Re: False Scandinavian Origins

From: x99lynx@...
Message: 12852
Date: 2002-03-25

--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> > "In phase C the Wielbark culture expanded southward
> > into areas previously
> > occupied by the Przeworsk culture which it replaced
> > there. This expansion
> > occurred ca. 50 AD,...

But earlier George wrote:
> george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> "In phase B the Wielbark culture expanded southward into areas previously
> occupied by the Przeworsk culture which it replaced there. This expansion
> occurred ca. 50 AD,and was accompanied by the appearance of indubitably
> Scandinavian elements within Wielbark,...

George, not only did you change your own quote, but you changed my quote of
your quote!!! Is this standard procedure?

The switch from B to C does not help anyway. The Scandinavian element
simply arrives too late. Wielbark has originated and expanded before the
stone circles, etc., show up in a limited part of Wielbark. (George also
wrote: "I am talking about the territory of
Wielbark phase C as per the map of Wolongiewicz,..." The name is Wolagiewicz
and it's his map updated by Scukin (accents omitted) that was used in
Heather.)

George also wrote:
"What I wrote above is perfectly in synch with the opinion of a majority of
contemporary Polish field archaeologists, who see Wielbark as essentially
autochtonous,.... So much of the remainder of Steve's latest message is
beside the point."

Now, George. That's not a very nice way to sidestep my main argument. What
those archaeologists say did NOT answer my question.

Up until the 1950's, archaeologists following Kossina, found all kinds of
Scandinavian origin evidence in Wielbark. It was bought wholesale and is
STILL being repeated in encyclopedias, histories and on this list.

Well, it turns out all that evidence is NOT Scandinavian. Instead NOW almost
all of that "origin" evidence says Wielbark was NOT Scandinavian. So what do
Polish (and of course Ukrainian) archaeologists say that all that evidence
NOW says.

George says those archaeologist now see "Wielbark as essentially
autochtonous,..." But that would mean, prima facie, junking all the old
evidence that once proved Wielbark was Scandinavian. BECAUSE that evidence
does not show local origin, either.

I have no problem with Polish archaeologists junking Kossina. But perhaps
the next and better step is to consider junking Jordanes. After all,
Kossina's work on Gothic origins was what supposedly confirmed Jordanes.
Consider Jordanes unconfirmed.

The evidence Kossina used is still there, it just doesn't say Scandinavian.
And it doesn't say "autochtonous" either.

This is important. Kossina's theory was NOT disproved by showing his
"Gotho-Gepidian" elements were autochtonous.

They were disproved by showing that those elements originated elsewhere.
And, of Kossina's seven elements listed and cited by Heather, six were shown
to have already existed along the Danube, in the Balkans and arguably in the
Ukraine.

If everyone once said Wielbark is of Scandinavian origin based on this
evidence, then it matters that the very same evidence NOW says Wielbark was
of Danubian origin. Unless the evidence never really counted in the first
place. (But that sounds like a bias is in operation, doesn't it?)

As far as saying that later Scandinavians were some kind of aristocratic
elite among the Wielbark, I don't see how that makes any sense, either.
Polish archaeologists agree there were very few of them. And I've seen
nothing archaeologically that says they were elite. That's just Jordanes and
Kossina again.

George also brings up "Makiewicz is nevertheless agreeable to a
Scandinavian element being present in Poland's Wielbark. Let me remind Steve
of an elementary fact of historical hermeneutics. In order for the
"Scandinavian origin" theory reported by Jordanes to have credibility, all
that is required is for a small number of upper class people to have migrated
into Poland or Ukraine at some point,..."

Those are very minimum requirements and not scientific at all. We would
expect some Scandinavian influence archaeologically even if Jordanes was
totally wrong. In fact, one could argue that most of Kossina's elements
actually traveled to Scandinavia via Wielbark - the other way around.
Perhaps Wielbark elite migrated to Scandinavia.

So none of this says in any way that Jordanes is historically accurate. All
kinds of convoluted hermeneutics can and has supported Jordanes. But all the
archaeology says is that maybe some Wielbarkians adopted what might have been
SOME - not all - Swedish religious practices - and again they might not even
have been Scandinavian in origin.

But, in terms of credibility, Jordanes' origin theory is that it happened
before 1000 BC. And its supposed to account for the Gothic nation, including
Ulfila's poor folk and not just an Odin-style ruling family.

We do have evidence of a mass migration out of Scandinavia or anywhere along
the Baltic at the time of Wielbark. But there was one that happened about
250 BC. That works with my theory about how the East Germanic languages got
to the eastern Danube and the Ukraine.

The fact is, if we are not going to be conveniently selective about Jordanes'
origin story, we should say it is fabricated myth. The Romans and Greeks had
come to the conclusion that anyone who showed up speaking German must have
come from the north 600 years before Jordanes, thanks to the Cimbri and
Bastarnae. That Jordanes/Cassiodorus could come up with the Goths coming
from Ptolemy's Scandinavian Goutai-land to satisfy an origin myth did not
take a lot of invention.

Again, that an area just south of Scandinavia should show some incidental
Scandinavian influence does not constitute proof. It is rather to be
expected, even if Jordanes' story is completely false.

Piotr writes in another post, for example:
"My personal opinion is that the East Germanic languages were essentially
"continental", and that some immigrant groups of Scandinavian origin (the
Amal elite?) mingled with the local populations, transforming them culturally
and politically (and deepening the split between the Wielbark and Przeworsk
cultures), but not linguistically."

Just in terms of that one idea - that "some immigrant groups of Scandinavian
origin (the Amal elite?) mingled with the local populations,
transforming them culturally and politically" - what is the evidence for
that? What was particularly Scandinavian about later Wielbark politics? Or
Gothic culture or politics for that matter?

I know that Piotr said this was a personal opinion, but his opinion carries a
lot of weight around here. So I'm asking if that opinion has room for other
possibilities.

If the Eastern Germanic of the 4th Century AD Goths was indeed continental in
origin, wouldn't this be a better starting point in looking for the origins
than an Amal elite? If the Amal did not speak East Germanic, did the
underclass "Rugi" or "Vandals?" Did the Vandals speak East Germanic?

Let's say they did. Were they the ones - as Wielbark - that first brought
East Germanic down to the Ukraine and the Danube? Well, there was a big
healthy expanse of Germanic speakers already down there. Did they speak East
Germanic? And why do we think that their culture - long in contact with
Greeks and the Danube - could not account for the politics and the culture of
the Goths? Including those things that Wielbark showed little evidence of -
like Gothic iron technology.

So, did Ulfila's Goths need Wielbark to bring them the East Germanic they
spoke? Or was it already there, being spoken by a group whom Strabo and
Ptolemy and others give a large geographic presence to (compared to other
tribes), in an area very congruent to that of the early Goths. Does it make
more sense that East Germanic separated and developed a sort distance from
Germany and Scandinavia. Or that it started its differentiation among the
Bastarnae and Skiri in the south?

If East Germanic developed in the south and then expanded back north, it
might suggest that how Ptolemy's Gythones could speak East Germanic. And
maybe it could account for a different origin of the Goths.

Not an origin that a blatant apologist for later, root-seeking Gothic
aristocrats like Cassiodorus or his summarizer Jordanes would be likely to
admit.

Steve Long



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