[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Religion in 500BC?

[faltin2001]

Dear Ingemar,

do you think that the fact that the Okcywie/Wielbark people developed 
new customs (no weapons graves, inhumations, etc.) around 50BC to 0 
BC is not significant and even indicative of a new 'religious' belief 
and perhaps organisation. These changes are usually linked to the 
formation of the Gothic tribe itself. Thus, I find it difficult to 
relate these formative changes with something that is supposed to 
have happed 500 years earlier in Scandinavia

> 
> As I stated  I did not mean the Wielbark or it's predecessors by the
> statement of Gothic religion since I see this beginning in the
> Scandinavian area about 500 BC as I have described in my book. The
> burial    forms were not identical all over Scandinavia. E.g. the
> Östgöta burials are mixed and partly related to earlier Weichsel
> burials and the special flat ground graves I related to are 
typically
> West-Scandinavian. It means that also in Scandinavia there were
> several Gothic peoples and there was no uniformity. The new with
> Wielbark is that the West Scandinavian customs breaks through and at
> the same time similar grave fields reduces in number in Scandinavia
(it
> differs one generation. 


So you are saying that the features of the Wielbark culture 
(inhumation, no weapons graves etc.) are derived from West 
Scandinavia? But surely, West Scandinavians, as all other 
Scandinavians and most people in modern Denmark and Germany at that 
time practiced cremation not inhumation. 

For the weapons burial it is a slightly different matter. The 
practice of weapons burials was derived from the Przeworsk culture 
and passed from their to the Oksywie culture and to west Germanic 
peoples and then to the North Germanic peoples in Scandinavia. Thus, 
Scandinavians started to adopt the practice of weapons burials, which 
would become a key feature there, shortly after the Oksywie people in 
the transition to Wielbark abandoned it again.  





> I have stated that early immigrants lived as
> neighbours to the other peoples there with East Scandinavian burial
> customs, and first with Wielbark there is a uniformity of kind
> pointing to a religious renewal. 


What is the East Scandinavian burial custom?



> There, I mean, is the Scandinavian
> influence.


According to Bierbrauer, there is evidence of Gotlandic influence in 
the area of the Oksywie culture. The cemetary of Nowy Targ/Elblag 
produced belt-fittings in 4 out of 509 graves that show clear 
parallels to Gotlandic material. Nylen and Kazimierczak dated these 
belt-fittings to between 100BC and 50BC, and noted that these 4 
pieces are easily identifiable as 'alien' to the Okcywie culture. 
Also, the small number (4 out of 509) might indicate sporadic or 
punctual contact rather then a migration.

The second Scandinavian influence emerges in the area of the Wielbark 
culture at the end of the first century AD, with the so called stone-
circle graves. These were unknown in Pommerania before and emerge at 
a time when the Wielbark culture starts to expand. These graves are 
also confined to areas of new-expansion and do not appear in the core 
areas. Thus, they may be linked to an in-migration of Scandinavians 
at the end of the first century AD. The problem, however, is that the 
people buried in the new stone circle graves are 'locals'. Their 
dress, grave goods and burial custom (no weapons, inhumations, etc.) 
is typically Wielbark and very different from the people burried in 
stone circle graves in Scandinavia. As you probably know, Bierbrauer 
offers a range of possibilties for this occurance. 


best regards
Dirk




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