re: Globalism,in a nutshell

quote:

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You mean everything about them was different, save for the concept of race?

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No, everything wasn't that different. All of them spoke Indo-European languages which came from one singular source in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (near modern Ukraine) about 4,000 BCE. (Most linguistic scholars agree that the Pontic-Caspian steppe is the best candidate for the PIE language because of what we know from archaeology and genetics).

From the steppes an early branch of these people moved south into Anatolia and founded the Hittite empire (Hittite is the oldest IE language known). Others moved into central Europe (later becoming Germans), some went to western Europe (the Celts) and some stayed in Eastern Europe (Balto-Slavs). However, one group went southward into the Balkans and then finally into Greece. These people became the Hellenes.

To illustrate the similarity in the language and culture of the IE people, the chief God of the Hellenic pantheon was Zeus ("sky father"). The Roman version was Jupiter. The Celtic version was "Duw." The German version was Tyr. The similarities in this (and many other words) proves that all these people derived from a single source. They shared the same religion for the most part, even if their languages branched apart to become mutually unintelligible over time.

As for Greece, the original people were Pelasgians, a term Herodotus and other writers used as a catch-all term to describe the natives. Little is known about their language except for what we have from Linear A and Linear B scripts. They seem, culturally, to be similar to the Egyptians (art, religious practices, etc.) and probably had close ties with North Africa before the Hellenes. The Pelasgians, of course, were responsible for the Minoan (Mycenean) culture.

Of course, there was a merger between old Pelasgian (native) culture and that of the IE invaders. There's little doubt the Hellenes learned a lot from them, especially artistically and architecturally. The Hellenes learned from them how to write which gives us insight into the Greek branch of IE. This Pelasgian influence probably separated the Hellenes culturally from their northern kin.

However, even in the classical writings, you can see a cultural divide between some of the city-states. For instance, the Athenians seemed to look upon the Spartans as a sort of curiosity with their highly regimented and militaristic culture. There's little doubt that the Spartans were much closer, culturally, to their ancestors in the original IE homeland.

The bottom line is that what happened in Greece isn't the same thing as modern America where you have people coming from all over the known world, from various racial groups, practicing wildly different religions and having wildly different customs. It's not the same.