Before getting onto Homer and Hesiod and then to the philosophers, I'm going to include a couple of interesting individuals, similar to Orpheus, who can't be dated because of the legendary accretions surrounding them. There really isn't much to go on so the short entries on Wikipedia will suffice.

Melampus^[1]

A legendary soothsayer and healer, originally of Pylos, who ruled at Argos. He introduced the worship of Dionysus, according to Herodotus, who asserted that his powers as a seer were derived from the Egyptians^[2] and that he could understand the language of animals. A number of pseudepigraphal works of divination were circulated in Classical and Hellenistic times under the name Melampus. According to Herodotus and Pausanias (vi.17.6), on the authority of Hesiod, his father was Amythaon, whose name implies the "ineffable" or "unspeakably great";^[3] thus Melampus and his heirs were Amythaides of the "House of Amythaon".

In Homer's Odyssey,^[4] a digression concerning the lineage of Theoclymenus, "a prophet, sprung from Melampus' line of seers",^[5] sketches the epic narrative concerning Melampus with such brevity that its details must have been familiar to Homer's audience. With brief hints, a sequence of episodes is alluded to, in which we discern strife in Pylos between Melampus and Neleus, who usurps Melampus's "great high house", forcing him into heroic exile. Melampus spends a year as bondsman in the house of Phylacus, "all for Neleus' daughter Pero". At his extremity, Melampus is visited by "the mad spell a Fury, murderous spirit, cast upon his mind. But the seer worked free of death" and succeeded at last in rustling Phylacus's cattle back to Pylos, where he avenged himself on Neleus and gave Pero in marriage to his brother Bias. But Melampus's own destiny lay in Argos, where he lived and ruled, married and sired a long line, also briefly sketched in Homer's excursus.

A work attributed in antiquity to Hesiod exists (Melampodia) in such fragmentary quotations and chance remarks that its reconstruction, according to Walter Burkert,^[6] is "most uncertain." (Wikipedia)

Again, there isn't much of a factual nature about Orpheus though there is a lot of speculation about Orphism. So, Wikipedia again:

A 3,800-year-old Akkadian cuneiform tablet was found during the archaeological excavations carried out in the Aççana Mound, the old city of Alalakh, in the Reyhanlı district of Hatay city in southern Turkey.

Tell Atchana, Alalakh is the capital of the kingdom of Mukish in the second millennium BC, located in the Amuq Valley of Hatay, near present-day Antakya.

Alalakh was one of the most famous cities in the ancient world; part of the larger Yamhad kingdom in the Middle Bronze Age, vassal to the Mitannian kingdom in the Late Bronze Age, and incorporated into the Hittite Empire at the end of the fourteenth century BC.

The earthquake on February 6, centered in Kahramanmaraş, which caused great destruction in the city, also affected the mound in Reyhanlı district, where Alalah, the capital of the Muşki Kingdom, was located during the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods.

Under the leadership of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, restoration and conservation work has been initiated in the mound, where some parts of the palace walls were damaged after the earthquake.

The head of the excavations and an academic from the Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Murat Akar told state-run Anadolu Agency, the tablet features a contract on sales of a city, which consists of information about parties, and witnesses, said.

A diver scouring an archaeological site at the bottom of Lake Ohrid in Albania, the site of Europe's oldest stilt village.

Beneath the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the "Pearl of the Balkans", scientists have uncovered what may be one of Europe's earliest sedentary communities, and are trying to solve the mystery of why it sheltered behind a fortress of defensive spikes.

A stretch of the Albanian shore of the lake once hosted a settlement of stilt houses some 8,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, making it the oldest lakeside village in Europe discovered to date.

Radiocarbon dating from the site puts it at between 6000 and 5800 BC.

From the Central and Eastern European Middle Neolithic (first half of the 5th millennium BCE), around 150 so-called circular enclosures are known, circular or elliptical roughly concentric arrangements of ditches and palisades with a diameter between 40 an up to 250 m. Only a few have been comprehensively and systematically examined archaeologically. The function of these large buildings is still discussed intensively. Interpretations such as central places for meetings, cattle enclosures, defensive structures, astronomical observatories or spaces for ritual activities have been proposed.

The recent publication of the research results from the completely excavated circular enclosure of Goseck, Burgenlandkreis, Saxony-Anhalt by Dr. Norma Henkel brings forward new evidence for the interpretation of these still enigmatic constructions. The article is titled "The Middle Neolithic circular ditch complex of Goseck, Burgenlandkreis," from the Publications of the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt — State Museum of Prehistory (German only).

Since 2014, the scientists of the Archaeology and Ethnology Department of the Faculty of History of the Eurasian National University have been conducting archaeological excavations at the Kyrykungir complex monument near Toktamys village in the Abai district of the Abai region. As a result of the research conducted with the participation of ENU students and masters, a large-scale steppe pyramid was discovered of the early second millennium BC, that is, four thousand years ago, the Bronze Age, not found before in the Eurasian steppe.

