Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

Another perspectived below.
--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> Rolf Hachmann
> Germanen und Kelten am Rhein in der Zeit um Christi
> Geburt
> pp. 54-56
> translation
>
>
> "
> WRITTEN EVIDENCE AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS
> In the first century CE the settlement area of the
> Suebian cult
> community stretches from the lower Elbe in the
> North, the abodes of
> the Langobardi, to the area of the Danube
> tributaries March, Waag and
> Eipel in the South, the abodes of the Quadi.
> Archaeologically this
> area forms a relatively closed unity, discernible by
> many types of
> characteristics of the grave custom, recognizable
> also in the material
> culture. The old opinion that this so-called "Elbe
> Germanic" culture of
> the transitional period and the first century CE is
> Suebian, may thus
> be confirmed in its full extent.
> Already in the last century BCE these groups can be
> clearly detected
> in a much smaller area,

****GK: Does Hachmann say what this "smaller area"
is?****


and for those ares they

> acquired in the
> meantime is according to literary evidence the
> immigration of Suebian
> tribes. The Marcomanni, who Livius still in the time
> of Drusus knows
> as eastern neighbors of the Chatti (Orosius VI, 21;
> Florus II 30),
> appear in Bohemia (Vellejus Pat. II 108; Tacitus,
> Germ. 42), the
> Suebian Quadi spread out in Moravia and the Western
> Slovakia (Tacitus,
> Germ. 42; Ann. II 63) ...
>
> In this single case we find a more than fleeting
> contact between the
> interpretation of literary sources and the
> evaluation of achaeological
> finds. The Suebian cult community and the "Elbe
> Germanic" culture are
> to a large extent identical. This fact does not seem
> to be an isolated
> case. Also the cult communities of the Lugii and
> Vandilii can be shown
> in archaeological finds of the two centuries around
> the birth of Christ.

****GK: Would it be possible, to some extent, to
effect a reconciliation of Tacitus, Caesar, and
Hachmann? Acc. to Tacitus (Germania, 39) the "oldest
and most famous" of the Suebi are the Semnones, and
the center of the Suebian religious cult is on their
territory. If this territory (somewhere between the
Elbe and the Oder) could be equated with Hachmann's
"small area" for the beginning of his "Elbe Germanic"
culture and cult, we would have a connection. The
connection with Caesar would be Tacitus' statement
that the "districts they [the Semnones GK] inhabit
number a hundred, and their multitude makes them
believe that they are the principal people of the
Suebi."(ibid.) Compare this to Caesar's statement
about the "100 cantons" of the Suebi (in two places
of DBG). In this perspective, the migrating
Przeworkers might simply be associates of the Suebi,
and their abandoned lands would constitute the
wasteland Caesar refers to. The dominance of the
Semnones might also explain the eventual success and
spread of the Elbe Germanic culture and ritual, and
the cultural assimilation of many Yastorfers and
Przeworkers. Would Ariovistus then have been a
Semnonic leader?==== There is however one difference
between Hachmann and Tacitus which can't apparently be
bridged. Tacitus includes the Goths and Vandals (or
Lugii etc..)and others among his Suebians. Hachmann
does not include the later Przeworsk or Wielbark etc..
in his Elbe Germanic cult/cultural "Suebian"
community.****



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