The number of extinct ancient civilizations and peoples that once inhabited our planet exceeds all your expectations. In Europe alone, there are several thousand such peoples. They were subjugated by neighbors, assimilated, subjected to genocide, etc. Anyway, we will never see them again in the form in which they originally existed. This article will cover some of these peoples.
Prussians
Prussians, or Baltic Prussians, were people from among the Baltic tribes who inhabited the Prussian region. This region gave its name to the later state of Prussia. It was located on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Gulf in the west and the Curonian Gulf in the east. People spoke the language that is now known as Old Prussian, and professed a peculiar version of paganism.
In the video below you can hear the sound of the Old Prussian language.
In the 13th century, ancient Prussian tribes were conquered by the Teutonic knights. The former German state of Prussia got its name from the Baltic Prussians, although it was inhabited by Germans - descendants of the Teutons.
The Teutonic knights and their troops drove the Prussians from southern Prussia to northern. Many representatives of this disappeared people were also killed in the Crusades, initiated by Poland and the popes. Many were also assimilated and converted to Christianity. Old Prussian language disappeared either in the 17th century or at the beginning of the 18th century. Many Prussians emigrated to other countries, fleeing the Teutonic Crusades.
Territory
The land of the Prussians was much larger before the arrival of the Poles. After 1945, the territory of Old Prussia geographically corresponds to the modern regions of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (in Poland), the Kaliningrad Region (in Russia) and Southern Klaipeda Region (Lithuania).
Ducky
Dacians were the Thracian people who inhabited the Dacia region, located in the vicinity of the Carpathian mountains and west of the Black Sea. This area includes the modern countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as part of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Southern Poland. Dacians spoke the Dacian language, but were under the cultural influence of the neighboring Scythians and Celtic invaders in the 4th century BC.
State of Dacia
Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians could not form a stable political organization. A strong Dacian state appeared in the 1st century BC during the reign of King Burebista. Including the Illyrians, the mountainous areas were home to various peoples who were considered warlike and ferocious, while the plains were more peaceful.
Thracians
Thracians inhabited parts of the ancient provinces of Thrace, Moesia, Macedonia, Dacia, Lesser Scythia, Sarmatia, Bithynia, Mysia, Pannonia and other regions of the Balkans and Anatolia. This region extended over most of the Balkan region, including the Geth lands north of the Danube, right up to the Bug, as well as Panonia in the west. In total, there were about 200 Thracian tribes, but they all irrevocably disappeared.
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of Indo-European tribes that inhabited part of the western Balkans. The territory inhabited by the Illyrians became known as Illyria thanks to the Greek and Roman authors, who called the territory corresponding to the current Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, part of Serbia and most of central and northern Albania, between the Adriatic Sea in the west, the Drava River in the north, the Morava River in the east and the mouth of the Aoos River in the south. They are the ancestors of modern Albanians, who are confused with the extinct Caucasian Albanians, which brings the Illyrians closer to the disappeared peoples of the Caucasus.
Title
The name "Illyrians" in the vocabulary of the ancient Greeks when referring to their northern neighbors could mean a wide, poorly defined group of disappeared peoples, and today it is not clear to what extent they were linguistically and culturally homogeneous. Illyrian origin was and is still attributed to several ancient peoples in Italy, as it is believed that they followed the coastline of the Adriatic Sea to the Apennine Peninsula.
Illyrian tribes never collectively considered themselves Illyrians. Their name was originally a generalization of the name of a particular Illyrian tribe, which first came into contact with the ancient Greeks during the Bronze Age, which led to the fact that their name was applied equally to all disappeared peoples with a similar language and customs.
Vascons
The Vascons were a Paleo-European people who, upon the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory stretching between the upper reaches of the Ebro River and the southern edge of the western Pyrenees - a region that coincides with modern Navarra, western Aragon and the northeastern edge of La Rioja on the Iberian Peninsula . Vascons are considered the ancestors of modern Basques, to whom they left their name.
Resettlement
The description of the territory inhabited by the Vascons in ancient times is found in the texts of classical authors who lived between the 1st and 2nd centuries of our era, such as Livy, Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy. Although these texts were studied as sources, some authors pointed out the apparent lack of uniformity, as well as the presence of contradictions in the texts, in particular those that belong to Strabo.
