Old Europe (archaeology)

Old Europe is a term coined by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic culture in southeastern Europe located in the Danube River valley.

In her major work, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images (1974), she refers to these Neolithic cultures as Old Europe (Neolithic Europe and Pre-Indo-European as synonymous). Archaeologists and ethnographers working within her framework believe that the evidence points to later migrations and invasions of the peoples who spoke Indo-European languages at the beginning of the Bronze age (the Kurgan hypothesis).

Old Europe

Old Europe, or Neolithic Europe, refers to the time between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, roughly from 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) to ca. 1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in northwest Europe). The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4000 years (i. e., 7000–3000 BCE); in North-West Europe it is just under 3000 years (ca. 4500–1700 BCE).