This webpage is a placeholder for the “Path to Things” paper, which is nearly complete. The basic argument of that paper is that a set of societies where women were rulers, through a set of migrations, resulted in one of those societies (a tribe) arriving at the Lake Malaren region of Sweden west of Stockholm. There the Sitones invented (possibly co-invented) Things, almost certainly near Uppsala. Things were and are popular assemblies that gave the societies that used them an early form of democratic governance. Things were quite democratic in that all free men (and in many instances women) willing and able to bear arms in defense of the society could participate.
The key societies involved in this history are the:
* (Thermodon) Amazons
* Sauromatae Gynaiko Kratumenoi (Sauromatae ruled by women)
* Sitones (a society ruled by women)
* Vanir (a mythological society of “Gods” with strong female characters who were worshipped by the peoples who were governed by Things near Uppsala as well as elsewhere when they migrated from the Uppsala region; the Vanir came to the Lake Malaren region from the territory of the Sauromatae Gynaiko Kratumenoi)
The paper presents the evidence demonstrating the locations and migrations that made the invention of Things take place.