--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh
> <gknysh@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@ ...> wrote:
> >
> > > > The 6 L.type graves of Lubieszewo itself are clearly a part of
> > > > the Gustow group, which is NOT PRZEWORSK but something
> > > > intermediary between Wielbark and Elbe. This is the conclusion
> > > > of professional archaeologists.
>
> *******************************************
> > > Tell me what's wrong in this paragraph then (from
> > > http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Poland_in_Antiquity ):
> > > '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 (such
> > > as silver and gold clasps with springs, created with an
> > > unsurpassed attention to detail, dated 3rd century CE from
> > > Wrocl/aw Zakrzów), 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'
> >
> > GK: I repeat another piece of information you have left out:
> >
> > http://pl.wikipedia .org/wiki/Lubieszewo_( powiat_gryficki)
> >
> > > > We have inhumations in wooden chambers, covered or
> > > > circled by stones, under kurgans. The mentioned
> > > > objects are bronze wine goblets, silver and glass
> > > > vases (with depictions of gladiatorial contests in
> > > > Rome) and "many local products" (presumably of the
> > > > type which would be found in non-princely graves).
> > > > A "local Germanic dynasty" they say.
> >
> > Note the reference to "many local products". What this
> > means is that the inventory of the six Lub. "princely
> > graves" is composed of (1) Roman imports or
> > emulations; and (2) items belonging to the Gustow
> > group culture. The "princely graves" differ from those
> > of the rank and file only by their location and by the
> > presence of luxurious items. Otherwise they represent
> > the Gustow culture as much as the sumptuous barrows of
> > Scythian monarchs represent Scythian culture. There is
> > nothing else here which points to racial, cultural, or
> > linguistic heterogeneity. And, of course, nothing
> > which points to Przeworsk. Social differentiation yes.
> > But that's it.
>
> That is completely new information to me. Everywhere I look, they
> stress the separate identity of the supra-tribal layer, based on
> their graves. Could you supply an URL or two supporting your
> opinion?
> The kurgan itself was hardly a Roman import or a local
> product, since inhumation is a new tradition there, but of course
> well-known elsewhere.
>
> ****GK: By itself, the kurgan (or tumulus) is
> meaningless. Ditto the chamber. What matters is the
> entire complex of rituals and esp.objects. This is
> elementary archaeological stuff Torsten. There were
> "kurgans" all over the place going back thousands of
> years. And presumably tales of great ones buried long
> ago. Nothing more natural for new local origin ruling
> classes to emulate. Examples galore. In some cases
> (further east) the very same graves were used. When
> the kozak movement started in Ukraine, they also
> switched to tumuli burials. Generally cf.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumuli
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_tomb
> ****
> > > >
> > > > There is apparently nothing in the L.type graves of
> > > > other areas which can allow us to construe them as a
> > > > unified archaeological culture, let alone a
> > > > development of Przeworsk, EXCEPT IN THE AREA OF
> > > > PRZEWORSK ITSELF.
>
> George, your typography.
>
> ****GK: Blame Yahoo.****
>
Bad Yahoo!! Don't put capitals in George's postings!!
> > > That's not what I read in the sources. They say there was a
> > > remarkably uniform upper class (relatively to the local
> > > culture) but that it was heterogenous within itself.
> >
> > GK: You've misread the sources. The only
> > "uniformity" is the burial area separation plus the
> > luxurious objects aspect. Which are pretty standard
> > ruling class indicators. Similarity of certain ruling
> > class characteristics do not prove ruling class
> > uniformity or unity of provenance. More is required.
> > There is nothing.
>
> Some URLs, please.
>
> ****GK: Cf. above. I learned this when reading
> prehistory in Soviet era archaeological literature.
> Microanalys is also essential. The presence of certain
> objects in an otherwise unified culture could be a
> tipoff for heterogeneous components. That's how they
> discovered, f.i., that the Cimmerians had an
> apparently leading far east Asian adstratum. I don't
> see anything similar in the description so far
> provided of the L. type graves.****
> > >
> > > > If the situation of the standard area (Lubieszewo) is repeated
> > > > elsewhere, then the "local element" would be defining in each
> > > > particular area. This can be checked.
> > >
> > > I don't understand that paragraph. Could you rephrase?
> >
> > GK: See above. If the only cultural identifiers
> > (other than location and Roman imports) are "local"
> > then there are no grounds for asserting a foreign
> > origin to these dynasts without additional
> > evidence.
> > >
> Kurgans? Grave chambers?
