rome.
The Romans obviously despised the Etruscans, whose women ruled their households and whose men often spent their nights observing the stars and spent days and nights looking for omens of every kind. Etruscan men were excellent seafarers, but Romans made better husbands, so Etruscan women were probably happy when Romans came marching into their cities and took over.
Tombstones are virtually the only place where the Etruscan language can be found today, so linguists are reduced to reading tombstones, and know very little about the language -- in spite of the fact that Etruscans had taught the Romans to read and write.
One peculiarity about the study of the Etruscan language is that the word for "father" does not appear on tombstones, and linguists do not know what it was. This avoidance of the word may have had its roots in the earliest phases of the Nuragic Culture, when it was associated with the Minoan outpost. It would be a forbidden word because it could make a second husband jealous.
When Romans came marching into Etruria, the Etruscan language quickly disappeared, no doubt because the Romans made Etruscans ashamed of their own language. Since it was shameful to use the Etruscan language in the presence of Romans, and Romans were everywhere, women no doubt avoided teaching any fragment of the language to their children.
When the Etruscans had first come to Rome, the local "barbarians" had accepted the superiority of their Etruscan masters, and had learned many things from them, including the engineering skills needed for the construction of arches and other structures and about military tactics, weaponry and military organization. Even after the Roman conquest of Etruria the Romans continued to consult with Etruscans, on occasion, particularly with regard to divination and the interpretation of omens -- Etruscan priests were quite knowledgeable about such things.
The Bantu Expansion
Another rapid cultural expansion occurred in Africa, among those who spoke Bantu languages, and speakers of Bantu languages -- derived originally from a language spoken in a tiny part of West Africa -- occupy about half of modern Africa south of the Sahara. These speakers of Bantu languages, for the most part, grew up in cultures where a Bantu language was passed on to them by their forebears.
Languages are often adopted from neighboring tribes, so not all of the Bantu speakers are necessarily direct descendants of people who spoke the original proto-Bantu language three thousand years ago, when the Bantus first began to spread out from their tiny homeland, most likely in the southwestern corner of present-day Cameroon, near the Nigerian border.
Even today, many small-stature people whose ancestors hunted and gathered in the Jungles of central and western Africa are adopting (or have adopted) the languages of the Bantus that trade with them and hire them.
Even so, the Bantu expansion is remarkable, and it is all the more remarkable when we consider that it was stopped dead in its tracks between 400 AD and 1000 AD by an early bubonic plague epidemic that killed off most of the Bantus.
The original Bantus started spreading from their homeland about three thousand years ago after they started to grow various tropical and subtropical root crops such as yams (native to Africa) and taro (domesticated in Island Southeast Asia but imported to Africa). The Bantus were among the first Africans to smelt iron and make iron tools, and such tools were ideal for cutting down trees and clearing land for farming, as well as for cultivating root crops.
The two technologies, cultivation of root crops and the smelting and working of iron, complemented each other and enabled Bantu populations to grow rapidly, spreading into neighboring areas of West Africa, especially to the east and southeast.
Bantu peoples infiltrated into areas that were lightly populated, and wherever they moved they cleared new land on which to grow their crops. And they traded with the indigenous peoples, exchanging root crops, and sometimes iron tools and weapons, for meat. Some Bantu blacksmiths furnished iron weapons to armies that fought each other, selling their services to the highest bidder; and some of the military leaders that they dealt with went on to found the first West African kingdoms.
The Justinian plague
The emperors Constantine and Justinian of the Roman Empire strengthened the eastern half of the Roman Empire even while the western half was overrun by barbarian tribes, such as the Vandals and the Ostrogoths, but then Justinian set himself the task of restoring the western half. He started off with North Africa, which had been the breadbasket of the western half until it was overrun by the Vandals.
Ships were dispatched to North Africa loaded with soldiers, military equipment and grain; but unfortunately rats came along with the grain, the rats were infested with fleas, and the fleas were carriers of the deadly bubonic plague. This was the Justinian Plague, which had its source in parts of South Asia. Subsequently, the plague spread throughout the Roman Empire and into Africa. In Africa, the Bantus were particularly hard-hit.
Justinian was ultimately unable to save the western half of the Roman Empire, partly because his own Eastern Roman Empire, centered on its capital at Constantinople, was itself weakened by the Plague. Yet five new versions of Rome subsequently rose out of the ashes: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Romania. Where people speak new versions of Latin, the language of the ancient Romans.
Trouble in Africa
The partnership between the Bantus and the kingdoms of West Africa ended when the Bantus themselves were invaded and subjugated by the armies of the West African kings. And then the bubonic plague struck. It was particularly deadly and long-lasting for the Bantus.
