gobekli tepe - genesis of the gods by andrew collins Page A

Scandinavian, and Baltic ethnicity, culture, stone technology, and, very likely, mythology might well have originated with the Swiderian reindeer hunters, whose original homeland was the forests, steppes, and river valleys of Central and Eastern Europe. Yet who exactly were the Swiderians? Where did they come from, and what did they look like?
    HUMAN HYBRIDS
    Anatomically speaking, the Swiderians have been described as “tall . . . long-headed, [and] thin faced.” 17 It is something confirmed by noted Lithuanian anthropologist Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994), who in 1956 detailed the discovery eight years earlier, in 1948, of a partial cranium, minus its lower jaw, at Kebeliai, near Priekulė in Lithuania. Dating to the end of the Paleolithic age, when Swiderian settlements occupied the area, it is said to have been “massive, dolichocephalic [that is, long headed], with strong proclivity [inclination] of the forehead, prominent and massive brow ridges and a narrow forehead.” In her opinion the strange skull “was sapiens, but had Neanderthaloid elements, in other words, [it] was a Neanderthal- sapiens hybrid.” 18 Gimbutas spoke also of a “closely related” cranium dating again to the end of the last glacial age, this one discovered on the Skhodnia River, northwest of Moscow, 19 where Swiderian groups are known to have existed at this time.
    A third skull of interest, attributed to the post-Swiderian Kunda culture and found in a pit paved with stones at Kirsna in the district of Marijampolė in southern Lithuania, Gimbutas describes as “hyperdolichocephic [that is, extremely long headed] . . . narrow faced, high-orbited,” and resembling the “Brünn skull of central Europe.” 20
    The “Brünn skull” mentioned refers to one of a number of examples, all very similar, unearthed in 1891 at Brünn (modern Brno), the capital of Moravia in what is today the Czech Republic. Here human remains dating back as much as twenty-five thousand years were found that had a slightly different physiognomy to the pre-existing Cro-Magnon population that had entered Europe from Africa around forty-three thousand years ago. 21 Whereas the Cro-Magnon were broad-faced, large-headed individuals, the Brünn skulls displayed “extreme elongation and dolichocephaly,” 22 that is, their craniums were long and narrow. They also had strong chins, high cheekbones, low, wide-set eye orbits, and, like the Kebeliai example, prominent brow ridges. 23
    Similar skulls from the same human population were unearthed three years later in 1894 at PÅ™edmost (modernly spelt Predmostí), also in the Czech Republic. Fourteen complete skeletons and the remains of six others had been placed in a tight circle within a pit, their bodies contracted into a squatting position and surrounded by a bank of stones. The size of the limbs of these individuals indicated that they were of “large stature.” 24 The finds at PÅ™edmost led anthropologists of the period to start referring to this unknown human type as “Brünn-PÅ™edmost man” and even Homo pÅ™edmostensis. 25
    Speculation mounted in the early twentieth century that the Brünn population of the Upper Paleolithic age were in fact “Neanderthaloids,” either Neanderthal-human hybrids and/or the remnants of an intermediary stage between the two species, 26 ideas that almost certainly influenced the observations made by Marija Gimbutas in 1956 regarding the strange physiognomy of the Kebeliai skull.
    It is thus possible that the Swiderians of Central and Eastern Europe were directly related to the Brünn population and that both either evolved from or contained within their communities Neanderthal-human hybrids of quite striking appearance, having elongated heads, long faces, high foreheads, prominent brow ridges (a specific Neanderthal trait), high cheekbones, large jaws (a Cro-Magnon trait), and an increased height. It was a physiognomy inherited by post-Swiderian cultures, such as the Kunda,