Talk:Urnfield culture

Malformed references
I see and can't find an entry in the page history where this was not corrupted with ??? - does anyone know the correct reference? --Nantonos 15:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Konrad Jad?d?ewski, Urgeschichte Mitteleuropas (Wroc?aw 1984).

Why Cremation?
Funeral practices are a form of religious practice, and religious practices are among the most conservative of all cultural or linguistic elements. The question rises, then, of why inhumation gave way to cremation.

My answer is that some sort of religious innovation occured. I gather that cremation seems to be associated particularly with warriors. No specific ethnic or linguistic group can be clearly linked to them, tho' Italics and Celts are often linked to it. It is also
 * "the major late Bronze Age ... culture of temperate Europe" (JP Mallory, EIEC, "Urnfield Culture".

It was a prestige culture, probably the elite culture; it is hard not to think of it as a warlord culture. The Urnfield culture is reputed to have originated in the Balkans (references?).

Interestingly, the dates for Urnfield are the same as those for Mycenae. And the traditional date for Homer, ca, 800, comes at the end of the Urnfield culture. While the Mycenaeans practiced inhumation, and in fact, there is seems to be NO evidence for Urnfield practices in Greece (and particularly, in Thessaly), we nonetheless have the funeral of Patroclus in Book 23 of the Iliad, which is both an Urnfield burial and a kurgan burial -- with human sacrifices, and the addition of animal sacrifices, the ashes put into an urn and buried at the base of a tumulus. Homer has transmitted to us something very interesting, something that does not at all fit into the Mycenaean scheme, but nonetheless reflects something from further north, the steppe perhaps, but more likely, from the Balkans, something definitely Urnfield-related.

The picture I get is of late bronze age multi-ethnic war-bands wandering all over the place, following a barbarous war-god religion, a religion that perhaps saw the smoke of the dead warrior's pyre as a sort of translation into proto-Valhalla. It may have also been a recognition that wandering warriors could not stay put to watch over a proper inhumation, so the deceased and his grave-offerings were all incinerated, just to keep the grave-robbers away.

As for Patroculus, I think Homer is just inserting some stuff unrelated to the Greeks, but quite pertinent to his stock of old stories. --FourthAve 07:34, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Ha A, Ha B etc?
What does that mean? Does it stand for something? --AW 18:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * "The Urnfield culture covers the phases Hallstatt A and B (Ha A and B) in Paul Reinecke's chronological system", see Urnfield_culture. Tankred 03:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible Vandalisim?
I would like to ask the author of this page, or someone with the proper knowledge to review the page for accuracy. I have found one blatant case of vandalism (something about "octopuss pie is good") and removed it.

The second case is somewhat suspect. Disclaimer: I am layperson on this subject. The following text is quoted from the article:

"Also in many regions of the celtic society the druids and druidesses used large sacred saber teeth straight from the mouth of saber tooth tigers. Often the teeth were still covered in blood from when they were removed. This showed the greatness of the druidess or druid that removed them."

I believe this to be suspect for the following reasons:

I don't remember hearing that Saber-tooth tigers and Homo sapiens coexisting.

While the rest of the article is very vague as to the religion of the Urnfield culture (due to our current lack of historical sources detailing the religious practices), the suspect comment is very detailed as to the druidic practice and the social standing of said "druid" once the tooth was removed from the animal.

The occurrence of other vandalism on this page also heightens my skepticism of this comment, which seems to differ from the rest of the article in detail and tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.66.144.98 (talk) 19:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Bad link
The link on the map points to the stone age Danubian culture, not the bronze age. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wvdveer (talk • contribs) 09:56, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

"Simplified" map
Please either redo or skip this cruelly "simplified", rather mistaken map! HJJHolm (talk) 06:56, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree --Xoil (talk) 12:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

