Re: Side issue: the Yastorf Gubin group

From: george knysh
Message: 56786
Date: 2008-04-05

****GK: See comments below between the Hachmann
lines.***

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

"In the area of the Sueui and other population groups
settled furthe
east

****GK: Tacitus' "Suebia"? Looks like. The Bastarnae
were apparently not involved.****

there was thus a higher social layer which
represented motre than
just a group of equal and rival chieftains.

****GK: The "Lubieszewo type" princes [of ca. 1-150
CE] and their predecessors?

http://www.germany-encyclopedia.com/Poland_in_Antiquity

****

From this layer
personalities stepped forward who were recognized by
the whole tribal
area as leaders who succeeded temporarily in
obtainiong recognition
elsewhere too. Since their power however wasn't
established
institutionally, attempts like those undertaken by
Marbod, Catualdus
and Vibilius could not be permanent. The narrow
super-tribal ties of
the nobility layer of the Elbe, Oder and Vistula area
are striking
archaeologically as it is from the literary sources.
In the West, a
head of the Cherusci or Chatti never obtained power
over a foreign
tribal area. The case of the Canninefatus Gannascus,
who lived by
piracy on the coasts of Gaul (Tacitus Ann. XI 18) is
no good as
counter-evidence.

The order of society in the area of the Sueui and
other cult
communities, which in post-Christian times not just
hindered, but
evidently furthered the development of personalities
of the type like
Marbod, was the result of an extended development. It
is true that its
preforms in the first pre-Christian century did not
offer similar
prospects for personal development,

****GK: Ariovistus as a "preform".****

although it produced a number of
powerful personalities: Respected warriors, successful
leaders, who
felt their Lebensraum as too cramped, who like Marbod
had been around
in the world,

****GK: Marbod (ca. 30 BCE- 37 CE) as a "preform".****

who succeeded in egging on the youth to warrior deeds
and talking the population into emigration, with
persuasive reasons -
one could cite alleged overpopulation, bad harvests
and alluring
richer landscapes. Ariovistus, if he was a Suevi,

****GK: Interesting caveat.****

may have been such a
man."

What is this sudden upper layer? Where does it come
from?

****GK: Why would you doubt these were energetic and
talented personalities from within a particular tribe
(Marbod was a Marcoman noble, educated in Italy,
Catualdus was a Goth, Vibilius a Hermundur) whose
careers "took off" and who eventually acquired a
position exalted by a distinct "mausoleum" or
whatever? And who "built" on the accomplishments of
predecessors? I wonder if the Goths withdrew from this
larger "Suebia" in the 2nd c.?****

NB.It is entirely possible that up to the mid-1rst
c.CE the "Bastarnian world" may have been something
akin to the broad "Suebia" Tacitus wrote about. (There
were important differences in the various components
of the Poeneshti-Lukashovka and Zarubintsi cultures,
as between these two complexes in themselves). The
groups from the Danube northward to the Prypjat' and
beyond all participated in Transdanubian expeditions
(judging by their hoards), but were otherwise as
different as Przeworsk from Elbe Germanic.




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