>
> ****GK: Meaningless by themselves. See above.****
>
> > > > We already know the answer for Lubieszewo proper (to repeat
> > > > myself).
>
> To repeat your own claim.
>
> ****GK: You've not advanced any counter-argument (e.g.
> verifiably eastern objects in these graves)****
>
> > > > Your universal Przeworsk scenario is simply not true.
> > >
> > > It's a universal upper crust scenario.
> >
> > GK: This is meaningless. You have no evidence for
> > (a) common origin of this "upper crust" or (b)
> > Przeworsk origin for it.
Probably something more eastern.
> I think you know I claim a more easterly origin for it.
>
> ****GK: For which you have no proof.****
>
> BTW I've uploaded a map of the distribution of Lubieszewo graves. It
> is interesting that they are not found in the Przeworsk area itself,
>
> ****GK: How so? I note two in the upper Warta, and one
> on the upper Oder not far from Cracow.
The interstin part is the empty space between them.
> BTW are the two cremation graves in your upload also L.type?****
>
Can't answer that. Sorry.
> only north of it. Then it occurred to me that in order to get a
> princely grave, you should die not too far from your domain,
> preferably under somewhat ordered circumstances.
> Probably the whole Przeworsk aristocracy perished in the Ariovistus
> debacle.
>
> ****GK: Not all Przeworsk participated. Also, cf.
> below, and the three graves mentioned above.****
>
But it looks pretty decimated.
> > > > But here is something for you, says the devil's advocate:
> > > >
> > > > "in Siemiechów [Central Poland GK]a grave of a warrior
> > > > who must had taken part in the Ariovistus expedition
> > > > during the 70-50 BC period was found; it contains
> > > > Celtic weapons and an Alpine region manufactured
> > > > helmet used as an urn, together with local ceramics."
> > > > (Poland in Ant. website)
> > > >
> > > > This is a convincing argument for Przeworsk
> > > > participation in the Ariovist saga, of course, but the
> > > > "return" of the participant is to Przeworsk itself.
Must have been pretty lonely.
> > > > Can you find such graves in the other areas where the
> > > > L.type ones later emerge?
> > > >
> > >
> > > I am not sure I can save a putative 'Ariovistus goes to Denmark'
> > > scenario, given the time frame of the appearance of those
> > > graves, but I might save something like 'An Ariovistus successor
> > > goes to Denmark with the northern part of the upper crust a
> > > century later'. I recall vaguely we dicussed the provenance
> > > (eastern or western) of Rome-origin grave goods of princely
> > > graves in Denmark; some pointed east, some west.
>
> I think I have found something. I'll be back on that.
> >
> > GK: Torsten, you can "save" anything you like as
> > long as you are willing to operate in an evidence-less
> > environment.
>
> You know very well what I have to do is construct a falsifiable
> scenario. The evidence is there and is the same for both of us.
>
> ****GK: Nothing you've advanced so far proves your
> Odinist scenario.****
Nothing you've advanced so far proves it couldn't have happened.
> > You are constantly shifting your ground.
>
> No, my scenario.
>
> ****GK: I don't really know what that is any more.
> Odin doesn't work.
Does too.
> The Przeworsk genesis doesn't work.
I think it does. The Lubieszewo chiefs died of old age and were
interred. The Przeworsk chiefs croaked somewhere in a ditch in Gaul
and were left to rot.
> Apart from the existence of the NWB what is it that
> you are claiming re Germanic? These constant shifts
> are very confusing.****
What shifts?
> > What's this "northern part of the upper crust a
> > century later"? A century later is what? It's later
> > than Maroboduus' Suebian empire which included the
> > Goths.*****
>
> Good point. I'll have to take account of that.
>
Malcolm Todd: The Early Germans, pp. 94-95
'We now have to confront a major body of evidence, significantly
enlarged in the 1980s. Since the nineteenth century, finds of
Classical and Byzantine silver and bronzes have been intermittently
reported from sites in south and western Russia. Greek pottery and
metalwork had been penetrating inland from the colonies on the Black
Sea from the sixth century BC onward and more attention was paid to
this material than to the less impressive Roman imports. Work since
1979 has largely transformed our view of what was finding its way into
south Russia (V. V. Kropotkin, Rimskie importnye izdelija v Vostocnoj
Evrope (Moscow 1970)). Not merely occasional silver vessels, but a
wide range of goods are now recorded, and not only in the Black Sea
hinterland, but far into the centre of European Russia. This new
information is only just beginning to be made accessible to Western
scholars and any account of it must be provisional. It must also be
emphasized that what we know of it at present is a tiny and not
necessarily representative sample. What is already evident is that the
dwellers on the Russian steppes were receiving not only goods from the
Black Sea and Aegean cities, but also from Italy, the middle Danube
provinces and perhaps even Gaul. The bulk of the known imports seems
to date from the period from the first century BC to the second AD. In
large measure they represent the same classes of object that passed
into Free Germany.
