ABSTRACT
The oldest known Indo-European warrior is carved on a stone slab from Kernosovka in the Ukraine, belonging to the Copper Age Kemi-Oba culture of 4000-3000 BC. Longhaired, armed with three axes, a club, and a knife or spear, he wears, like many later berserks, only a belt. Being naked, he is a reckless warrior, but his pulled-up shoulders, his arms held to the chest, and his stiff penis (all three also found on the famous Celtic warrior statue from Hirschlanden) show him to burn with that inner heat that brings about the power of the shaman as well as the fury of the warrior.2 Man or god, he is berserk. Unfortunately, no words come to us from that early time to tell us what beliefs led to his stance.
