[gothic-l] Digest Number 538

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hello Dirk,

you wrote:



> If he knows of them about 16 AD they must have a considerably longer history on the continent
>> and so > >> I reckon at least during the 1st c.BC the developement ought to
> > have > >> started and preferably still earlier.
>
> That is practically impossible to assume. The emergence or formation
> of the Goths can under no circumstances be dated earlier than 50BC,
> based on historical and archaeological sources.


I would like to be so confident about what happened that long time ago
and without written sources. Archaeology is a science that depends on
interpretation and also upon methods who  decide how to interpret. In
other words it is rather subjective in spite of the presumed
objectivity. I agree it is hard to prove anything beyond doubt  but a
culture like Goths do not grow instantly up of the ground - it takes
some time - and the autoochtonuosness is in no way definitely proven. I
know you will disagree  but so what - the opinion is free.




>> We also note the Goths are mentioned by Tacitus to live North of
> > the > >> Lugii wich is  at the Weichsel/Vistula.>> Hence  we do in fact not know exact where they lived or they
> > preferably >>> were spread over a bigger surface. We also can conclude that it is
>> probable the formation  of the Goths took some time and that > > several
> >> tribes were part of that formation. Heathers sense of a cultic> > league
> >> seems  more and more convincing.
>> >> The real trigger however can have been the late Scandinavian>>influence
> >> during the 1st c.BC and the 1 c.AD even if there probably already >> were
> >> Scandinavians present before.



 The key things to > remember are the Oksywie and Wielbark cultures were autochtonous and
> thus developed without significant imports from other cultures.
> Scandinavian influence is very spuradically only possible at the end
> of the first century AD.


See above.


 Dirks >> proposal the warrior kings and the Gefolgschaft should come out of
>> direct Celtic influence via the Vandili I do not buy.

> The fact that the Germanic 'Gefolgschaftssystem' was adopted from the
> Celts is widely held and not contested at all. In general, this is
> reflected in innovation in the material culture, i.e. the spread
> of 'princely graves' and 'weapon graves' etc. which all originate
> from Celtic areas.


I wrote Vandili instead of Marcomanni wich you had not stated. Sorry of
that. Still I wrote "direct" in this special case. I have not contested
there is a connection in many things with Celtic tradition for the
Germanics but I do not beleive this was the new thing just the Goths
discovered in the Marcomannic war.


 Are you sure that the name 'reiks' was not used by the Goths? It did
> seemed to have entered their personal names (endings in -ric) quite
> strongly, which leads me to suspect that it was long before the time
> of Wulfila adopted into Gothic.


In lack of historical written sources in other languages than Latin,
Greek and Wulfilean writing I am of course not sure  but fairly
convinced with respect to the use of kunja/kuni for the petty-kingdoms.

 Cheers
Ingemar



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