proto-Celtic?!
The intro says that the Urnfield culture spoke a proto-Celtic language. There isn't however a secton dealing on how this is arrived at, and a single reference from a 1970s work is all that support it. What the authors of that work say is that "If we are correct in assuming that the Celtic language crystallized among the Late Bronze Age Urnfield communities of Middle Europe, the extensive links which must have existed with Atlantic Europe at this time would have provided a context for Celtic to have been widely adopted as a lingua franca, accompanying the flow of goods and technological information. In this way the language may have spread through the Pyrenees to northern Iberia to emerge as Celtiberian, and through the Alpine passes to the Italian Lakes where Lepontic was to develop." If, assuming, must have, would have, and may have do not make for a lot of evidence for what sounds in the article like a scientific fact. I would suggest that it is either removed, or moved to a new section about theories of Urnfield culture language, until better sourced material are offered. Crock81 (talk) 01:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Further, "At one time commentators speculated that the Celtic languages were spoken by people of the Urnfield culture, c. 1500-80013C, a late Bronze Age development distinguished by techniques for burial of the dead. This theory can no longer be supported, but motifs of Urnfield origin are found in the oldest identifiably Celtic cultural era, that named for Hallstatt in what is today Austria." James MacKillop, Myths and Legends of the Celts, Introduction, Penguin UK, 2006 Crock81 (talk) 02:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No, this is what the citation says and I have added another well-based on the archaeological evidence tied to the linguistic attestations. I have a copy of Nora Kershaw Chadwick's 'The Celts' 1970. On page 28, it says: "With the emergence of the Urnfield culture of Central Europe, there appear a people whom some scholars regard as being 'proto-Celtic', in that they may have spoken, as is suggested by the evidence of place-names, an early form of Celtic. Apart from the influence of some immigrants from the east during the early first millennium B.C., there is little to distinguish the Urnfield people from their descendants of the Hallstatt culture, other than the latter's use of iron. Again it would seem that the thread of continuity is strong.". This chapter was written by noted British pre-historian John Xavier Willington Patrick Corcoran:


 * http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095638681


 * Venceslas Kruta noted that the earliest Urnfield language was probably an early form of Celtic because of cultural continuity considerations with the development of the Canegrate->Golasecca culture speaking one of the earliest attested Celtic languages Lepontic. He also notes other earlier attested Celtic fragments from over the Alps.Jembana (talk) 03:52, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Who cares who the author is? Can you cite evidence that Urnfield culture spoke some sort of Celtic? This is an encyclopaedic entry, not a forum for speculative discussion. If a source from 2006 says there is no evidence, the chances are that he has surveyed recent literature before saying so, never mind something four decades back. Crock81 (talk) 21:51, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Most authors (Gimbutas, Anthony, Kristiansen and others) actually believe that the Urnfield culture was not an homogeneous entity but rather different tribes/peoples (Proto-Celts, Proto-Phrygians, Proto-Italics etc.) who shared some cultural/religious traits.--Xoil (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2014 (UTC).
 * Belief is falsifiable. The assertion this article makes in the lede is that the culture identified as Urnfield was Celtic and spoke Celtic, or Proto-Celtic. Anything placed in the lede must reflect the contents of the article as a whole, and must come with properly referenced evidence of this 'fact'. A brief survey of just a few recent works about Celts does not support the idea that there is any evidence that Urnfield culture populations were Celts. Nor is there any mention of this in the rest of the article. If ancient Greek sources are to be believed the origins of Celts is on islands off the northern Europe, but no evidence to support this has been found to date either.
 * Anything with Proto in front of it is a speculative re-constructive theory. and does not have evidence to support it in terms of archaeological inscriptions never mind actual speakers. The Comparative Method does not produce evidence derived from facts, but hypothesises on something that can never be proven in absence of actual speakers. For some languages, commencing from the Iron Age, some inferences can be made via artefacts with inscriptions, but that is about it. Crock81 (talk) 19:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree...dont'know if can be useful however here is a an old (1965) scheme proposed by Gimbutas (page 340)--Xoil (talk) 15:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * So where would it go? Theories about origins section? Crock81 (talk) 09:01, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Or "Ethnic ascription: theories" . Another source, "Europe before history" (2000) by Kristiansen pg.388 (about the "Middle-Danube Urnfield groups") --Xoil (talk) 17:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * As much as some in academia like to present theories as facts, they are still theories. This article is not however about theories! If you are going to create a theory section in this article, it needs to be replicated in quite a few others, and linked into the higher order migration theories, etc. It gets complicated. Too complicated for me to start doing the editing. However, I'm saying the theory should not be presented as fact here and certainly not in the lede.Crock81 (talk) 10:31, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I know they are only theories, no one knows for sure who the "Urnenfelders" exatcly were... but at the moment the article says that they were "Proto-Celts" while most archeologist (even some linguists) suppose that they spoke different dialects/languages, IMO it should by pointed out...i'm not going to create a new section because my english level is very basic, i can help to find/add sources --Xoil (talk) 16:25, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I am with Crock 81. "Linguistic evidence and continuity with the following Hallstatt culture suggests that the people of this area spoke an early form of Celtic": The former: no! the latter: maybe, but it is only a suggestion, nothing more. No knoledge about facts, just belief. --Peewit (talk) 12:14, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Needs more sources
This article is very interesting but sources are scarce.

Please add more references. Jfrheault (talk) 04:33, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Disputed
There is a global consensus that the information on the page is either contested or impossible to verify due to lack of sources. Jfrheault (talk) 04:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)