[gothic-l] Re: The Gothic Migration Epic

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...> wrote:
> >
> >Tore,
> >
> >there is no such thing as 'authochonous for a certain number of
> >centuries, than originated from somewhere else'. Authochonous for
the
> >Wielbark and for the preceeding Okcywie culture means that they did
> >not come from anywhere, but developed locally in the area of modern
> >Pommerania and Silesia. The Jastorf culture is authochonous to the
> >area of modern east Lower Saxony, meaning that its carriers did not
> >come from somwhere else or adopted their culture from somewhere
> >else.
> >
> >Where do you think the Scandinavians, say the modern Swedes or
> >Gotlanders originally came from?
> >
> >Dirk
> >
>
> Dirk,
> The first Gotlanders probably came over the sea from the east.
> As an island it has been more protected but there are signs of
> immigrants from time to time.
>
> The Swedes probably came over from Denmark.
>
> Tore
> --

Tore,

So the Gotlanders came from Sweden, the Swedes came from Denmark and
the Danes? I am just kidding:-) I don't think we can say that Swedes
came from Denmark and so on. These are political identifications that
appeared only millennia after their ancestors first arrived on the
Scandinavian peninsula. Certainly at some stage, perhaps in the
Neolithicum or the Bronze Age the ancestors of the modern Swedes and
Gotlanders will have come from the continent via Jutland. I think the
oldest signs of human habitation in Scandinavia date about some 8000
years back, but these will have been the ancestors of the Saami, the
ancestors of later Germanic Scandinavians may have reached the
territory some 3000 or 4000 years ago. On the basis of these people
material cultures developed in Scandinavia that are authochtonous to
Scandinavia, i.e. they were not brought their by others or adopted
from others. However, the area of the Vistula was also settled far
back in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. On the basis of these
cultures the first Iron Age cultures developed, some of them
authochton like Jastorf and Okcywie and later the Wielbark culture.
At some stage during the first millenium BC much of Northern Europe
was subject to a sound-shift, which effectively created the Germanic
language. This does not necessitate a migration of people who carry
the soundshift, as later sound-shifts crossed vast territories
without any migration. Those Iron Age cultures that were affected by
the sound shift would later be labled Germanic. The people in the
Vistula region may have gone through the sound-shift at the same time
or even earlier than the Scandinavian people. Thus, there is no need
to say that they must have come from somewhere else.

Dirk






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