--- On Wed, 10/15/08, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> GK: Footnote. The tribal name "Viatichi" could be a Venetic
> name ["viat" from the earlier "vent"]
It is, AFAIK.
> In the Kyivan primary
> chronicle they are named after a "brother" originating in Poland
> ["ot lyakhov"] But here too the archaeology is tenuous, except on
> the vague Shchukin "Neronian" grounds.****
But are those Lechs 'proper' Slavs? Or they some precursor?
****GK: "Lyakhs" also from an earlier "Lend-" An appellative (or name if you prefer) not known before historical Slavic times, thus not earlier than the 5th c. CE when Slavs replace Germanics (and Germanized elements) in Poland. The retroactive archaeology of Viatichia (an area south and east of Moscow) indicates a Baltic culture prior to the 6th c.CE. So if "Viat/Vent" was a Venetic borrowing in Poland, it was borrowed not earlier than the 5th c.CE and brought to Viatichia about the 7th c. CE.We have no evidence for anything more ancient on this particular issue.****
...
>
> GK: The primary Veneti who infiltrated other peoples (and then
> adopted their languages? Celtic, Italic, "Illyrian", etc., while
> occasionally changing these host peoples'"ethnic designation" :
> hence the Veneti of France ,Italy, Poland) must have existed at a
> very early time. I don't remember if "vent" appears in old
> references (Egyptian or others) to "sea-peoples"
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Adriatic_ Veneti#Historica l_references
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Sea_Peoples
http://tinyurl. com/3wknsb
****GK: Nothing connectable to our European Veneti except one interesting little story about the Paphlagonian Eneti (but when did they arrive in Paphlagonia?) Antenor supposedly led the Trojan Eneti to Italy after the death of King PYLAEMENES, whence the Latin Veneti of the Adriatic. Connect this to the following passage in Shchukin (1997, sect. 4, pars. 61-62):
"The legendary portion of the 'Lithuanian Chronicles' is beginning to acquire some interest. It speaks of a certain POLAMONIS, who fled to the Baltic shores with his family and 500 migrants to escape Nero's persecution. The sons of this rebel were the supposed founders of the Lithuanian state. In reality the establishment of Lithuanian statehood comes much later, possibly at the time of Charlemagne (ref. Ushinskas 1988). But the Polamonis legend might nevertheless correspond to certain political realities: Nero's persecution of various opposition groups, political,ideological, and religious, including the early Christians, clearly tookplace and are sufficiently well-known. // If this infiltration of certain warriors-traders-artisans, called Veneti, in a sense "vikings back to vikings", was a reality, then this would explain many processes which took place not only on the Baltic shores but in the rest of Eastern Europe". He then goes on to describe the
relevant archaeology. Schukin thus seems to be arguing the thesis that ancient Veneti who spread all over Europe and beyond thousands of years earlier, "returned" in the 1rst c.CE.(long after having lost whatever was their original language)****
And I think what happened in the first half of the first mill. CE is
that Jastorf from the west, Balts and Slavs from the east encroached
on the Veneti draw-boat river system (*dran,W- rivers)
****GK: If here the Veneti are the people of the Lusatian culture(and its successor Pomeranian culture) the first half of the first millennium BCE is too early. Before the Yastorf/Baltic pushes (which began in the 4th c. BCE) we have the devastating Scythian raids of the 6th and 5th cs. (no Slavs yet) These "Veneti/Venedi" were likely descendants of the original Veneti plus local cultures "infiltrated" by these.Their language is sometimes designated as "Illyrian"****
until they
strangled it, causing the Veneti to fall into poverty and brigandage,
****GK: The Baltic Veneti (or Venedi) participated in the Bastarnian south eastward push,and almost certainly constituted the upper class of the Zarubinian culture. They are also the element which left the so-called "Illyrian" and "Celto-Illyrian" hydronyms and toponyms in the Zarubinian area.****