Extrapolating from this - 10k WHGs in Ireland which is 32k miles^2, Europe minus Russia is 2,401k miles^2, so if Ireland representative density then Europe would be 75x population of Ireland, or 750k. Not even including Doggerland
I just subtracted 250k because Scandinavia is large and cold, and Ireland probably more fertile anyways so isn't representative. If authors' guess for WHG population is even accurate.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
In line with archaeology, western & central Iberia were populated by hunter-gatherers distinctive from those on Mediterranean coast by their higher Magdalenian ancestry. Those hunter-gatherers had a resurgence over the EEFs as elsewhere during neolithic.
Steppe ancestry in IEs was diluted by the time that they reached SW Iberia at end of third millennium, in line with other studies. However, there are signs of an Eastern Mediterranean migration to Iberia in Bronze Age or earlier:
There was substantial migration to urban areas in Portugal during the Roman period from Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. If these samples are representative, about half of the urban population was foreign-derived. Date of the site isn't provided, but was after 100 BC.
Safavids were, like Ottomans, born in obscurity in chaos of mid-13th century Mongol invasions - although as Sufi order rather than as tribal migration. Contrary to later propaganda, Sheikh Safi was not a sayyid or from a Shia background, but he became prominent in a Shia milieu.
Safavid Order had a waqf (charitable endowment) for its benefit by 1305 in Ardabil. Its network of followers expanded in Anatolia, Khorasan, & Mazandaran under aegis of Ilkhanate & some of its successors, but was forced to arm some of its supporters in at least Ardabil.
Timur, the greatest mystic of his era, liked the Safavid Order & granted it additional lands to financially sustain its missionary efforts. However, the Order was squeezed by his sons, who desires to centralize power in the realm.
Thread with excerpts from "Hezbollah: A Short History" by Augustus Richard Norton
Shia birthrates in mid-20th century Lebanon were higher than those of Sunnis & Christians.
from 1950s to 1970s Lebanese Shia typically supported secular parties led by Christians - whether rightist or leftist. Growth of armed Palestinian formations in Lebanon in 1970s drove formation of both coalitional & oppositional Shia organizations.
Thread with excerpts from "Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic" by Michael Axworthy
one reason to find the Iranian Revolution interesting is that it proceeded to follow a non-Western path of development, much like India & China, rather than following the Western path.
Iranian Shia Islam is a more organized & disciplined force than Sunni Islam in most of the rest of the world as the result of an enduring clerical hierarchy (the Sunni Caliphate was dissolved in 1924).