"The steppe pyramid is built with great precision, it is hexagonal. There are thirteen meters and eight rows of stones between each face. It is a very sophisticated complex structure with several circles in the middle. The exterior walls of the structure of this complex are dominated by images of various animals, especially horses.

The role of culture in human expansions: Large-scale collection of digital data summarizes the results of 150 years of research and can be used by amateurs and scientists alike.

Human history in one click: For the first time, numerous sites relating to the early history of mankind from 3 million to 20,000 years ago can be accessed in a large-scale database. Scientists from the research center ROCEEH ("The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans") have compiled information on 2,400 prehistoric sites and 24,000 assemblages from more than 100 ancient cultures. The digital data collection is available for free to scientists and amateurs and was recently published in the journal PLoS ONE.

The research center is located at the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, sponsored by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and funded in part through the Union of German Academies.

ROAD, the "ROCEEH Out of Africa Database", represents one of the largest digital collections of information about archaeology, anthropology, paleontology and botany based on 150 years of research history, says Dr. Andrew Kandel, University of Tübingen. By joining information about cultural remains, human fossils, animal bones and plants into a unified geographical and chronological framework, the team created a tool that helps analyze the complex aspects of human evolution.

When was Poland Poland?

Recently I wrote an article on the possibility of war between Russia and Poland and I said that Poland had not really existed as a nation until the end of WWI.

One of my contributors correctly pointed out that what we call "Poland" has a long history going back to the Kingdom of Poland in 1035.

For this intelligent commenter, "nation" means one thing; for me — when I wrote my article at least — it means, or meant, another. We are/were both right — from different perspectives.

For me, history is important. But events in the distant past are of less importance to what is happening today than those most recently. It is the chain of causation that matters. As far as "nations" are concerned — they are all different — and certainly not today as they once were.

The word "nation" comes from the Latin "natio" which means "breed" or "race", not as we define such things now — but in terms of a world that in 100 BC was mostly tribal.

In other words, the core meaning of "nation" has to do with tribalism, which is very clear when we look at the Polish example.

On the other hand, past history tells us much about human nature, which, of course, can inform us as to why things happen as they do in the here and now.

Tribalism, for example has not gone way — just transformed.

A bone discovered in the Grotte du Renne cave in France may represent the existence of a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens. The bone, specifically a hip bone called an ilium, was excavated from the cave several decades ago.

The cave is considered as one of the most fascinating Paleolithic sites in Europe, with Neanderthal remains. The Grotte du Renne cave has been a site of archaeological research for many years, revealing layers of historical significance. The lower layers indicate the time when Neanderthals occupied the cave, while the upper layers represent the period when anatomically modern humans (AMHs) inhabited it. The team discovered an intermediate layer that suggests the co-existence of both hominids.

Researchers identified an ilium (one of the three bones that make up the human pelvis) belonging to a newborn (AR-63) whose morphology required a thorough analysis to compare it to that of 2 Neanderthals and 32 recent individuals deceased during the perinatal period (the period around the time of birth) to explore their morphological variation.

The bone, determined to be from a newborn baby, was found to be neither Neanderthal nor entirely anatomically modern human. By comparing it with other Neanderthal and modern baby bones, researchers noted that its shape differed from both species. This suggests that the bone represents a distinct lineage of Homo sapiens with slight differences from AMHs.

The long-lost 'body' of mysterious ice age animal carving was discovered in German cave, but archaeologists aren't sure if it's a cave lion or cave bear.

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the missing piece of an ice age carving deep in a cave. But the new addition of the ivory carving, originally thought to depict a horse, has actually complicated matters: Now, researchers aren't sure if it portrays a cave lion or a cave bear.

Researchers previously found the head of the 35,000-year-old figurine in the cave Hohle Fels in the mountainous Swabian Jura region in the southern part of the country. The cave, which translates to "hollow rock" in German, is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is well known for its Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 to 12,000 years ago) artifacts. At the time, the carved head was the first known ivory carving from the cave.

But the newfound "body" part of the carving has thrown the equine interpretation out the window. "We still cannot identify the animal species depicted with certainty," Nicholas Conard, a professor in the Department of Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen in Germany, said at the "Find of the Year" news conference on July 27, according to a translated statement.

During excavations at Lio Piccolo (Cavallino-Treporti), conducted by Ca' Foscari University, a precious agate stone carved with a mythological figure was found in the flooded site from the Roman period.

Researchers found the ancient piece of jewelry during an excavation dive in Lio Piccolo, a village just north of Venice city.

The cut agate gem is engraved with a mythological figure and is considered an unusual artifact, particularly in an underwater environment. The high quality of the jewelry suggests that wealthy Romans visited the area.

Professor Carlo Beltrame, who led the excavation alongside Dr. Elisa Costa, said in a statement that it was a rare find, especially in an underwater environment.

"In a lagoon environment it is a rather rare find, to date we have news of two other precious gems found in Torcello and at Barena del Vigno," Beltrame said.