A series of large barrows in the lower valley of the river Don have
been known from the nineteenth century to contain very rich
grave-goods and furnishings (B. A. Raev, Roman Imports in the Lower
Don Basin. British Arch. Reports, International Scries 278 (1986)).
Several of these burials have been excavated since 1970, with
astonishing results. Roman bronzes of the first and second centuries
abound, many of them the same types found beyond the Rhine and Danube.
Fine silver vessels occur, from Mediterranean workshops ultimately but
probably passing through the trading cities on the Black Sea shore to
the lower Don steppe. This is a region with a complex and disturbed
history. It would be rash to assume that this material reached the
local chieftains through only one agency. Loot from the vulnerable and
rich cities around the Black Sea may account for as much as trade. The
lower Don was also a frontier region, between the steppe ranged over
by nomads and the more varied landscape inhabited by more settled
agricultural peoples. The situation was one which called out for
diplomatic control, and some of the fine imports might find their
place here.
Roman imports are far more widely spread in western Russia than is
usually realized. It is unlikely that anything like a corpus could yet
be assembled that would hold any meaning. But it seems increasingly
clear that Roman commercial and other contacts reached well to the
east of the Germanic peoples, perhaps as far as the rivers that drain
into the Caspian Sea. It is not therefore entirely surprising to
encounter a chieftain's grave on the middle Don at Tretyaki, which
contained alongside Roman imports metalwork from Han China.
'
Han China? Arnaud is going to like this. Or rather not, since it makes
ordinary loanwords out of his Siberian Urheimat for the Germani.
Plut!, went the dam.
In other words, I'm proposing that this is where the Przeworsk upper
crust, and the 'princes' of the Lubieszewo funerals, with their Roman
inventory came from. Why would a Germanic prince need a wine-drinking
set, when all he could get was beer and mead? It's the dinner set from
the old country, useless in the new environment, other than as status
object.
id, pp. 26-27
'These south-eastern areas of Europe where Germanic peoples mixed with
ancestors of the Slavs, with nomads and with other more shadowy
groups, present major archaeological problems, particularly for those
who attempt to identify cultures defined by their material equipment
with individual peoples. The most extensive archaeological culture is
that generally known as Przeworsk (K. Godlowski, The Chronology of the
Late Roman and Early Migration Periods in Central Europe (Cracow
1970); R. Kenk, 'Studien zum Beginn der jüngeren römischen Kaiserzeit
in der Przeworsk-Kultur', BRGK 58 (1977), 161). This emerged during
the first century BC and flourished for more than five centuries over
a huge territory from the upper Dniester to the Tisza valley in
Hungary and northward to the middle Vistula and Oder. Essentially,
this was an amalgam of a series of localized cultures, most with roots
in earlier traditions, altered to varying degrees by contact with the
Celtic peoples of the Danube basin and with the Jastorf cultural
groups in the Oder and Elbe valleys and the Bell-Grave culture of the
Polish plain. The material evidence for the bearers of the Przeworsk
culture is largely derived from cemeteries, mainly of cremations with
occasional inhumations. Warrier-graves are fairly frequent and a high
proportion contain horse-gear and spurs. Several very richly furnished
graves are known from the early Roman Iron Age (Leg Piekarski,
Goslawice and Kosin) and others from the third and fourth centuries
(Sakrau and Bialecin). The pottery and metalwork types reveal great
variety in their forms, reflecting the many influences at play, but
overall the links with the Germanic cultures to the west are most
strongly in evidence. The fact that related material is found as far
to the east as the Dniester has, however, led some eastern European
scholars to seek early Slavs, or ancestors of the Slavs, behind the
Przeworsk culture. The case is weak. It is impossible to believe that
a single people lay behind a unified culture which covered so immense
a tract of country, while the manifold elements in material equipment
are eloquent of the widest range of contacts. The Venedi may have
played their part here, but there are other likely contributors:
Vandals, Burgundians and even Sarmatians.'
Hm. Sarmatians.
But what if this people was traveling, with a ver sacrum each year?
