[gothic-l] Some alternative musings on Gothic origins

[george knysh]

Nothing cast in stone. Just some ideas running through
my mind.

1.None of our early sources (Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus,
Ptolemy) confirm that the Goths occupied the south
shoreline of the Baltic as an "ethnic" or "tribal"
community in the period 0-150 AD.Explicitly or
implicitly these sources point to a residency further
inland. An identification of Oksywie or Early Wielbark
(phases A-B) with the original Goths thus becomes
highly problematic, and perhaps illusory.

2.Strabo, Pliny, and Tacitus all place the Goths WEST
of the Vistula. Only Ptolemy locates them east of the
river. But Ptolemy is almost certainly garbled here,
since he has the "Fenni" and "Phrungundiones"
(Burgundians)even further south/east than the Goths.
What is probably accurate is Ptolemy's relative
positioning of the Goths with respect to ethna of the
Germanic-Sarmatian borderland: the Goths are south of
the Venedi,southeast of the Rugi, and east of the
Burgundians (as "Burguntae" rather than
"Phrungundiones").

3. Pliny considers his Goths to be a Germanic people
of the Vandalic subgroup. This is in line with what we
know of the pre-Wielbark status of Wolongiewicz's
"phase C" in the basins of the Middle Warta and Notec
rr. The area was Przeworsk territory prior to this
phase C expansion of Wielbark (plus Scandinavian
elements) from the 2nd half of the 1rst c. AD.

4. It would therefore appear that a somewhat complex
ethno-political process was underway in northern
Poland after ca. 50 AD. The original Vandalic Goths
were progressively absorbed into the Wielbark culture
where they co-existed with the descendants of early
Wielbark (Venedi) and with Scandinavian newcomers. The
resulting community of peoples retained the name
"Goths" as an umbrella appellative. One can speculate
about the reasons for this: perhaps the Scandinavian
intruders (the new ruling class acc. to our later
sources) were also called "Goths" or variants thereof;
or possibly the powerful kingship of the community had
its territorial center among the Goths of the west
rather than among the Venedi of the north and east.
And all this already before phases D-F.

4. Obviously this is a very rough sketch which
requires polishing and emendation. The key point is
that if the original Goths were a Vandalic people of
the Przeworsk culture,then we must ask under what
conditions the term "Goth" became associated with
them.

5. In any case the Goths enter history as a component
of the Marcoman Empire of King Maroboduus, which was
constituted some time before 18 AD.

Discussion?


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