The k2p blog

Compared to the population of Europe of 740 million (500 million in the EU), the total refugee numbers of some 400,000 are not large enough to talk about “invasions” or being “over-run”. (In the short-term numbers may, of course, be locally overwhelming). But the routes being travelled now are the same routes that were used for the peopling of Europe in the neolithic. Neanderthals probably retreated westwards as the hunter gatherers from central Asia arrived. They had been absorbed and were long gone as a separate “race” by the time the 2 main agricultural waves arrived.

And now the refugee numbers are beginning to be large enough to be a not insignificant impact on the populations of Europe. It could well be a new “peopling of Europe”. Or it could turn out to be not so large or important. But history will probably show that the migrations of peoples into Europe in the early 22nd century was of similar importance to the neolithic migrations. History will probably show that this  migration is what stemmed the downward population spiral that was troubling Europe.

In ancient times –

First came the movement of peoples westwards into Europe. This was during the paleolithic some 40,000 – 20,000 years ago with hunter-gatherers coming from the east. The “admixture” events between the Neanderthals and modern humans could have been along the westward moving front.

Then came the advent of agriculture, starting earlier but in earnest perhaps about 10,000 years ago. Genetic evidence indicates 2 waves of farmers from the east who then mixed with the hunter-gatherers already there.

So it would seem that hunter-gatherers mixed with farmers from the east who spread across Europe about 9,000 years ago. They formed the first agricultural settlements. Then came the invasion of the nomadic Yamnaya culture around 5,000 years ago. The Yamnayans were much more individualistic than the peoples they replaced and gave rise to the prominence of the nuclear family and the development of large family holdings of cleared lands, rather than the clusters of people in village settlements. They came on horses and brought livestock. But by about 4,000 years ago they too were overrun by the warlike Sintashta.

peopling of europe in the neolithic – via daily mail

and now the current refugee crisis has about 400,000 people moving north westwards –

Business Insider: According to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), EU countries received 437,384 asylum applications from January to July. The UNHRC also reports that during that time, Germany was by far the country that received the most asylum applications, with 188,486. Hungary came second in place with 65,415 applications, and Sweden took third with 33,234 applications. Italy was fourth with 30,223, and France was fifth with 29,832 demands. Many refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war and ISIS have been entering the European Union through Greece — 258,365 refugees entered Greece by boat so far this year — after going through Turkey.

europe’s refugee crisis – business insider graphics

Nothing new under the sun.

Tags: neolithic migrations, peopling of Europe, refugee crisis

This entry was posted on September 17, 2015 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Behaviour, Demographics, Europe, Genetics, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.