Re: Celtic and Germanic Poland before the Slavs

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh
> > <gknysh@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Some interesting archaeological data (esp. for Torsten
> > > as he gathers material for the "origin of Germanic"
> > > question. Some of this he will like a lot ,some
> > less.)
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.germany-encyclopedia.com/Poland_in_Antiquity
> >
> > I must like some of it, since I referred to it
> > before in
> >
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/54996
> >
> > I have a couple questions_
> >
> > 1) With all the detail in corroborating the identity of Wielbark
> > relative to other Polish-land cultures, there is not a word of
> > discussion of similarity or not of Wielbark to their 'Scandinavian
> > protoplasts', as the Slavic mother tongue (note the weird
> > adjectival constructions) writer quaintly puts it (apparently I
> > live in a Black Lagoon).
>
> ****GK: Are you a (Swedish)Gaut/Goth or Gotlander,
> Torsten? (:=)))

It seems to be common lore that's where they came. But there is
silence on the specifics.

> The language does stumble here and there, but what the hell...

No problem.

> I feel certain that the specifics you are interested in are
> discussed in the books the article constantly refers to, with
> appropriate further citations. Perhaps they are
> available in your librarie(s). Many Polish editions
> have German and English summaries.****

I have a hunch they don't. Scandinavian languages is not the Poles'
strong side. Most Germans working on prehistory had an infatuation
with Scandinavian stuff and many taught themselves the language(s).

> >
> > 2) It is tempting to equate non-IE(?) Chatti with
> > the Cotini/Púchov
> > mixed culture. Are there reasons one shouldn't?
>
> ****GK: Well, two off the top: different arch.
> cultures, different peoples acc. to Tacitus.****

How different archaeologically? Kuhn etc seem to think the Chatti were
something pre-Germanic, and acc. to Tacitus, the Cotini in Moravia
were Celtic, not Germanic.

> > 3) It's further tempting to connect Vandili/Vendsyssel/Veneti in
> > Gaul: the Limfjord south of Vendsyssel was the preferred
> > sailing route to the Baltic, not until Hansa Ummelandsfarer with
> > large cogs did shipping take the dangerous route north of Skagen.
>
> ****GK: Resist the temptation.****

It is common lore in Danish archaeology that there is a archaeological
connection between vendsyssel and the mouth of the Oder. That's the
kind of blind spot wrt. Scandinavia I was referring to. That makes me
suspicious of whether your denial of a connection with the Veneti of
Gaul is on equally shaky ground.

> > 4) 'The evolution of the power structure within the Germanic
> > societies in Poland and elsewhere can be traced to some degree
> > by examining the "princely" graves - burials of chiefs, and even
> > hereditary princes, as the consolidation of power progressed.
> > Those appeaR from the beginning of the Common Era and are located
> > away from ordinary cemeteries, singly or in small groups. The
> > bodies were inhumed in wooden coffins and covered with kurgans, or
> > interred in wooden or stone chambers.
> > Luxurious Roman-made gifts and fancy barbarian emulations ... ,
> > but not weapons, were placed in the graves. 1st and 2nd century
> > burials of this type, occurring all the way from Jutland to
> > Lesser Poland, are referred to as princely graves Lubieszewo type,
> > after Lubieszewo, Gryfice County in western Pomerania, where six
> > such burials were found.'
> >
> > Here's the question that *you* don't like: where does this sudden
> > homogeneous upper class come from? Why does it use inhumation, not
> > cremation, as was the custom before? Is it similar to any other
> > culture in the neighborhood?
>
> ****GK: It would be helpful to relate these graves to specific
> Germanic populations.

I think the text says, which I've read elsewhere too, that you can't.
It's a new and homogenous upper class, appearing suddenly in an until
then egalitarian culture.

> Presumably more information would be available in the books
> mentioned.

You don't know. OK.

> All I get from the article is that these W. Pomeranian graves are
> associated with a group which arrived ca. 30 CE from from Ru/"/gen
> to replace the local Oksywie culture which had earlier replaced the
> Jastorf culture, and that it was itself replaced by another
> group in the 3rd.c.****

It's not a phenomenon specific to the Wielbark culture.

> >
> > 5) 'Related to the Przeworsk culture was the Wietrzno-Solina type,
> > a cultural unit with Celtic and then Dacian elements, situated
> > within the more eastern part of the Beskids range (San River
> > basin) during the 100-250 CE period[24][25].'
> >
> > Saxo's Ruthenians?
>
> ****GK: Who knows? In any case some of Ptolemy's
> tribal names might be consulted***

If it is, one might have to read Saxo's prehistoric stuff from that
perspective.


Torsten