[gothic-l] The Scandinavian Origin of the Goths and Other Germanic Peoples (To Bertil...)

[Axeage]

You said:
> "During the migration southwards these
> peoples were influenced and through
> intermarriage not only with other Germanic
> peoples but with peoples of the steppes in
> the east changed, both culturally,
> ethnically and linguistically. So when
> reaching southern Europe they were of course
> not the same as when they were leaving the
> original home. Their ranks had probably
> also grown with the addition of others living on
> the continent. But there was of course an
> interchange with Scandinavia. New migrators
> being added and others returning to Scandinavia."

I also believed that by the time the Visigoths arrived and settled in
Spain and southern France, and the Ostrogoths in Italy that they were
no longer the same people (racially and ethnically) who crossed the
Baltic from Scandinavia due to intermarriage with iranians, huns,
slavs, romans, etc...but so far, all anthropological evidence I have
seen indicates otherwise. For example, american anthropologist
Carleton Coon says in his book "The Races of Europe"
(Chapter VI,section 6 - The Germanic Peoples):

"Linguistically, the Germanic peoples who invaded other parts of
Europe from Scandinavia and North Germany have been divided into two
groups: East Germans and West Germans. The speakers of East Germanic
included the Goths, Vandals, Gepidae, and Burgundians. The Goths
claimed to have crossed the Baltic from Sweden (not from the island
of Gotland) to the mouth of the Vistula. The Vandals and the Gepidae
presumably had the same origin. From the Vistula, the East Germans
expanded southward and eastward into the Scythian country, where the
Gepidae seized control of Hungary, and the Goths finally established
an important kingdom on the north shore of the Black Sea.
>From here, the history of these tribes is well known. They all had
important relationships with the Roman Empire, and adopted
Christianity. The movements of the Goths into Greece, Italy, and
France do not merit detailed description. The Visigoths pushed
westward, occupied southern France shortly after 400 A.D., and moved
down into Spain where they were gradually absorbed into the
population of the northern provinces. The eastern Goths who fell
under the rule of the Huns met a similar fate. Of a once numerous and
mobile Gothic nation no trace remains. The same is true of the
Gepidae, and of the Vandals, who went from eastern Europe to France,
Spain, and North Africa, whence they were subsequently deported to
Byzantium. No doubt, Gothic and Vandal blood flows in the veins of
some modern Spaniards as well as of the peoples in other countries
through which they passed. But this eastern branch of the Germans
failed to make any lasting impression upon the racial map of Europe.
Although there is not much data concerning the physical type of these
eastern Germans, there is enough to enable us to come to some
definite conclusions. A series of Goths from the Chersonese north of
the Black Sea, dated between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D., includes three
male and eight female skeletons. All of these are long headed, and
they belong to a large, powerful Nordic type which reflects their
Swedish origin, for they are no different from the Swedish Iron Age
crania which we have already studied.
A later group of Gepidae dated from the fifth or sixth centuries in
Hungary shows the persistence of this same type; despite historical
blending with the Huns, of eight skulls at our disposal, all but
three fail to show definite traces of mongoloid mixture, and in these
three the non-Nordic traits are not manifested metrically. One is
forced to the conclusion from this series, as from that of the Goths
in the Chersonese, that the East Germanic peoples who took part in
these wanderings preserved their original racial characteristics so
long as they retained their political and linguistic identity.
The same conclusion results when one examines the Visigothic skulls
from northern Spain which date from the sixth century A.D. Here a
series combined from several cemeteries shows us exactly the same
Nordic type, with tall stature and with a high-vaulted skull, a long
face, and a broad law; in this respect resembling, in a sense, the
earlier Hallstatt crania, but more particularly those of the western
Germanic group, especially the Hannover Germans and the Anglo-
Saxons."






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