Name of the Goths

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 01/08/2006 00:06, John Larsson wrote:
> Let me instead introduce you, honourable readers, to a new (at least, I
> think so!) possible meaning of the origin of the Goths. There might still be
> doubt about details, but it seems like the Black Sea area once was flooded
> with an enormous "flowing stream", when the Bosphorous Strait was
> established. This should have happend ca 7500 years ago [....]
 > people, probably of many ethnic origins, fled the Black Sea area and
> by the peoples, which noticed (and suffered from!) their migration they were
> called "those who flee the Great Water Fall". Voila!

7500 years seems a _very_ long time for a tribal name of this sort to 
persist essentially unchanged, especially given the frequency with which 
we see tribal groups and confederations changing and altering in the 
historical period.  Not that this is impossible -- just that I find it 
somewhat unlikely on the face of things.  I have relatively little 
difficulty imagining that the Goths (or some Goths, at least) had a 
tribal name that described them living near some body of flowing water, 
but I have an easier time imagining the name being coined not more than 
a few centuries of its first recording, and with an eye towards a more 
relatively ordinary river or stream than a catatrophic Black Sea flood 
(and there remains some, at least, scientific controversy over how 
catastrophic interactions between the Black Sea and Mediterranean may 
have been at different times).

Cheers,
Carl

-- 
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/


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