The oldest document belongs to the authorship of Libya, which in a brief excerpt from his work on the Sertorian war in 76 BC. e. tells how, after crossing the Ebro River and the city of Kalagurris, they crossed the plains of the Vasconum until they reached the border of their closest neighbors, the Berons. Comparing other sections of the same document, historians came to the conclusion that this border was located to the west, while the southern neighbors of the Vascons were the Celtiberians.
Religion of the Vascons
Epigraphic and archaeological evidence allowed experts to identify some religious rites that have been present among the Vascons since the arrival of the Romans and the introduction of writing. According to studies conducted on this subject, religious syncretism continued until the 1st century. From this moment until the adoption of Christianity between the 4th and 5th centuries, Roman mythology was predominant among this people.
Vasconian theonyms were found on tombstones and altars, which once again proves syncretism between pre-Christian Roman belief systems and Vascon religions. Two altars were found in Uue, one dedicated to Lakubegi, the god of the lower world, and the other dedicated to Jupiter, although there is still no way to date them. In Lerat and Barbarina, two tombstones were found dedicated to the deity Stelaitse and dated to the 1st century.
Vandals - the disappeared people of the white race of North Africa
On the territory of modern Tunisia in the middle of the first millennium AD, there was a kingdom of vandals and Alans. It was created by immigrants from the same German times, comfortably located in the North African territories, once occupied by Rome. This kingdom is known for the fact that its warriors repeatedly attacked Rome in the 7th century AD, completely ruining it.
Aquitans
Aquitans or Occitanians were a people living in a territory that in our time corresponds to southern Aquitaine and the southwestern Pyrenees (France). Classical authors such as Julius Caesar and Strabo clearly distinguish them from other peoples of Gaul and note their similarity with the tribes that lived on the Iberian Peninsula.
In the process of Romanization, they gradually adopted the Latin language (vulgar Latin) and Roman civilization. Their old language, Aquitaine, was the forerunner of the Basque language and the basis for the French dialect spoken in Gascony.
Basque Connection
The presence of deities or people bearing clearly Basque names on the late Roman-Aquitaine funerary plates led many philologists and linguists to conclude that the Aquitanian language was closely associated with the older form of the Basque language. Julius Caesar draws a clear line between Aquitans living in modern southwestern France and speaking Aquitaine and neighboring Celts living in the north.
Iberians
The Iberians were a collection of peoples whom the Greek and Roman authors (Hecateus of Miletus, Avien, Herodotus and Strabo) identified with the ancient population of the Iberian Peninsula. Roman sources also use the term "Hispani" to refer to the Iberians. Without this mysterious nation, not a single list of disappeared peoples is possible.
The term "Iberian", used by ancient authors, had two different meanings. One, more general, applies to all populations of the Iberian Peninsula without ethnic differences (Paleo-Europeans, Celts, and non-Celtic Indo-Europeans). Another, more limited ethnic meaning refers to the peoples living on the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, which by the VI century BC absorbed the cultural influence of the Phoenicians and Greeks. This pre-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to the 1st century BC.
Other peoples, possibly associated with the Iberians, are the Vascons, although they are much more associated with the Aquitans. The rest of the peninsula, in the northern, central, northwestern, western, and southwestern regions, was inhabited by groups of Celts or Celtiberians and, possibly, pre-Celtic or Proto-Celtic peoples - Lusitans, Wettons, and Turdetans.
Avars
The Pannonian Avars were a Eurasian people of unknown origin, living on the territory of modern Hungary. They probably arrived from the territory of modern central Russia. If not for migration to Europe, the Avars could supplement the history of the disappeared peoples of Siberia.
They are probably best known for their invasions and destruction in the Avar-Byzantine wars from 568 to 626.
The name of the Pannonian Avars (in honor of the region in which they ultimately settled) is used to distinguish them from the Avars of the Caucasus, a separate people with whom the Pannonian Avars could or could not be associated.
They founded the Avar Kaganate, which covered the Pannonian basin and significant areas of Central and Eastern Europe from the end of the VI to the beginning of the IX century. Disappeared peoples, books about which are very popular, are often mentioned in the context of the disappearance of Avars, a powerful nation that died out for unknown reasons.