[gothic-l] Re: Goths in Scandinavia

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Paul Bardunias" <Bardunias at a...>
wrote:
> A number of you have mentioned contact between the migrating Goths
> and Scandinavia.  I am curious to know how much inflence Gothic-
> Steppe culture had in Scandinavia.  I am particularly interested in
> the transmittal of Indo-Aryan and Hunnic elements.
>
> I have read online about the possibility that the Heruls went back
to
> Sweden en mass.  Is this the usual internet fantasy or is this an
> accepted historical possibility?  Any opinions?
>
> Paul


Hi Paul,

in the course of the 5th century steppe nomadic cultural influences
spread accross much of central, western and northern Europe. While
this was of course initiated by the arrival of Huns and East Germanic
people in south eastern Europe, the spread of these elements extends
beyond their physical presence and is probably due to gift-exchange,
trade etc. The distribution density of these steppe nomadic cultural
elements declines from south to north as one would expect with
increaseing distance and it does not indicate any special movements
by tribes to Scandinavia.

In fact, these elements of steppe nomadic culture which would likely
be indicative of population movement (i.e. non-tradable goods and
traits of religious significance, steppe nomadic hand-mirrors,
artificial skull deformations) are mostly or completely absent from
Scandinavia. About the Heruls, Troels already indicated that this is
a much discussed and disputed subject. Procopius is the only source
for this movement and if you read his account carefully, the best
that could be said is that a portion of the tribe, after suffering
starvation in Rugiland and being chased away by the Gepids sought
refuge in Thule. So if there was such a movement it is not reflected
in the archaeology and the circumstances described by the only
historical source are not indicating that 'masses of people' were
involved. Finally, the fact that the name of the Heruls was never
again mentioned in Scandinavia would also suggest that this was at
best a movement of a small group of people I think. But as Troels
said views on this differ and you can find a lot on this in the
archives of this list and the Germanic-L.

Cheers
Dirk







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