Old Europe offers a new model for humanity

Europe has become a war zone. In the field of future studies, humanity is going to be a megatrend. Humanity is in great peril in the face of the destructive power of war. These circumstances urge us to question who we want to be as humankind. It is more important than ever to ponder European identity - or the lack thereof.

We have written elsewhere (ihmisyydenmonetpuolet.com) that research about Old Europe, or the Danube civilization, is a marvelous resource for perceiving Europe’s dead ends and possibilities. This research direction, born in the 1990's, has revealed a historical society and a model for humanity which is based on cooperation, equality and peaceful dialogue between cultures. The reception and application of the research results have been prevented by preconceived ideas about the human species as incapable of peaceful life. Recent DNA studies have confirmed the central hypotheses of Old European research and placed its findings in the spotlight.

The civilization of Old Europe was in Southeast Europe. This area formed the nucleus of a broad trade network. On a contemporary map, this trade network extended from Kiev to Vienna and from Budapest to Athens, from the cost of the Aegean Sea to France and the Baltic region, to Italy, an even to parts of Spain. Old Europe was thus a prototype for the contemporary European Union. Old Europe flourished from 6000 to 3000 BCE.

Few are aware of how enlightened this period of cultural history really was. Many Old European achievements were the first in world history. The plow, the potter’s wheel, metallurgy, the art of writing, literacy and a system for recording time, i.e. a calendar, were all invented during this period. The Old Europeans were the first who knew how to build two-story houses, and they developed ship-building technology. These were indeed useful skills when the world’s oldest urban centers were born circa 4000–3500 BCE, in what is now modern-day western Ukraine. How was it possible to achieve all of this, as well as such a high standard of living brought about jointly by these inventions and a particular way of life? What was the driving force behind this highly developed culture? Could it be renewed in contemporary Europe?  

Old European society flourished because one of its key values was peace. If conflicts, war, and pressure created by social hierarchies and power games would have over-shadowed life, the requirements for such a highly developed culture could not have been met. People in Old European communities lived in the spirit of cooperation and thus creativity, activity and invention were able to bloom. Peace prevailed in religious life as well as in relationships between groups of people and their neighbors.

The Old Europeans organized their own lives and that of the entire community from a very unique basis that involved optimal timing. This ability, rooted in body-consciousness, is defined by the word kairos. Kairos means the ability to live according to the rhythm of one's inner source of energy. The rhythms of peoples’ inner sources of energy were attuned with Nature and the seasonal cycle, and they didn’t plunder or destroy their natural environment. Kairos is the awareness of the right time to act. It also means temperance, which in this case we interpret as the appropriate use of energy according to the specific situation. Even today, we have practices through which it is possible to revivify our sense of kairos, such as Focusing, developed by philosopher Eugene T. Gendlin.

Even though this concept was borrowed into Ancient Greek, people no longer knew how to use their inner energy sources in a peaceful way during the Homeric Age and Antiquity. This sets up an interesting research question about the significance of the concept and practice of kairos, as well as its interpretations within these two cultures which, after merging together, formed the basis of Western civilization.

Old European civilization is a success story which could provide an alternative to our contemporary world of crises. Modern Europeans have much reason to be envious of the Old Europeans, as they were aware of the unconditional value of peace. Then again, as we peer into the looking-glass of history, we can also find comfort in the knowledge that peaceful humanity really did exist, and was not just a dream. Let us give some thought to Old Europe's timeless values and resuscitate them in this era, when our sense of Europeanness is at a turning point. Our European self-esteem needs a new anchor: the Old European model for humanity would serve us well.

Map of Old European trade networks.

Harald Haarmann and Virpi Lehtinen

Read this blog in Finnish here.