How old is Odinism?

[Mike_76]

I've heard anything from 40,000 yrs old to about 10,000 yrs old. That's my question basically, thanks.

[Hveðrungur Kveldúlfsson]

No one knows for sure, our ancestors have been following our folkway and gods since before recorded history. We can only make educated guesses from the age of artifacts found and tested for age through carbon dating.

[Mike_76]

Do you know what the educated guesses are, Hveðrungr?

[Hveðrungur Kveldúlfsson]

Well there have been Mjollnir pendants like these http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hammerpix.html found that go from 1000-2000 years old then there are sculptures and carvings found older than that. I honestly have no idea myself, I would guess at least 5000 years old minimum. Then again I am no know it all professional, none of us are.

[beowulf]

My answer (and Edred Wodanson/Max Hyatt's :o ) to such a question would be that Asatru is as old as our Folk, the Germanic branch(s) of our race. As it is the naturally sprung and evolving native belief system of our ancestors it is as old as our race. As we have evolved so have our perceptions of and relationship with the Divine, the gods of our Folk. So how old is the 'Europid/caucasoid' branch of homo sapiens? It seems I've read estimates of 40,000 years or more, can't remember where.

[Liffrea]

I know that Germanic Culture is part of Indo-European culture. Many cultural elements were supposedly picked up from the people who lived in Europe before the Aryans. Germanic Culture developed in Denmark I have heard

[Scramaseax]

Being a brach of Indo-European or Aryan religion,the cultural basis of Asatru extends back about 40000 years. The Germanic branch traces back to the Nordic Bronze Age, about 2000 BC, I'm not sure what the evidence is prior to that. The oldest Mjolnir pendants I know of are those found in Anglo-Saxon graves in Kent, which date from the 7th Century AD, 1300-1400 years ago (although there is no evidence that Anglo-Saxons called the hammer Mjolnir).

[Sigurd]

The oldest European is proven to have lived at least 31000 yrs ago, so therefore, it might even be just about as old as that.

[Scramaseax]

Germanic Culture developed in Denmark I have heard

Here's a pic of the Nordic Bronze Age culture circa 1200 BC:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/42/200px-Nordic_Bronze_Age.PNG

As most should know, the first literary mention of the Germanic tribes was 98 AD, so anything before that is archaelogy and linguistics. It doesn't seem particularly fair since the Kelts got 517 BC. Mind you, since Keltoi means "hidden people" maybe Hecataeus just lumped Kelts and Teutons together.

[whitebread64]

That would be just in this cycle of life, right? How can we count the previous cycles...??? I read somewhere, I believe it was The Masks Of Odin, that it was possible this was the 10th cycle of life for mankind........as I believe that no one theory is any more or less relevant than the next, that kind of leaves that question wide open and subject to personal interpretation

Just thought I'd throw that in there.

ODIN BLESS !!!

[Scramaseax]

That would be just in this cycle of life, right? How can we count the previous cycles...??? I read somewhere, I believe it was The Masks Of Odin, that it was possible this was the 10th cycle of life for mankind........as I believe that no one theory is any more or less relevant than the next, that kind of leaves that question wide open and subject to personal interpretation

Just thought I'd throw that in there.

ODIN BLESS !!!

You do know that The Masks of Odin is totally tangled up in Theosophy?

[whitebread64]

So does that mean that nothing it proposes is worthy of even a modicum of consideration ? Closed-mindedness is not, as I understand it, a very Heathen characteristic.


ODIN BLESS !!!

[Sigurd]

So does that mean that nothing it proposes is worthy of even a modicum of consideration ? Closed-mindedness is not, as I understand it, a very Heathen characteristic.


ODIN BLESS !!!

I'd say it depends. Sometimes closed-mindedness/narrow-mindedness (if this is deemed to be the same) is necessary to achieve something, but on other occasions it is inappropriate.

