[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Ethnogenesis

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Bertil Haggman" <mvk575b at t...> wrote:
> It would be interesting to know more about the
> Gothic ethnogenesis in north Poland. Did the Goths
> suddenly appear there or did they migrate
> from continental Germany ?



The problem is that you not really interested in learning about the
Gothic ethnogenesis in northern Poland, but just wants to push your
old theories, otherwise you would simply pick up the relevant
literature (Wolfram, Pohl, Bierbrauer, Hachmann, Kokowski,
Masckiewicz and others) which tells you all about it from
archaeological, historico-antropological and historical perspectives.
In fact, if you speak to archaeologists, they will tell you that the
autochonous nature of the Gothic Wielbark culture in the Vistula
region is not even controversial but obvious.

Since all these authors will tell you that the Wielbark culture was
autochonous to the area the Goths obviously did not migrate there,
neither from Scandinavia proper nor from Gotland nor from Germany.
This does not exclude contacts and influences in all sorts of
directions.







>
> The connection of Tacitus Gotones seems unclear.
>
> Linguistic and historical evidence do suggest a
> south Scandinavian origin as well as some
> archaelogical.


Absolutely not, unless you refer to old literature. The fact that
names are transfered in different directions can be seen also among
the Franks. While the Francia Antiqua was located at the right bank
of the middle to lower Rhine the name was transfered to modern France
in the western direction of their expansion and to modern Franken in
the eastern direction of their expansion. A similar process can
easily be responsible for the occurance of names like Gauti in
Scandinavia




> Different groups probably
> moved from southern Scandinavia across the
> Baltic to northern Poland.


This is not supported by archaeological research. While for example
the migrations of groups of Suebi into Bohemia and Moravia is clearly
reflected in archaeolgical evidence, there is no evidence for such a
migration from Scandinavia to the Vistula area. Archaeolgists have
clearly determined that the Wielbark culture took its influences only
from the surrounding southern and western material cultures.




> These were likely not
> large scale migrations, but probably groups
> of sufficient social or military importance to
> become dominant among pre-existing populations.


Even this theory of the 'traditional core' migration, which was
advanced by some historians to account for passages in the Getica, is
now seen as unlikely. Advances and new interpretations in
archaeological research have shed light on the development of social
organisation. This shows that more comlex forms of social
organisation spread from south (in this case the East and Danube
Celtic areas) to the north. Thus, an elite migration from the north
in the centuries BC is highly unlikely.



Dirk



>
>
> > These linguistic similarities do not need to be explained away.
> > Whatever the original name meant, it can have had significance
for a
> > number of people in different areas without any migration or
> > connection. Note that the name Veneti is applied to a range of
people
> > from the Baltic sea cost in central/eastern Europe, Northern
Italy
> > and Western Gaul. Also, Saami live in northern Scandinavia, while
a
> > Prussian tribe was also called Sami. In neither case was a
migration
> > the cause for the occurance of these names in different places.
> >
> > Even if the name of the Goths, Gauts and Goetar derived from the
same
> > ethnic group it remains entirely open which group adopted the
name
> > first and how it was transfered to another group. Especially with
> > archaeology arguing against a transmission by migration we would
have
> > to look for other explanations.


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