[gothic-l] The Scandinavian Origin of the Goths

[Bertil Häggman]

Of course you are intitled to your views.
I would suggest that you study "The Vandals: myths
and facts about a Germanic tribe of the first half 
of the 1st Milleníum AD" by Jes Martens in _Archaelogical
Appoaches to Cultural Identity_, London: Unwin and Hyman,
1989.

As I don't know about your knowledge of German I am
at this point refraining from citing any German literature
on the subject of Vandals.

Maybe it should be kept in mind that this is a Gothic
list, not a Vandalic list.

Concerning Der Spiegel I don't agree with you that
it is a "serious" magazine but I have read it myself
for amusement for a couple of decades. A recent
article on the vikings was one of the worst I have seen,
not at all in line with recent research.

Your ideas on Scandinavia at the time of the period
at the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron is
not correct, which any scholar on ancient Scandinavia
can attest. Don't know about your background in
Scandinavian history, but southern Sweden at that
time and during the coming centuries up to BC
was very rich.

Your statement that the Germanic peoples originated
in Germany has to be substantiated. Mere statements
of the type you are providing is not enough.

Gothically

Bertil Haggman



> thanks for the comment. I find the linguistic evidence for a North 
> Jutland origin of the Vandals not convincing, many places can 
> problably be identified with a Vend or Vand component. Also, I think 
> that some scholars believe that the name Vandals was adopted somewhat 
> later after the Vandals had emerged from Celtic Lugian domination in 
> Silesia, but  I am not certain about that. 
> 
> Der Spiegel is the major weekly magazine in Germany. It may have had 
> its problems when rushing too fast into a hot topic (e.g. Hitler 
> diaries), but it is one of the most serious and best magazines in 
> Europe. As for  the details, I would have to look that up. I still 
> have the article and I am sure they are citing and Interviewing some 
> of the leading scholars in the field. I find the arguments presented 
> there particularly convincing because peoples, cultures, nations etc. 
> do normally emerge in relation to another group. Identity is (almost) 
> always defined 'against' somebody. In the Harz/Thuringian region a 
> proto-Germanic culture would have interacted with neibouring Celts, 
> while in culturally, commercially and geographically remote 
> Scandinavia at the margins of Europe such a process is practically 
> unthinkable. There can be little doubt that the Germanic cultural 
> group formed at the interface to the Celts with no clear dividing
> line 
> . This place almost has to be the described Harz/Thuringian region of 
> Germany.



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