[whitebread64]

Closed mindedness ? Or focus ? Granted, it was open-mindedness and willingness to learn of other schools of thought that allowed the xtians to gain a foothold in Northern Europe and eventually almost completely annihialate the Heathen ways, but closed-mindedness and lack of willingness to consider different opinions leads to nothing but entropy and stagnation. Where would we be as a folk if we were unable to share our beliefs due to other's closed-mindedness ? I didn't always live as I do now....someone had to show me that this Path was available...and I had to be willing to listen. Sometimes you have to look for the similarities, not the differences.

ODIN BLESS !!!

[Sigurd]

Exactly. Closedmindedness would have hemmed in the spread of Xianity. And I would naturally be heathen and would not have to be so open-minded to be enlightened to my natural religion.

[hrolf]

The Indo-Europeans originated in the area around Kiev and Western Russia. They traveled across Europe and Scandinavia, and down through the Indus valley, creating settlements in Iran, Afghanistan and India. Iranian is an Indo-European language, as are Hindi, Prakrit, and Sanskrit. The Persians were originally Aryan, but mixed with the arabs to produce present-day Persians. I have met many Afghanis with crystal blue eyes and tan skin before.

In response to the How old is Odinism question.

[pinlighter]

There's an excellent link here showing land vegetation and ice cover in Europe over the last 40,000 + years


http://members.cox.net/quaternary/nercEUROPE.html


eg

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe1.gif


http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe2.gif


http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe3.gif


http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe4.gif


http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe5.gif


http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/NEW_MAPS/europe6.gif


,

[Sigurd]

So the people probably didn't live in Scandinavia but in Germany or something like that...

[Mike_76]

I came across 40,000 years old was HERE: (http://asatru.org/asatru.html)

Where Stephen McNallen says:


WHEN DID ASATRU START?

"Asatru is thousands of years old. Its beginnings are lost in prehistory, but it is older than Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or most other religions. The spiritual impulses it expresses are as ancient as the European peoples themselves - at least 40,000 years, and perhaps much older."

I don't know...Odin FEELS VERY old, to me intuitively, of course my subjective feelings don't pass for objectivity. Still.....thanks for the replies, the maps are very helpful, Pinlighter.

[æinvargR]

So the people probably didn't live in Scandinavia but in Germany or something like that...
Scandinavia was populated from the south some 14 000 years ago. But what people are you talking about living in Germany and when?

[Sigurd]

Just know for a fact due to certain archeological findings in Austria and Germany that it is very likely that civilization existed there for over 20000 years, so that would have been before Scandinavia, and our belief could have been born around that area rather than Scandinavia. But it is hard to say, as there are very few, if any cavepaintings done by norse folk.

[æinvargR]

Ah. Well I guess the answer depends on how you define the belief as it has evolved, but I don't think we will ever know. The different asatru 'versions' probably have some common roots but then evolved separetely, and maybe later influenced each other.

There are cavepaintings in Scandinavia but I don't know much about them. I found this while surfing Wikipedia the other day though:

Image of cave paintings (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/Haljesta.jpg) (Västmanland, Sweden)
The image is a composite showing (top to bottom, left to right): Plowing with oxen (the branch in the farmer's hand is assumed to be part of a fertility ritual), archer/hunter with bow, fishing from a small boat, (middle row) a procession of unknown nature, foot prints, (bottom row) man with dog, typical Scandinavian rock carving ship symbol.
From Nordic Bronze Age article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age).

That procession painting is kind of freaky :p

[Sigurd]

How old are the paintings?

[æinvargR]

It only says, "rock carvings are usually dated back to the Bronze Age (approx. 1500-500 BC), as are these" on the Swedish wiki article of those carvings.

[Sigurd]

Yeah, I read it, but I thought that maybe you might have known more about it.

[Scramaseax]

So does that mean that nothing it proposes is worthy of even a modicum of consideration ? Closed-mindedness is not, as I understand it, a very Heathen characteristic.


ODIN BLESS !!!

Well if you want to mix Odinism with Theosophy then I suppose it's a great book. But very suspect as a sourcebook for the former, since it was written by a Theosophist.

[Hengest]

Well most of our lore was written down by christians. Masks of Odin has much that is worth reading but much that can be discarded. Read it with a skeptical mind.

[calumthug]

This may be a little off topic, so respond privately if you wish, but what is theosophy?