Culture on the Baltic

I'm very new to the Baltic Sea and am finding it interesting. Looking at a photo of the waters of that Sea, I am somehow reminded of the wine dark waters of Homer. At the moment my focus is on its eastern shores and what has been called Prussia and Pomerania.

It seems that the Baltic is a crossroads that has long supported a high level of culture. My imagination, which seems realistic, sees that culture as much older than the Age of Vikings, older than 'the amber route' traveled by the Romans, older even then the coming of the Celts and Indo-Europeans; though the proto-Italo-Celts may have been fairly early contributors to it.
The Amber Route is the Western equivalent to Silk Road. A difference being that the Amber Route was largely on water.

I suspect that numbers of newcomers with iron technology may have been arriving as late as 800BC, but I also suspect that the culture there was significantly high 2000 years before that and maybe long before that.

There is available evidence suggesting human settlement in Pomerania going back 13000 years.

Some of Europe's, and perhaps the world's earliest man enhanced water-ways(canals) enter the Baltic and connect(or connected)it to the Black Sea and on to Greece, Egypt, Persia, and beyond. It was connected to the heart of the Eur-Asian land mass as well as to the Norse lands, the islands of Britain and Ireland and beyond.

Language students may be the source of much important knowledge of the area.

We know that in recent centuries the languages of the Poles, Swedes, Germans, and Russians too have had their impact on the eastern shore of the Baltic, as well as many others. Much earlier Indo-European languages like the Celtic ones impinged upon them strongly. But traces of much earlier languages remain. There are important traces of language which is not Slavic, German, or even Indo-European.

As late as 300AD, Roman travelers and traders were still noting a people called Veneti. And, indeed, called the Baltic the Venetic Bay (later Vikings would call it the eastern lake). The word Veneti may be related to Venus. It seems to be closely related to Old Irish words for fine, kinship, alliance, tribe, and family. It also seems to relate to Old Norse 'vinr,' meaning, I believe, friend. I think that by this 300AD date the Goths had well begun their conquest of the area.

Peaks the curiosity.

West Balt

I'll probably post a bit of the history, recent and long past, of Prussia, Poland, and Germany, as well as of Ireland and the US, should I live long enough. Then again I might just begin to post some semi-curious information about the the Prussians, Poles, Germans, Norwegians, and Irish and leave it at that.

Not all that long ago Prussia disappeared, with the help of Russia and others, into the lands of Poland and Germany. "Prussia" may sound like Russia, but a Prussian is not a Russian, a German or a Pole. Prussians have rarely like Russians, nor the Russians, Prussians.
Some have said that Prussians are really a kind of German. Some, including some Germans, say that the German state began in Prussia, but It bares repeating, a Prussian is not a German.

In very recent years Prussians have begun to show a renewed spirit of unity where once even existence may have been doubted.
Once Prussians traded and fought in dignity with Romans, vikings and Swedes. Later for a time, they found it difficult to maintain their independence in the face of German, Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian onslaughts. At times they found support from Lithuanians and learned from Poles and Germans. Of Course Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians learned from the Prussians. Prussians learned little love for Russians, but very likely share some Slavic cousins with them.

If you can find north-west Europe on your map, you can probably find the Baltic Sea. The people on the eastern shore of that sea were long called West Balts. Prussians came from these people and their lands are still along that same shore.
The Prussian language, like other languages, has changed over time. Languages disappear and Prussian has come very close to doing so. The Old Baltic language of the Prussians is one of the oldest in Europe.