If this scenario is true, they must have waded throught the territory
of the Proto-BaltoSlavs, if that was alternative 2, the Milograd culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_peoples
look for Milograd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milograd_culture
and the same scenario would account for those facts that point to
alternative 1, that Przeworsk would be the Proto-Slav culture: some
proto-Slavs followed from Milograd to Przeworsk; that's why the Slavs
seem to appeaer from nowhere when the Germani left for the sunshine
countries, preferring to stay. The alternative 3, C^ernoles, would
then be Temematic-speaking.
So. Now that's fixed, and you don't have to worry about archaeology
anymore, since I've solved all the problems. What a nice guy I am!
Jerzy Okulicz: Einige aspekte der Ethnogenese der Balten und Slawen,
pp 33-34
'Es unterliegt keinem Zweifel, daß die Völker dieser Kultur
Einwanderer waren, die sich hier in der Zeit ansiedelten, als die
gotischen, sarmatischen, dakisehen und Hunnenstämme zurückwichen und
fruchtbare und gut bewirtschaftete Felder zurückließen. Wenn man die
deutlich aus dem Dnjeprgebiet stammenden Merkmale der Kulturstruktur
der Prager Gruppe berücksichtigt, ist ihre Herkunft aus dem Norden,
aus den Grenzgebieten der Wald- und Steppenzone offenbar. Für die
Auffassung von der Abstammung dieser Slawengruppe aus den
Weichselgebieten und ihre Ableitung von dem alten Bevölkerungsareal
der Przeworsk-Kultur gibt es keine überzeugenden Argumente weder in
der archäologischen Quellen noch in der Sprachwissenschaft (K.
Godl/owski, 1979, op. cit., S. 827). Es ist dabei klar, daß die
gewaltige Expansion der slawischen Völker in Mitteleuropa und auf der
Balkanhalbinsel im 6. und 7. Jh. sowie die spätere Fortsetzung dieser
Expansion im Norden und Osten in die finnischen Gebiete nicht auf
einer geringen Bevölkerungspopulation aus den Dnjestrgebieten fußen
konnte. Die notwendigen Völkermassen, die das Slawentum bildeten, muß
man demzufolge in den weiten und dicht besiedelten Gebieten der
ostbaltischen Zone und in ihren südlichen Grenzgebieten suchen, die in
Wirklichkeit in sprachlicher und kulturhistorischer Hinsicht die
Heimat der Urslawen gewesen waren. Die einzelnen Dialektgruppen in den
Gebieten am oberen Dnjepr, besonders im südlichen Teil, und in den
Okagebieten, können in jener Zeit sogar mehr mit den slawischen als
mit den baltischen Sprachen verwandt gewesen sein und sie unterlagen
auch leicht der Assimilation. Dies war durch die Ähnlichkeit der
Kulturformen und die Gemeinsamkeiten in der Gesellschafts- und
Siedlungsstruktur begünstigt. Der Mechanismus der Trennung großer
Gruppen slawischer Bevölkerung von ihrem Kern und ihre Wanderungen in
neue Siedlungsgebiete sind uns nicht bekannt. Es war sicherlich eine
spontane Bewegung, die eher den Bevölkerungsüberschuß aus den
Heimatgebieten als ganze Gesellschaften erfaßte. Deswegen beobachten
wir auch in den Ausgangsgebieten dieser Expansion keine deutlichen,
durch archäologische Quellen bestätigten Einöden. Eher umgekehrt,
überall stellen wir Anzeichen der Bevölkerungszunahme fest. Es ist
also wahrscheinlich, daß den Ausgangsgebiet für die Expansion der
slawischen Völker nicht das kleine, genetisch feste Gebiet der Prager
Kultur, sondern das große Gebiet von Nordost-Europa bildete, das sich
zwischen dem unteren Dnjepr und den Wohnstätten der Balten, Finnen
sowie der Nomadenvölker einerseits und den entvölkerten
Weichselgebieten andererseits erstreckte.
Die Theorie von der gleichzeitigen Dreiteilung der baltischslawischen
Dialektgruppe ungefähr um die Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends v.u.Z. findet
also Bestätigung in der Rekonstruktion der Geschichtsprozesse, anhand
der Analyse der archäologischen Quellen. Es muß aber zugegeben werden,
daß über die Frühgeschichte der slawischsprachigen Bevölkerung im
Gegensatz zu der klaren Geschichte der östlichen und westlichen Balten
immer noch nur unsichere Hypothesen aufgestellt werden. Für die hier
vorgelegte Konzeption der Abstammung der Slawen aus den östlichen am
Dnjepr gelegenen Gebieten gibt es mehr sachliche Argumente als für
ihre Ableitung aus den westlichen Gebieten an der Weichsel oder für
die Theorie, laut der das breite Ausgangsgebiet zwischen der Oder und
dem Dnjepr lokalisiert wird92. Angesichts der unbestrittenen
genetischen Nachbarschaft der baltischen und der slawischen Sprachen
und des heute nicht mehr bezweifelten späteren Vordringens der Balten
an die Ostsee ist die Hauptvoraussetzung dieser These die
Einschränkung der Berührungszone beider Völker oder, genauer gesagt,
ihres gemeinsamen Ausgangsgebiets, auf die Gebiete am oberen Dnjepr,
an der Dwina und an der Oka.
