Odp: [tied] Genesis of Germanic

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 6392
Date: 2001-03-06

It all depends on how you define the Proto-Germani. If you use a linguistic definition (speakers of a variety of IE that shows the effects of Grimm's Law and a few other changes), then Proto-Germanic has to be rather recent. An archaeological definition begs the question of language/culture identification. A racial definition (large-brained dolichocephalic giants) is a myth. The occupants of Corded Ware graves hardly meet your description, though admittedly people of Northern Europe are often taller than southerners, other things being equal. This has nothing to do with the language they speak. In recent years a large number of Gothic burials have been found in SE Poland -- large enough for the body measurements to have statistical validity. To everybody's surprise, the average Goth was medium-height at best and their facial features often resembled those of modern Saami-speakers.
 
Piotr
 
----- Original Message -----
From: longgren@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Genesis of Germanic

     Proto-Germanics were the Bastarnae?  The ancestry of Germanics is
well known and can be traced in prehistory thousands of years before the
classics were written. There was a people called the Battle-Axe People,
or Corded Ware people. They were extremely tall, robust,
dolichocephalic and had huge brains. They once extended from the Volga
to Holland.  One group of them invaded Denmark, where they conquered the
Ertebølle Folk. The people of Jutland were mostly descended from the
Battle Axe People, but the people of the Danish Islands were
predominantly descended from the Ertebølle Folk. From this home in
Denmark the Proto-Germanics slowly expanded. They moved into
southernmost Sweden and then began a long Drang nach Norden into Sweden
and Norway where they displaced some kind of Uralic people. A few of
them moved along the Baltic coast of Germany.  Only much later did they
move south into Germany and conquer various Celtic and Slavic peoples.
The Bastarnae, whoever they were, were much later; they were in the
wrong place and the wrong time to be the Proto-Germanics.
http://www.delphi.com/prehistory