Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

Rolf Hachmann
Germanen und Kelten am Rhein in der Zeit um Christi Geburt
pp. 54-56
translation


"
WRITTEN EVIDENCE AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS
In spite of the distance between the archaeological and the literary
sources and their different interpretational value in general there is
in the matter under discussion an immediate connection. The finds in
the ground from the time around the birth of Christ show delimited
areas of funeral practice and thus offers an insight into the field of
religion, more precisely into the funeral custom. Also those ethnic
groups which we perceive behind the facade of reports from antiquity,
are apparently religious or cult communities. It would be premature to
pretend that areas of funeral customs and cult communities were
necessarily co-extensive. That would just be a repetition of the
Kossinna's dogma. But one might surmise that within the religious
structure some type of functional connection existed between the
customs of the secular and the hereafter. Further one might surmise,
that the activity field of of the cult community wasn't limited to
that which sources of the antiquity tell us. It probably stretched
much further and offered to its adherents numerous more or less
obligatory norms of behavior for various areas of the religion. Why
would the cult of the dead be completely excluded from that? It is
thus completely justified to ask whether there exist connections
between delimited areas of funeral customs which can observed
archaeologically and cult communities known from the literature, and
it makes sense to begin with the answer where the state of the sources
is particularly promising.

In the first century CE the settlement area of the Suebian cult
community stretches from the lower Elbe in the North, the abodes of
the Langobardi, to the area of the Danube tributaries March, Waag and
Eipel in the South, the abodes of the Quadi. Archaeologically this
area forms a relatively closed unity, discernible by many types of
characteristics of the grave custom, recognizable also in the material
culture. The old opinion that this so-called "Elbe Germanic" culture of
the transitional period and the first century CE is Suebian, may thus
be confirmed in its full extent.
Already in the last century BCE these groups can be clearly detected
in a much smaller area, and for those ares they acquired in the
meantime is according to literary evidence the immigration of Suebian
tribes. The Marcomanni, who Livius still in the time of Drusus knows
as eastern neighbors of the Chatti (Orosius VI, 21; Florus II 30),
appear in Bohemia (Vellejus Pat. II 108; Tacitus, Germ. 42), the
Suebian Quadi spread out in Moravia and the Western Slovakia (Tacitus,
Germ. 42; Ann. II 63) ...

In this single case we find a more than fleeting contact between the
interpretation of literary sources and the evaluation of achaeological
finds. The Suebian cult community and the "Elbe Germanic" culture are
to a large extent identical. This fact does not seem to be an isolated
case. Also the cult communities of the Lugii and Vandilii can be shown
in archaeological finds of the two centuries around the birth of Christ.

For the state of affairs of the population on the Rhine in the time
around the birth of Christ we thus have firmer foundations. The grave
of Gladbach, Kreis Neuwied ... belongs, according to its cultural
makeup belongs to the "Elbe Germanic" culture. More clearly than it
can be said in other cases it can be determined here that: In this
grave an adherent of the Suebian cult community has been buried.
Something similar can be determined for a number of similar graves and
forms which belong to the "Elbe Germanic" culture or at least is very
close to it can be discerned also outside the certain grave finds in
the area west of the Leine and Weser rivers ... . An immigration of
Suebian population segments is therefore clearly detectable
archaeologically, and also here confirmation by literary sources is
not lacking. Since Poseidonios the Suebi have come to the attention of
the Romans, since Caesar are particular actions by Suebian tribes
described in detail. Among the tribes accompanying Ariovist Caesar
mentions the Suebi and the Marcomanni (B.G. I 37 u. 51); Suebi drive
the Usipetes and the Tencteri (B.G. IV1 ff.), settled east of the
Cherusci (B.G. VI 10) and made the Ubii pay tribute (B.G. IV 3). That
Suebi already then took land to the West, is apparent not only from
the exit of the Usipetes and Tencteri. Caesar reports that in the
western boundary area of the Suebi large tracts were unpopulated,
since the popuæation originally living there had given in to the
pressure of the Suebi and had emigrated (B.G. IV 3). In the time after
Caesar left Gaul the pressure apparently became even greater. One must
assume that it was the increasing terror of the Suebi which caused the
Ubii in 38 BCE to ask Agrippa for settlement areas west of the Rhine
(Strabo IV 194; Dio Cass. 48,49). Eleven years Suebi pushed across the
Rhine for the first time, but were pushed back by C. Carrina (Dio
Cass. 51,21). Also Drusus had to fight against Suebian tribes, among
others the Marcomanni (Orosius VI 21). Around 3 BCE Domitius
Ahenobarbus came across wandering Hermunduri, who he settled in the
"Marcomanni country" (Dio. Cass. 55,10). And last Tiberius met, beside
Sigambri, at first Suebi (Sueton, Augustus 21). He defeated them and
then settled them together with Sigambri on the left of the Rhine
"


Aha. So 'the Suebian cult community and the "Elbe Germanic" culture
are to a large extent identical'? How does that rhyme with the 'fact'
that the Elbe Germani are Jastorf? The Suebi aren't Jastorf.


Torsten