Thanks, Piotr.
I've learned some more by using phrases in your reply in Web
searches.
I'm impressed by the apparent absence of nationalistic bias
among the Polish archaeologists. There's hope for the World
yet!
Dan Milton
--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
> I know Golab's book (though I haven't got it to hand). It
represent the view, once prevailing among Polish scholars, that
the Slavs lived in Poland throughout the Roman period or even
originated here (at the very least, they were credited with creating
the Lausitz culture). This would mean that any Germanic
peoples known from ancient history merely passed through
Slavic Poland on their migrations or temporarily settled among
the Slavs.
>
> Golab's particular theory -- of an early expansion from the
Dnieper basin (ca. 700 BC, if I remember correctly) is at variance
with several kinds of evidence: linguistic (for one thing, the Slavic
branch is highly homogeneous, which suggests late territorial
expansion of the protolanguage from a relatively small home
area); historical (the writers of the Roman period report nothing
that could be interpreted as Slavic presence in the Vistula and
Oder basins; au contraire, the onomastic material connected
with the Przeworsk culture is clearly Germanic); as well as
archaeological (there is no continuity between Roman-time and
later cultures, and most of Poland was dramatically depopulated
at the end of the Roman period).
>
> The theory currently in vogue (and one that fits the linguistic
aspect of the question, in my opinion) is that the Slavs arrived in
the wake of the Great Migrations, sometimes in the company of
Hunnic, Sarmatian or Avar allies or overlords, sometimes on
their own. In Poland they filled the vacuum created by the
collapse of the Przeworsk culture, associated with East
Germanic speakers (perhaps originally with some Celtic
admixture). The association of Slavic-speakers with concrete
archaeological cultures (to the extent that such correlations are
valid, "Slavic" being ultimately a linguistic notion) is still
somewhat uncertain, but I think most archaeologists would opt
for a chain of related cultures between the Don and the
Carpathians, genetically connected with the Kiev culture on the
Middle Dnieper and, in a deeper perspective, the so-called post-
Zarubinec horizon in the Pripyat' and Dnieper basins.
Archaeological traces attributable to Slavic settlers in Poland
come from the sixth century, but it's highly probable they were
present in southeastern Poland (east of the upper Vistula) since
at least the middle of the fifth century. Procopius had the Heruls
pass through lands occupied by "the Sclavini" and through
depopulated wildernesses on their trek from the Carpathian
basin to Scandinavia in AD 512, which squares well with the
scenario above.
>
> Piotr