...
92 Die Ansicht, daß die Slawen aus dem Weichselgebiet abstammen,
vertreten heute viele polnische (z. B. K. Jaz.dz.ewski, L.
Leciejewicz, u. a.) und sowjetische Archäologen (z. B. Rusanova,
Siedov ihre Arbeiten wurden oben zitiert). Auf das breite genetische
Gebiet zwischen der Oder und dem Dnjepr für die slawische Gruppe
weisen u. a. W. Hensel, Szkice wczesnodziejowe, L'ethnogenése des
Slaves, "Slavia Antiqua", XVIII, 1971, S. 2947, sowie B, A. Rybakov,
Istoric^eskie sud'by Praslavjan, Istorija, ètnografija i fol'kl'or
slavjanskich narodov", Moskva 1978, S. 182196 hin.'
"There can be no doubt the the people of this cult5ure [Prague
culture] were immigrants, who settled here as the Gothic, Sarmatian,
Dacian and Hunnic tribes retreated and left behind fertile and
well-run fields. When one takes into account those characteristics of
the cultural structure of the Prague group which clearly hail from the
Dniepr territory, its origin in the north, in the border areas of the
forest and steppe zone is obvious. For the idea that this Slavic group
originated in the Vistula area and that it was derived from the old
population area of the Przeworsk culture there are no convincing
arguments, neither in the archaeological sources nor in the linguistic
science (K. Godl/owski, 1979, op. cit., S. 827). Additionally, it is
clear that the huge expansion of the Slavic peoples in Central Europe
and on the Balkan peninsula in the 6th and 7th centuries as well as
the later continuation of this expansion in the North and East into
the Finnic areas could not be based on a small population from the
Dniestr areas. The necessary masses of people which formed and made up
the Slav people must consequently be sought in the wide and thinly
settled areas of the Eastern Baltic zone and in its southern border
region, which actually were the home of the Proto-Slavs. The various
dialect groups in the areas of the upper Dniepr, especially in the
southern part, and in the Oka areas, could at that time even be more
related to the Slavic than to the Baltic languages and the latter were
overcome easily by assimilation. This was favored by the similarities
in the society and settlement structures. The mechanism of the
separation of large groups of Slavic population from its core and
their migration to new settlements is unknown to us [TP: Good thing I
proposed one then]. It was probably a spontaneous movement which
encompassed the population surplus ratgher than whole societies.
That's why in the areas from which these expansions started we see no
obvious abandoned land, confirmed by arechaeological sources. It is
rather the other way around, everywhere we observe signs of an
increase in population. It is thus probable, that the area of origin
of the expansion of the Slavic people is not represented by the small,
genetically fixed area of the Prague culture, but by that large area
of Northeast Europe which stretched between the lower Dniepr and the
settlements of the Balts, Finns plus the nomadic peoples on the one
side, and the depopulated Vistula areas on the other.
The theory of a simultaneous division of the Balto-Slavic languages
approx. in the middle of the 1st millenium BCE is thus confirmed by
the reconstruiction of the historical processes, given the analysis of
the archaeological sources. It must be admitted, however, that about
the early history of the Slavic speaking population, in contrast to
that of the Eastern and Western Balts, we can still only offer
uncertain hypotheses. For the scenario proposed here for the genesis
of the Slavs from the eastern areas situated on the Dniepr the are
more factual arguments than for their derivation from the western
areas of the Vistula or for the theory according to which the wide
area of origin is localised between the Oder and the Dniepr92.
Considering the uncontested genetical proximity of the Baltic and
Slavic languages and the now generally accepted relatively late
expansion of the Balts to the Baltic, the main precondition of this
thesis is the restriction of the contact zone or, more exactly, the
initial area of the two peoples to the areas on the upper Dniepr, on
the Dvina and on the Oka."
Now I also know why Saxo keeps talking about Ruthenians.
Torsten