[gothic-l] Ethnogenesis-Two peoples??

[Oskar Andersson]

Hi Andreas!


> Dear Oskar,
> DNA analysis may be helpful in cases where you have identified
> settlements and cemeteries before a movement and afterwards
> within a relatively short period, as with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes
> on the continent and in England or f.i. within the slow southeastern
> movement of the Wielbark culture and the spreading of the first
> layer of Cernjachov expansion. In fact, gene analysis was already
> used for some of the Cernjachov settlements to define the gender of
> the buried with interesting results. But when there is a hiatus of half
> of Europe and more than a century as between the last Sintana-de-
> Mures cemeteries north fo the Danube in the fourth century and the
> first Visigothic cemeteries in Spain at the beginning of the sixth DNA
> analysis will probably only tell you what you already know from the
> written and archeological sources, namely that there is no direct
> continuity. The connection between the different Gothic ethnicities is
> a political one, not a biological one.

Indeed, I never meant to contradict what I have said previously on ethnogenesis.
The ethogeneses were political ones, as you said, and it should be no doubt that
I agree with you on this one. My point on DNA was that it might be helpful
in some research, as Cavalli-Sforza's is, and that we perhaps might benefit from it
in some instances - perhaps when studying possible Scandinavian influences
on the Wielbark culture, but I am not sure to what extent such research could
benefit studies, or what kind of inferences could be drawn from it either.

Finally, I must emphasise I did not mean studies of a "biological continuity" among the
Goths - that is more than just absurd and contradicting all of what I said previously on
the ethnogenesis of Visi/Ostro issue.
I am not an expert on DNA, so I might be terribly wrong in all this.
Thanks for your comments anyway!

Best,
Oskar



> Kind regards
>                Andreas
> ao.Univ.Prof.Dr.Andreas Schwarcz
> Institut fuer oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung
> Universitaet Wien
> Dr.Karl-Lueger-Ring 1
> A 1010 Wien
> Oesterreich
> tel.0043/1/42-77/272-16
> fax 0043/1/42-77/92-72
> email andreas.schwarcz at univie.ac.at



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