"...the northward-thrusting edge of that huge wave, more cultural than racial, of Indo-European-speaking warriors which had been spreading from southern Russia in the past century or two. Elsewhere they were destined to topple civilizations: India, Crete, Hatti, Greece would go down in ruins before them, and their languages and religions and way of life would shape all Europe. But hitherto, in sparsely populated Scandinavia, there had not been great conflict between the native hunters, fishers, and farmers, and the chariot-driving immigrant herdsmen."
-Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTER SIX, p. 55.
Anderson does not use the word, "Aryans." We know that they will conquer Scandinavia. Their sky gods will become not only the Vedic pantheon and the Olympians but also the Aesir. Odin is a character in Anderson's heroic fantasies and the Time Patrol must later counteract a resurgence of Goddess-worship. If the Wardens and Rangers could be transported to the Time Patrol timeline, then they would side with the Exaltationists and the Patrol, respectively.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And these Indo-Europeans were also the source of the rather implausible "Wicca," in a vaguely Gaelic form, that we see in Stirling's Change books. But far fiercer and darker!
I suspect, however, that the Time Patrol would banish to the exile planet BOTH the Wardens and the Rangers if they somehow existed in the Time Patrol's world line. Alternately, the Patrol would probably work to prevent either the Rangers or Wardens from getting a complete victory over the other.
Sean
And that account has recently been essentially validated by ancient DNA research, except that it -was- more descent-based and less a transmission of cultural traits to new populations than Poul assumed. The Yamnaya migrants from the Ukrainian steppe replaced about 75% of the previous genome across the whole of the North European plain in the course of a few centuries. That's comparable to the European imprint on the New World after Columbus, or rather more so allowing for regional variations.
It turns out that Europeans and Indians share a lot of genes, and it's due to the Yamnaya/Corded Ware descent they share.
It was also rather earlier than in Poul's CORRIDORS OF TIME-- the dates are too recent by about a thousand years. He has it in 1827 BCE; the actual date of the arrival of the Yamnaya and their formation of the Corded Ware/Battle Ax culture in northern Europe and its entry to Scandinavia was about 3000-2800 BCE.
The Indo-European entry into India was rather later, though -- after 2000 BCE.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I think you meant to say the Indo/European invasion of India was later than the time suggested in THERE WILL BE TIME. The Yamnaya/Corded Ware people's invasion of northern Europe and Scandinavia in circa 3000-2800 BC is not that much earlier than 1827 BC.
Note to self: look up the Yamnaya/Corded Ware culture. And I had known Indo/Europeans and American Indians share a good deal of common ancestry. That won't sit well with many Politically Correct types!
Sean
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