Bantus were in the habit of storing their root crops in close proximity to their living quarters, so they were themselves quite accessible to fleas that carried bubonic plague from the rats that fed on stored food. Virtually the entire Bantu population was wiped out, and the effects of the plague persisted much longer among the Bantus than among the peoples of Europe, or certainly than among the hunters-gatherers of Africa.
Recovery and triumph
About 1,000 years ago, after the plague had loosened its grip on the Bantus and potential farmland had become scarce in Central Africa due to population pressure, Bantu farmers began moving east, into East Africa.
The ancestors of the animal herders that they found living there had previously pushed click-speaking tribes out of the region, but the Bantus and the animal herders developed a synergistic relationship – the Bantus exchanged root crops and iron tools for animal products. Perhaps the Bantus avoided selling weaponry to the herdsmen – such things as long knives, spear points, arrow heads and bludgeons.
Bantu populations were expanding rapidly, and the Bantus didn’t want trouble with their animal-herder neighbors, so they infiltrated further and further south until they came into contact with click-speaking tribes. Those ancient people spoke languages that included a click sound, which may have originally been in imitation of percussive signals.
Some of the click speakers were descendants of those who had been pushed south by the animal herders, and they quickly ejected the Bantu farmers from their lands, but more Bantus kept coming south and the two peoples repeatedly clashed.
Each time the armies engaged with each other, the Bantus came better armed than before, because after each engagement Bantu blacksmiths set to work improving their weapon designs. Ultimately, the Bantu blacksmiths came up with a new kind of weapon, the assegai, that was devastatingly more effective than the long stone-tipped spears that the click speakers carried into combat. The stone-tipped spears were no match for the assegai, a short thrusting spear tipped by a long knife-like blade.
The Bantus pushed the click speakers out of the most productive areas, leaving them only semi-desert and mountainous regions where only a few could survive.
Ongoing evolution?
For the most part, Bantu-speaking peoples have triumphed, in general, among the other indigenous peoples of Africa. They have triumphed militarily. economically and demographically. For instance. about half of all Africans now learn a Bantu-based language in infanthood, presumably from their mothers, before they learn any other language.
The many Bantu languages have evolved, in the course of time, from a language that was spoken by only a few people who lived in a small area near the "armpit" of Africa, three or four thousand years ago. Although not all Bantu-speaking people are direct descendants of the small original Bantu population, the popularity of Bantu languages today indicates that evolution is still ongoing among Homo sapiens.
The Bantus have always been quick to adopt new ideas. For instance, they surely didn't invent the smelting of iron, nor did they invent blacksmithing. Iron technologies were brought to Africa by non-Africans. Moreover, almost all of the root crops that they grew were imported to Africa after being domesticated in other places. Yet Bantus were the iron smelters and blacksmith of Africa, and their population growth was fed by the root crops that they grew. They did not domesticate cattle, but some of them picked up pastoralism as a way of life and then brought it to southern Africa.
The Bantu expansion illustrates how competition among different ancestral groups drove hominin evolution for at least two million years, and it still is driving our evolution.
A change in direction?
On the other hand, during the last fifty thousand years or so, evolution seems to be taking us toward diversity, rather than versatility, in at least some respects.
For instance, the constantly increasing brain sizes of the last two million years, which enabled our ancestors to become more and more versatile, no longer characterizes our evolution. Instead, current brain-size evolution has turned into random drift. This is probably because of a combination of features of modern life:
1. New birthing procedures enable mothers to successfully give birth even when the infant has an extra-large head.
2. Good nutrition has been a fact of life for most human populations in recent times so that large brains no longer compete for scarce resources that are needed by other tissues, such as muscles.
3. Human societies have become so large and interconnected that people no longer have to be versatile in order to pass on their genes.
Not only do big brains not necessarily contribute to survival, but in the last fifty thousand years they have increasingly become a handicap, and average brain sizes have tended to decline. This decline of average brain size would most likely be most pronounced in the most modern societies if nutrition had not improved overall. In other words, modern life seems to support an evolutionary trend toward smaller brain sizes, and we may be following in the footsteps of Homo naledi.
What about taking charge?
It has been suggested that we should take steps to stop evolution altogether. This might be safer than letting blind chance rule our future course of evolution, but it calls to mind Adolph Hitler's quest to eliminate genetic characteristics that he thought were inferior (or, in fact, if he thought they might be superior in some ways to his planned Master Race.
The future
So, what surprises lay hidden in future time? Chances are that Florida will disappear, and major metropolises around the world will sink beneath the waves. Most of the animals and plants that we find on Earth today will be squeezed out of existence by Homo sapiens. In short, another existential crisis is staring us in the face, as our population, technology and habits squeeze the life out of our planet. Again, we find ourselves unable to come to a consensus as to what to do to save ourselves. But now, the group that needs to agree about the problem and take concerted action consists of all of humanity. What is clear is that present trends are unsustainable, so I will end my story with this question: Are we ultimately winners or losers?
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