Re: Kossack's Conclusions

From: tgpedersen
Message: 55397
Date: 2008-03-17

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:



Georg Kossack:
Archäologisches zur frühgermanischen Besiedlung
zwischen Main und
Nordsee, pp. 103-104
in Kossack, Hachmann, Kuhn:
Völker zwischen Germanen und Kelten

"
CONCLUSIONS
The events in western North Germany must have taken a different
course. A uniform, all-extensive movement can hardly be assumed here,
nor can exclusively an Elbe-Germanic/Suebian population as carrier of
these enterprises. Further, the area, in which the early Germani are
making themselves discernible with independent forms of expression,
was during the Late Latène period not at all so uniform as the area of
the Late Celtic oppida, remarkably not even where central market
places on the Celtic pattern might have acted as levelers. This
heterogeneity must thus have deeper causes, insofar as the various
groups differ not just formally wrt material things, but also in the
structure of their culture. What indeed would connect the marsh
farmers on the coast with the population of the islands between Ems
and Weser, sticking strangely rigidly to old traditions, or that
population with that of the northern edge of the mountain area of
Brabant and on the Lower Rhine, and finally all of these with the
groups the Schiefergebirge, the iron smelters in Siegerland, the
inhabitants of the fortified places, and the salt producers and
farmers in the Wetterau. They are all archaeologically neither Germani
nor Celts. They offer a palette of cultures partly prehistoric, partly
of early history, of which the former in the north no longer
participated in the core area of the Suebian Germani, while the others
in the south no longer in all aspects belonged to the oppida culture
of the late Continental Celts. As full of contrasts the details of the
cultural evidence is, that is how differentiated one should probably
also imagine the populations to be in Western Germany north of the
river Main. After all, none of these groups have been capable of
resisting Suebian incursions and Roman wars in such a manner as to be
able to decisively shape the culture in imperial times. Only the early
Germanic layer gives them like a sourdough an effect beyond the
lifespan apportioned to each of them individually. How it happened in
details remains unclear above all in the North German lowland west of
the Weser, since we know neither the significance of Jastorf-like
foreign objects in the area of the totality of the Harpstedt-Nienburg
culture [the archaeological correlate of the NWBlock language, TP],
nor their relationship to the culture of this area in imperial times,
which seems to begin here much later than elsewhere.

Speculation begins the moment one tries to squeeze the archaeological
state of affairs into the historical framework outlined by the written
sources. In that we must take as a starting point the dating of the
Early Germanic layer to the time around and after the birth of Christ,
ie. in the period in which the Roman occupation of areas east of the
Rhine is practically over. In the end, it was not victorious, as the
defeat of Varrus' legions shows us, but with dire consequences,
inasmuch as the autochthonous population immediately east of the Rhine
was either relocated or considerably weakened or even exterminated.
Seen archaeologically, this work of destruction is directed first and
above all against the native settler groups in the extent of the
Celtic oppida culture and its northern neighbors. Seen linguistically,
against communities, the name material of which is not or not
necessarily Germanic, although the written sources themselves probably
since Poseidonios call them Germani. The occupation lines, denoted by
temporary or permanent winter camps for the troops, are remarkably
consistent with those zones where the Early Germanic layer is
discernible at the earliest time: in the Lippe valley and from the
Wetterau towards the North all the way to the river Weser ... . The
question has therefore been raised whether the Roman incursions in
part were only a response to those Germanic east-to-west movements.
But that would entail that the Early Germanic finds in North West
Germany should be dated in the time before Drusus, which however
hardly would be possible in the chronology represented here which has
decisive importance for our conclusions. It is however possible to see
the expansion of our finds as an indirect consequence of such
movements, in the sense that the Germani prevailed only when on the
one hand the autochthonous population was biologically and culturally
weakened, and on the other hand Varus' defeat not only consolidates
their reputation, but also gives them an opportunity to seize power.
It seems consequently that this defeat, which traditionally has been
seen as a liberation of a country that was Germanic since way back
when, should be allotted much greater significance for the early
history of our fatherland. Apparently only then begins all the way to
the Rhine and the Main rivers a permanent Germanic colonization, where
the destructive force of the Roman troops had created a vacuum, only
now do Germanic cultural phenomena achieve a breakthrough. Arminius'
victory and later the recall of the legions stop, as we know, the land
east of the Rhine from becoming a Roman province. But just as
important it also seems to be that only through these events did the
country at all become 'Germanic', after Rome itself had prepared the
way for it by destroying the last bulwark against the Germani, namely
the autochthonous population of the country.
"

Torsten