[gothic-l] Re: ZDF Program on the Goths

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
>
> --- faltin2001 <dirk at s...> wrote:
> > --- In gothic-l at y..., george knysh <gknysh at y...>
> > wrote:
> > > ******GK: Poles contend that the etymology of the
> > > place name near Gdynia which gave its name to the
> > > pre-Wielbark Oksywie culture is Old
> > Scandinavian...
> > > Allegedly "OXIHOVED", meaning "ox's head". Can our
> > > Scandinavian list participants verify this?*****
> > >
> >
> >
> > Dear George,
> >
> > you should not fall for such stories. There is no
> > way that a
> > placename like Oxthoefte goes back 2000 and more
> > years to
> > Scandinavian immigrants. The second part of the name
> > '-hoeft' does
> > not mean head, but farm (Hof or Ge-hoeft) in German.
> > Oxhoeft means
> > simply Oxen farm. The area was settled and
> > cultivated in the 13th
> > century by Frisians and the placename Ossnhof,
> > Osnhoven still exists
> > in Frisia.
> >
> > cheers,
> > Dirk
>
> ******GK(NEW): Hello Dirk. I think you're putting
> words in my mouth here. I merely cited the opinion of
> a Kashubian website about the etymology of "Oksywie".
> "Old Scandinavian" does not mean "Gothic" and does not
> imply an origin 2000 years old or more... As a matter
> of fact these Kashubians note that the history of the
> place is only known from the early 13th century.=====


Hello George,

yes, I stumbled across the same site some time ago. Sorry if I
misunderstood you, but I thought you meant that Oxthoeft is of Gothic
origin.





> But as long as we're talking about the problem of the
> Goths and where they came from. I think it's pretty
> clear that there can be no longer any question of some
> massive migration across the Baltic from Scandinavia.


Agreed.




> The overwhelmibg majority of the carriers of the
> Wielbark culture were undoubtedly descendants of
> "local" populations.


Yes, there is no doubt about that.




There is no credible evidence
> (esp. toponymic or hydronymic) that these populations
> were primarily "Germanic", save to the extent that
> they later had a Yastorf-Przeworsk element (along with
> many others). They were not proto-Slavic either.



Well, they were East Germanic speaker; just as their culture their
language was most closely related to that of the Przeworsk people
(like the Wandals).



What
> cannot be ruled out and is in fact quite probable is
> the arrival of a relatively small (perhaps even quite
> small) number of migrants from Scandinavia at some
> point prior to the "Gothic" push towards the
> southeast, migrants who became a leading component of
> the historical "Goths", and whose traditions,
> reflected in Jordanes' story, were foisted upon the
> entire people, or at least upon that reshuffled people
> of various origins which eventually migrated to Italy.



In fact, Bierbrauer and other archaeologists have shown that some
elements, which likely arrived from Scandinavia start to appear at
the end of the first century AD, about 100 years after the Gutones
are mentioned on the continent in conjunction with the Markomanni and
about 150 years befor Gutae are mentioned in Scandinavia.





> There are some excellent historical analogies
> available for such a process. Neither Bierbrauer nor
> any other source can refute it, and as far as I know,
> Polish archaeologists are quite comfortable with the
> notion.


As I said Bierbrauer confirms that, but he is critical of the elite
domination model. The problem is somewhat analogous to the much less
discussed question of the origin of the Saxons. 10th and 11th century
historians said that they came from Scandinvavia, i.e. were the
decendance of 'Dani et Nordmani', who arrived in three ships in the
area of Hadeln in North Germany. Yet, we know that the Saxons are
mentioned already in 150AD in their later territories.  To fit this
into the contemporary sources, older historians argued that from
around 400AD the 'original' Saxons left for Britian and the void was
filled with migrants from Scandinavia, who took up the Saxon name.
Archaeological evidence for close contact with Scandinavia is
abundant in modern Lower Saxony, yet modern research shows that there
was no Scandinavian migration to Lower Saxony only trade contacts and
gift exchanges.


cheers,
Dirk







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