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

[Tore Gannholm]

>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.

Dirk,
You might be right about West Scandinavia. However Gotland is a 
different thing.
Professor Mårten Stenberger writes.
The period 500-300 BC in addition to odd finds a number of graves 
from that time have been found in Gotland which is the oldest iron 
age on the island.It is both  cremation graves in accordance with the 
use in younger Bronze age and remarkably inhumation in mounds or 
under flat ground created stone coffins. In principle it is the same 
way of burial as during the older Bronze age. The inhumation graves 
are even more numerous than cremation graves and are gathered in 
large planned grave fields.

He also mentions that the inhumation graves are a surprise as it 
differs from what we know from Sweden.

Tore

>
>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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