[tied] Snorri on "Odin's journey" [Was:Re: Whence Grimm?]

>
>
> (TP)For a few of the types I have included statistics
> of the distribution
> between inhumation and cremation graves. It seems the
> types Almgren
> 67 and 68 (with subtypes) are the most, and Kostrewski
> type M and N
> (with subtypes) the least connected with inhumation,
> so I believe if
> any type of fibula is connected with an intrusive
> Sarmatian element,
> it should be A67/A68.
>
> *****GK: Well the problem with that hypothesis is that
> A67/A68 are apparently not found (as per your list) in
> the indubitably Sarmatian graves of that period.
> Ukrainian archaeologists consider Almgren A67/A68 to
> be "western type" fibulae (cf. e.g. V.D.Baran, ed.,
> "The 'pre-statehood' Slavs of southeastern Europe"[in
> Russ.],1990, pp. 76-79) and contrast them with fibulae
> of local production in Sarmatian, Scytho-Sarmatian,
> Zarubinian and other East European cultures.

Do they ascribe these "western type" fibulae to any particular
ethnos?

>In
> Ukraine, A68 fibulae are particularly noticeable in
> the Przeworsk (Vandalic) and Lypytska
> (Dacian/Costobokan) cultures [the Lypytska culture of
> the upper Dnister, which began in the 1rst c. AD, also
> had an important Vandalic component]. There are
> isolated finds of A67 and A68 in other cultures of
> course (as your list indicates), but they are not
> productively associated with ANY of the Sarmatian
> groups of that time (whether Yazigi, Roxolans,
> Aorsans, or Alans, whether in Hungary or Romania, or
> Ukraine, or Russia /and this involves the Don and
> territories east thereof: no such fibulae, it seems,
> in the putative "Asgard" or "Vanaland" areas.../).

What would you say is characteristic of the finds of those Sarmatian
groups (particularly of those "Asgard" and Vanaland" areas?).

>As
> to inhumation graves. There are a number of well known
> Sarmatian type i.g. (one can differentiate between
> e.g. Yazigian/Roxolanian, Aorsan, Alanic sub-groups,
> the latter two showing peculiar construction
> complexities). The inhumation graves of Przeworsk,
> Oksywie, and Wielbark (later of Chernyakhiv) are quite
> different. The "influence" might have been vaguely
> Sarmatian (although that isn't clear: the Pontic
> Greeks, Scythians, and others also used an inhumation
> ritual), but no archaeologist will identify a Wielbark
> or Oksywie inhumation grave as a "Sarmatian intrusion"
> merely on the basis of the rite per se.

As I understand it, the question of an early Sarmatian presence is a
politically inflamed one in Poland. What are the firm criteria (I
assume they exist) for distinguishing Przeworsk, Oksywie or Wielbark
graves from Sarmatian ones? I find it puzzling that a society should
suddenly develop into a hierarchical militarised one without outer
cause.

>You need much
> more than that: it has to be a verified Sarmatian type
> i.g., containing a Sarmatian type burial position,
> with Sarmatian objects preponderant in the inventory.
> You don't have that in Oksywie or Przeworsk for the
> period you need. You don't have it in
> Poeneshti-Lukashovka (Bastarnia). BTW a similar
> situation exists as to cremation burials: there were
> many different types (more than 30 in Eastern Europe!
> And many of them have been linked, after further
> microanalysis, with specific ethna or sub-ethna,
> Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Dacian etc..) *****
>
>

Aha. And have the fibulae type Kostrzewski var M and N been linked
with any particular ethnos?

Torsten