Monday, 25 August 2025

Crazy Basque pagan tradition: Azeri Dantza

 

Basque people have unique ancient traditions that they still preserve such as the fox dance "Azeri Dantza" in Hernani where a man wears the skin of a fox and whips people with the inflated bladder of a pig! This derives from ancient Roman pagan traditions of Lupercalia and Bacchanalia.

Friday, 15 August 2025

DEBUNKING: Anglo-Saxon diversity: Updown Girl


 
 

Anglo-Saxon England was racially diverse according to a new genetics paper 'West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset published in Antiquity journal. But is Duncan Sayer misrepresenting the evidence? How significant are two skeletons with 1/4 black ancestry and have they failed to notice middle eastern ancestry in Updown Girl?

It is also worth nothing, as I did not mention it in the video, that the archaeologist Duncan Sayer, named author on the new paper, was the one who has been pushing for said paper since 2022 when Updown girl's sample was published in the supplements for the Gretzinger et al 2022 paper on Anglo-Saxons. 

The 2022 paper undermined a nonsense piece Sayer had written in 2018 for The Conversation in which he denied that English people share a common Anglo-Saxon origin and pretended that the fact the Germanic migrants mixed with Britons was a revelation and an own. This has always been known though, and no one ever denied it. He used the piece as a means to score political points openly attacking both UKIP and a charity for Heathens called The Odinist Fellowship. 

He also said: "The people of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries certainly did not think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons and would not have understood the description." The terms 'English' and 'Anglo-Saxon' were synonyms. While 'English' was first recorded as an ethnonym by Bede around 731 AD, the term 'Anglo-Saxon' came a bit later in 886 AD - but there is no reason to think that Anglisc is a term invented by Bede or that the common identity of Germanic people in Britain didn't exist before him. The fact that Jutes, Angles and Saxons all migrated in a coordinated way shows there was a tribal coalition prior even to their arrival. 

 What does he have against the English ethnic group, I wonder? It does explain the inclusion of woke artist Jade Montserrat in the paper. 

Sources

  • B. Foody MG, Dulias K, Justeau P, et al. Ancient genomes reveal cosmopolitan ancestry and maternal kinship patterns at post-Roman Worth Matravers, Dorset. Antiquity. Published online 2025: 
  • Sayer D, Gretzinger J, Hines J, et al. West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset. Antiquity. 2025 
  • Gretzinger, J., Sayer, D., Justeau, P. et al. The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool. Nature 610, 112–119 (2022). 
  • Bryc K, Durand EY, Macpherson JM, Reich D, Mountain JL. The genetic ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States. Am J Hum Genet. 2015 . 

Friday, 11 July 2025

British Tin Started Europe’s Bronze Age 🇬🇧


Discover the pivotal role Britain played in sparking Europe’s Bronze Age in this free history documentary! 🌟 Unearth the secrets of the Beaker folk, who mainstreamed tin-bronze in the British Isles around 2200 BC, revolutionising metallurgy with Cornwall and Devon’s rich tin deposits. Focusing on the iconic Huntshaw dagger, explore how such early bronze weapons, buried in sacred barrows, symbolised power and spirituality. 🗡️ Dive into the history of tin trade, ancient craftsmanship, and the cultural significance of Bronze Age daggers, including exclusive insights from master swordsmith Neil Burridge. 🛠️ Why were these state-of-the-art weapons buried with the dead? Watch to uncover the mysteries of Britain’s Bronze Age legacy!

Full interview with Neil Burridge sword smith 

More on the Huntshaw barrows 

 

Sources: 

-Doe, G.M. The Examination of two Barrows near Torrington.(1875) 
-Jones, Quinnell. ‘Daggers in the West: Early Bronze Age Daggers and Knives in the South-west Peninsula’. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (2013) 
-Wang, Strekopytov, Roberts,’Copper ingots from a probable Bronze Age shipwreck off the coast of Salcombe, Devon: Composition and microstructure’ Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 97, 2018. -Williams et al. From Land's End to the Levant: did Britain's tin sources transform the Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean?. Antiquity (2025)
-Hameldown dagger, Legendary Dartmoor website (2016) 

Thursday, 10 July 2025

The Future of History with Bronze Age Pervert

 
 

Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) joins Tom Rowsell to discuss ancient history and how the heroic ideals of the past can shape our future. This is your chance to hear BAP’s unfiltered thoughts on the classical antiquity that inspires his philosophy, from the vitality of the Bronze Age to the inspiration of the Renaissance. We also talk about Plato and religion and in the second half we also discuss the misinterpretation in population geneticists of ancient cultures and elite dominance models of cultural replacement.

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

The Greatest Living Bronze Sword Smith

Neil Burridge is an accomplished sword smith and widely considered the greatest living smith of historical replica cast bronze swords and daggers. He has cast and forged hundreds of replica blades from Ancient Greek Mycenaean, to Nordic Bronze Age and Celtic style weapons. I visited him in his workshop to collect a special replica of the Huntshaw dagger he made for me and we chatted about his work and the history of bronze working.

Friday, 6 June 2025

Jive Talk: Neoplatonism and ethnicity with Aarvol




 

Eric Orwoll is an American Christian Platonist known for his YouTube channel. Eric's beliefs are more compatible with those of pagans than those of typical Christians are. I asked him about how a Platonic view of the One and objective good is compatible with a scientific view of evolution or a pagan view of tribal loyalty. We also discussed transhumanism and the anti-Platonist philosophies of Karl Popper and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Monday, 26 May 2025

Jive Book Review: The Culture of the Teutons

A review of Vilhelm Grønbech's seminal work on the religion and culture of ancient Germanic peoples. Grønbech, professor of the history of religion at the University of Copenhagen, looks at Norse, Lombardic, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic and Roman sources to identify a common Teutonic culture focused on luck, honour, shame, kinship, and a unique perspective on the afterlife and the soul. My review includes favourite quotes from volume 1 of the two part book republished by Antelope Hill.