From: tgpedersen
Message: 64334
Date: 2009-07-05
>Do you have a reference?
>
>
> --- On Fri, 7/3/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> (GK) After their assault on the Zarubinian fortresses of the
> Tyasmyn and Ros' areas south of Kyiv. The assaults are dated as of
> the later 1rst c. BCE (between ca. 40 and 20).
>
> (TP)How were they dated?
>
> ****GK: As far as I remember, primarily (though not exclusively) on
> the basis of amphora imports from the Greek city-states. They
> developed a pretty precise system allowing them to date various
> stratigraphic levels at the archaeological sites of the fortresses
> from the 2nd c. BCE through the mid-1rst c. AD when they were
> finally destroyed. The Yazigi assault evidence is uniformly below
> the mid-1rst c. BCE level in all affected fortresses. BTW only a
> number of fortresses located at the borderland with the steppes
> were attacked at that time.*****
> (GK)According to Ukrainian archaeologists this was a local warOf course, but was there a specific dating relative to Burebista's
> between Yazigi and Zarubinians, in the period subsequent to the
> Burebista era.
>
> (TP)Why subsequent?
>
> ****GK: Because the Burebista era ended ca. 44 BCE.*****
>Use your elementary principle of historical investigation on this one:
> (GK) One has to guess the motives. There is such a dearth of
> information that it's quite difficult.
>
>
> (TP)They might have had a psycho leader who thought he should carve
> up an empire in the North.
>
> ****GK: Apparently the Zarubibians were strong enough to beat them
> off. In any case this is all posterior to the Ariovistus epoch.****
>
>
>
> (GK)But one thing is certain: everyone is agreed on this. The
> Yazigi were located in the steppes between Danube and Dnipro at the
> time of the Mithradates saga and after. They were basically still
> there in Augustan times.
>
>
>
> Doesn't prove part of them might not have gone elsewhere.
>
> ****GK: There is no evidence for that. Arguing like you do one
> might say they went to India, Africa, America, China. If there is
> nothing to indicate a presence somewhere one is not entitled to
> postulate same (to quote Charlie Chan). This is an elementary
> principle of historical investigation.*****
>...
> They are one of the main Sarmatian groups with which he concluded
> a treaty in ca. 2 BCE. Their migration into Hungary did not begin
> until the early years of the 1rst c. AD. There is no record of any
> kind, historical or archaeologicaL of any move into any of the
> Przeworsk areas by them.
>
>
> Snorri and Saxo are historical sources too.
>
> ****GK: They are completely unreliable for the period in question,
> since they are basically in conflict with secure contemporary
> sources. They are just as unreliable as the Scythian Foundation
> legend is for the period 1500 BCE ("the country was a void, then
> Targitaus apppeared") or the Kyivan Primary Chronicle is for the
> period 50 AD ("Andrew the Apostle travelled from Chersonesos to
> Rome by the Viking route, up the Dnipro et, to Novgorod, then by
> the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean, pillars of hercules, and
> into the Mediterranean"). This is all elementary stuff.*****
>
> Where does the whole Sarmatian tradition in Poland stem from?
>
> *****GK: I believe this emerges in the 16th c. Snorri was not the
> only one with a fertile imagination. But perhaps Piotr could be
> more precise if he has time or patience to comment. In the 17th c.
> Ukrainians developed a similar theory (perhaps borrowed) about
> their ancestors (!) the Roxolanians. And in the 16th c. also
> Russian chroniclers came up with a pedigree for Ivan the terrible
> reaching back to Augustus (!).Interesting stuff but completely
> irrelevant historically. BTW Lithuanians also developed a notion of
> their state having been founded in the 1rst c. AD by refugees from
> Nero's Rome led by one Polemon (or some similar name I don't
> remember precisely). The earlier Polish chronicles don't mention
> "Sarmatism" as far as I remember.****
>
>Those germs that kill the host are not very successful compared to
>
> NB> Another point known about the Yazigi. They were very determined
> nomads, and could not abide "mixed residences" with an agricultural
> population. When large groups of them migrated from their earlier
> haunts, they "cleared" the area of their new settlements of local
> peasants. There is good evidence of this along the Dnister r.
> (settled in the 1rst c AD) and in the area of the finally destroyed
> Zarubinian fortresses (all previous locals were either killed or
> chased out, and only nomad burials are found from the mid- 1rst c.
> AD). Which does not mean that agriculturalists did not remain in
> areas controlled by the nomads. They just didn't "co-habit" with
> them. The same thing happened in Hungary. Some Dacians were allowed
> to remain, but most were chased away or killed. The absence of any
> such slaughters or removals in Przeworsk in the 1rst c. BCE is a
> good initial indicator thhat no Yazigi arrived. Actually, the
> depopulation of Gubin Yastorf and middle Silesia might have been an
> argument 'for", but there is no corroborating positive evidence of
> a Yazigi presence so these depopulations must be explained
> otherwise (as indeed they have been).