The Chad Pastoralist: History

Here's a little bit of English history for you guys. In 1710, Queen Anne urged Parliament to pass an act allowing for the construction of fifty new churches in London. The act was passed, but building fifty churches is easier said than done and so only twelve of what were called Queen Anne's churches were ever built. The first Queen Anne church was St Mary le Strand, on the former site of the largest maypole in London. A rise in puritanism in the 1660s meant that many of the city's maypoles were torn down by religious extremists due to their pagan origins; this maypole fell over from a high wind in 1672. In its original plans, St Mary's featured a 250ft colum to honour Queen Anne. The design was approved and the materials were acquired, but the plan was quietly cancelled following Anne's death in August 1714.

On May Day and Beltane by WodenWyrd on Instagram Have a joyous May Day celebration! https://instagram.com/wodenwyrd?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

In 1661 a 130 foot tall Maypole was erected in the Strand, London to celebrate the restoration of the English monarchy. A previous Maypole that had stood nearby at the remains of the medieval stone Strand Cross had been destroyed by the Puritans in 1644 for being seen as heathen in its nature. Another famous London Maypole once stood at the crossroads by St Andrew Undershaft church, which got its name from the fact that the Maypole stood taller than the church, hence the church was under-the-shaft. The Maypole was kept in Shaft alley but by 1517 celebrations had been stopped as they had become to rowdy!

I had the talented Art of Ryan Murray create these historically-inspired illustrations of Late Neolithic/Nordic Bronze Age Scandinavians. They wield flint weaponry as stone tools were standard in LN Scandinavia before the adoption of bronze tools and metallurgy, likely acquired through their trade links with the Unetice culture in Central Europe. You can follow Art of Ryan Murray and see more of his work here: -http://Instagram.com/artofryanmurray -https://www.artofryanmurray.com/

The East Scandinavian cluster chads! Special thank you to Ryan Murray for creating the illustrations of the Late Neolithic Scandinavians.

What's the deal with patrilineality in ancient Europe, and how can we see it in the archaelogical record? Patrilineality is a kinship system whereby an individual's family membership derives from the father's direct paternal lineage. A bit like today where you have your dad's last name! Well, we can tell that our ancestors were patrilineal by their burials and DNA. One of the most exemplary examples of this comes from Neolithic Ireland, with the Newgrange megalithic tomb. The man buried inside belonged to Y-DNA lineage I2a, a Western Hunter-Gatherer lineage. Despite the Newgrange elite's overall autosomal ancestry being inherited from Anatolian Farmers and roughly a quarter from the Western Hunter-Gatherers, his phenotypic traits (specifically his complexion) resembled that of his hunter-gatherer ancestors due to him being the result of an incestuous relationship as a means of preserving this archaic trait. We see this in Neolithic Denmark as well, with sample NEO792 from the Allentoft paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06862-3) being 85% Western Steppe Herder in overall ancestry but his Y-DNA lineage was I2a-S2703. A Funnelbeaker Early European Farmer subclade of Western Hunter-Gatherer origin. NEO792 was buried in a megalithic tomb, not a burial mound, and carried mt-DNA U2e2a1, a Western Steppe Herder derived female lineage. This means that despite NEO792 indirectly inheriting the majority of his overall ancestry from Western Steppe Herders, he was likely aware of his direct paternal heritage going back to his Funnelbeaker farmer male ancestors, and was given a special megalithic tomb in the same way. This would be like a guy today who is 85% French and 25% Danish with a Danish male line, specifically choosing to be buried with a Danish burial rite and having a Danish identity and culture. Fascinating, isn't it? As more work is done to uncover the archaelogical history of ancient Europe, it is becoming increasingly more complex (See more on this here: https://t.me/thechadpastoralist/2610)

The Iron Age cultures ancestral to the Germanic peoples, I'd say, evolved from Neolithic and Bronze Age longhouse societies. In the Neolithic era, Europeans lived in clan-based agricultural societies, where patrilocal clan chiefs controlled farms near resources like flint and fertile soil, leading to conflicts between rival clans (Violence in the Neolithic: https://t.me/thechadpastoralist/2268?single) By the Nordic Bronze Age, longhouses were central to society, and technological advancements like bronze weaponry, long-distance trade with Greece and Mesopotamia, and seafaring vessels only strengthened the power of local chiefs. This societal structure in the North European Plain and Scandinavia persisted through the Pre-Roman Iron Age and into the Viking Age, with Viking royal dynasties likely emerging from Vendel era warlords expanding their territories after returning home from their service in the Roman Foederati.

The masculine urge to sit and contemplate.

My most liked post thus far has received 3.8 million views and 238,000 likes on Instagram. It seems everyone loves history content!

I believe in sorcery https://t.me/emmalucyshaw/2530