---
x99lynx@... wrote:
> 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, and was accompanied by the
> appearance of indubitably
> Scandinavian elements within Wielbark, precisely in
> the newly occupied
> territory."
>
> This is simply not true. The "indubitably
> Scandinavian elements" in Wielbark
> are minuscule or non-existent. The archaeology
> supplies little or nothing to
> support the "Scandinavian origin" theory.
*****GK: First of all, if Steve had bothered to read
earlier posts where I uttered an opinion about Gothic
origins he would realize that I am not a supporter of
the "mass migration from Scandinavia" theory. 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, but with some Scandinavian elements
interspersed in various localities at various times.
This view is also supported by Ukrainian
archaeologists with respect to Wielbark sites on the
territory of Ukraine. So much of the remainder of
Steve's latest message is beside the point. In the
second place I am talking about the territory of
Wielbark phase C as per the map of Wolongiewicz, the
best field specialist on Wielbark (now deceased), as
reported in Anders Kaliff's excellent recent Swedish
study (but written in English) "Gothic Connections",
Uppsala 2001, p. 27.******
> (SL)Peter Heather in "The Goths" summarizes the
story of
> the downfall of the
> Scandinavian theory (pb 1998, pp. 13-14).
>
> However, Heather and others still think that one
> basic element is left in the
> rubble. These are certain burial practices
> involving stone circles, barrows,
> dolmens and stone-clad graves.
****GK: Ukrainian and Soviet archaeologists also
pointed to certain elements in the inventories of the
internal grave residues of Wielbark in Ukraine as
closely associated with Scandinavian practice. Cf. Y.
Kukharenko's study of the Brest Wielbark cemetery
(published in Moscow in 1980)******
>SL) (See, e.g., Tadeusz
> Makiewicz's web page on "Goths in Greater Poland" -
> "We do not, however, have
> any evidence of stone circles or cobble-clad graves
> from Greater Poland,
> barrow burials being a rarity - only three having
> been recorded in the
> peripheral zone of this region.")
******GK: 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, and for their family
or group traditions to have subsequently been foisted
upon the entire population labeled "Gothic". There is
sufficient archaeological evidence extant to confirm
this scenario. So even if the culture was
fundamentally autochtonous, it could still be
represented as "Scandinavian" in later writings. We
have examples of this approach in the history of
other peoples.*******
(SL) George wrote: "In phase C the Wielbark culture
> expanded southward into
> areas previously occupied by the Przeworsk culture
> which it replaced there."
****GK: See above, A. Kaliff p. 27. Phase C is still
fundamentally in northern Poland West of the
Vistula...*****
>
>(SL) Just want to point out that, if you go by the
maps
> in Heather (pp 36-37),
> Przeworsk is also doing some serious expanding. In
> fact, the two cultures
> appear to go southeastwards pretty much parallel to
> each other. They seem be headed in the same
direction, side by side. And Przeworsk appears to
reach further south and seems to cover a good deal
more territory.
Which makes me again wonder why anyone would connect
this culture with what
Tacitus tells us was an assumed name for some
federation of tribes -
"Vandal." Ptolemy certainly doesn't put them where
Przeworsk is at the time.
*****GK: As we know there were many Vandalic groups.
The spread of Przeworsk to the east and south has been
studied very carefully by Ukrainian archaeology. They
note the appearance of Przeworsk "warrior graves"
north of the Dnister in Ukrainian Galicia in the last
decades of the 2nd and in the first decades of the 3rd
century. This is totally in line with Cassius Dio's
report that in the 170's the Asding Vandals conquered
the territory of the Kostoboki. The latter is
associated with the area of the Lypytska Dacian
culture and the mixed Zubrytska culture.== We also
know that many Przeworsk elements were incorporated
into the later phases of Wielbark, which supports
Jordanes' statement about the territorial contiguity
and wars between Goths and Vandals.******
(SL)If one is going to rely on Tacitus and Ptolemy to
prove where the Goths were,
I would think one would ALSO have to account for the
"major" tribal group who
they both say are in the area - the Venethi. Or are
we saying here that
Ptolemy absolutely correctly identified one of the
many "minor" tribes
(Gythones) but made up the "major" one, mistakenly
locating the Venethi right
where Wielbark would have first met Przeworsk?
******GK: I have been studying this problem for a long
time. Since Ptolemy's localization of the
Venethi/Venedi is very different from that of Pliny
and Tacitus, I have come to the conclusion that in
this particular context he garbled matters by
utilizing an early source which reflected the
situation of the 4th/3rd c. BC rather than that of the
2nd c. AD. Ptolemy had a tendency to do this with
other material: e.g. he places the Iazygi north of the
Sea of Azov (true for the late 3rd c. BC, false for
the 2nd c. AD-- by then they had migrated to Hungary);
he places the Burgundians both east and west of the
Vistula (again a probably uncoordinated utilization of
various sources) et sim. Ptolemy is a very valuable
source, but he needs to be properly interpreted in
those peculiar contexts.******
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