Where did the Yazigi go ? Was:Re: Fwd: Re: [tied] Re: That old Ario

From: tgpedersen
Message: 64334
Date: 2009-07-05

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- On Fri, 7/3/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> (GK) After their assault on the Zarubinian fortresses of the
> Tyasmyn and Ros' areas south of Kyiv. The assaults are dated as of
> the later 1rst c. BCE (between ca. 40 and 20).
>
> (TP)How were they dated?
>
> ****GK: As far as I remember, primarily (though not exclusively) on
> the basis of amphora imports from the Greek city-states. They
> developed a pretty precise system allowing them to date various
> stratigraphic levels at the archaeological sites of the fortresses
> from the 2nd c. BCE through the mid-1rst c. AD when they were
> finally destroyed. The Yazigi assault evidence is uniformly below
> the mid-1rst c. BCE level in all affected fortresses. BTW only a
> number of fortresses located at the borderland with the steppes
> were attacked at that time.*****

Do you have a reference?

> (GK)According to Ukrainian archaeologists this was a local war
> between Yazigi and Zarubinians, in the period subsequent to the
> Burebista era.
>
> (TP)Why subsequent?
>
> ****GK: Because the Burebista era ended ca. 44 BCE.*****

Of course, but was there a specific dating relative to Burebista's
reign and campaigns?

>
> (GK) One has to guess the motives. There is such a dearth of
> information that it's quite difficult.
>
>
> (TP)They might have had a psycho leader who thought he should carve
> up an empire in the North.
>
> ****GK: Apparently the Zarubibians were strong enough to beat them
> off. In any case this is all posterior to the Ariovistus epoch.****
>
>
>
> (GK)But one thing is certain: everyone is agreed on this. The
> Yazigi were located in the steppes between Danube and Dnipro at the
> time of the Mithradates saga and after. They were basically still
> there in Augustan times.
>
>
>
> Doesn't prove part of them might not have gone elsewhere.
>
> ****GK: There is no evidence for that. Arguing like you do one
> might say they went to India, Africa, America, China. If there is
> nothing to indicate a presence somewhere one is not entitled to
> postulate same (to quote Charlie Chan). This is an elementary
> principle of historical investigation.*****

Use your elementary principle of historical investigation on this one:
We know that the French live in France. However some pseudo-
historical sources seem to indicate that they were near Moscow in the
early 19th century.


>
> They are one of the main Sarmatian groups with which he concluded
> a treaty in ca. 2 BCE. Their migration into Hungary did not begin
> until the early years of the 1rst c. AD. There is no record of any
> kind, historical or archaeologicaL of any move into any of the
> Przeworsk areas by them.
>
>
> Snorri and Saxo are historical sources too.
>
> ****GK: They are completely unreliable for the period in question,
> since they are basically in conflict with secure contemporary
> sources. They are just as unreliable as the Scythian Foundation
> legend is for the period 1500 BCE ("the country was a void, then
> Targitaus apppeared") or the Kyivan Primary Chronicle is for the
> period 50 AD ("Andrew the Apostle travelled from Chersonesos to
> Rome by the Viking route, up the Dnipro et, to Novgorod, then by
> the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean, pillars of hercules, and
> into the Mediterranean"). This is all elementary stuff.*****
>
> Where does the whole Sarmatian tradition in Poland stem from?
>
> *****GK: I believe this emerges in the 16th c. Snorri was not the
> only one with a fertile imagination. But perhaps Piotr could be
> more precise if he has time or patience to comment. In the 17th c.
> Ukrainians developed a similar theory (perhaps borrowed) about
> their ancestors (!) the Roxolanians. And in the 16th c. also
> Russian chroniclers came up with a pedigree for Ivan the terrible
> reaching back to Augustus (!).Interesting stuff but completely
> irrelevant historically. BTW Lithuanians also developed a notion of
> their state having been founded in the 1rst c. AD by refugees from
> Nero's Rome led by one Polemon (or some similar name I don't
> remember precisely). The earlier Polish chronicles don't mention
> "Sarmatism" as far as I remember.****
>
...
>
>
> NB> Another point known about the Yazigi. They were very determined
> nomads, and could not abide "mixed residences" with an agricultural
> population. When large groups of them migrated from their earlier
> haunts, they "cleared" the area of their new settlements of local
> peasants. There is good evidence of this along the Dnister r.
> (settled in the 1rst c AD) and in the area of the finally destroyed
> Zarubinian fortresses (all previous locals were either killed or
> chased out, and only nomad burials are found from the mid- 1rst c.
> AD). Which does not mean that agriculturalists did not remain in
> areas controlled by the nomads. They just didn't "co-habit" with
> them. The same thing happened in Hungary. Some Dacians were allowed
> to remain, but most were chased away or killed. The absence of any
> such slaughters or removals in Przeworsk in the 1rst c. BCE is a
> good initial indicator thhat no Yazigi arrived. Actually, the
> depopulation of Gubin Yastorf and middle Silesia might have been an
> argument 'for", but there is no corroborating positive evidence of
> a Yazigi presence so these depopulations must be explained
> otherwise (as indeed they have been).

Those germs that kill the host are not very successful compared to
those who don't; any nomad tribe which conquered its way deep enough
into Europe faced the choice between razing the ground and then
having to retreat for want of new targets, or set up a semblance of
governance structure and become the settled lords of the land, as
described in Wolfram's "The Goths", discussed here earlier. A
charismatic enough leader would have realized, like Alexander, that
if you live in permanent hostility with the local providers of
foodstuff, your empire won't last long, and would have discouraged
such predatory behavior.



Torsten