User:Neitrāls vārds/Pre-Indo-European Baltic
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The nature of Neolithic European cultures, ethnic groups or languages (also referred to as the "Old Europe") prior to Indo-European and Finno-Ugric proliferation remains a highly speculative topic.
The territory comprising modern day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the Neolithic was characterized by the Narva culture comprising roughly modern day Estonia and Latvia and Neman culture comprising roughly modern day Lithuania and adjacent territories.
It is only possible to speculate on the ethnicity of the peoples that were part of the Narva culture/Neman culture.
Endre Bojtár comments on the possibility of certain "Veneds" being a pre-Indo-European/pre-Finno-Ugric ethnic group being squeezed out by IDE Balts from south and FU Baltic Finns from the north. However this question raises serious issues. Bojtár devotes an entire chapter to what he calls "The Venet(d) question" in his book Foreword to the past: a cultural history of the Baltic people.
Some of his observations are:
- At this time only the name of certain "North Veneds" and "South Venets" mentioned in historical texts remains the only sign of their existence, furthermore instances of this name being used are scattered all over the European continent. Author notes that versions with -t and -d have been used interchangeably. The author decides to refer to the Baltic (North) Veneds with a -d and the Adriatic (South) Venets with a -t.[p 85]
- Pliny calls north Veneds either Venets or sometimes Veneds, while Tacitus Venets.