From: gknysh@...
Message: 64340
Date: 2009-07-05
--- On Sun, 7/5/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
Any references? (For the Yazig assault on Zarubinis between 40 and 20 BCE)
****GK: Plenty. I'll cite them when I get back home in mid-month.*****
(GK)According to Ukrainian archaeologists this was a local war between Yazigi and Zarubinians, in the period subsequent to the Burebista era.
(TP)Why subsequent?
>GK: Because the Burebista era ended ca. 44 BCE.
Of course, but was there a specific dating relative to Burebista's
reign and campaigns?
****GK: The destruction of Olbia was dated ca. 50 BCE.****
(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 Zarubinians 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.
(GK) Doesn't prove part of them might not have gone elsewhere.
****GK: Acceptance of such a principle would lead to the elimination of historical science as we know it. "Everything is possible" but everything is not provable. Whether we like it or not if we want to be scientists and not novelists we have to rely on extant evidence for our hypotheses. I might think that the Yazigi assaulted the Zarubinisns every year. I might postulate Zarubinian counter rushes into the steppes. But this would be imagination not science. It might even be true but I would have no way of proving it. *****
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.
(TP)Use your elementary principle of historical investigation on this one:
We know that the French live in France. However some pseudo-
historical sources seem to indicate that they were near Moscow in the
early 19th century.
****GK: Without the surviving reliable documentation (much of it contemporary), we wouldn't know that the French invaded the Russian Empire in 1812. And left in 1812. (But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps enough identifiable objects have survived to make an archaeological case. I haven't looked at this from that angle: too recent, too much written on it. No pressing need. Given the tremendous quantity of verifiable material a "pseudo-historical source" claiming French invasion of Moscow would not, as to that point, be considered "pseudo-historical") We only know of the Scythian assaults on settlements of the Lusatian culture in Poland through srchaeology. It's theoretically possible that Yazigi attacked the Przeworskians. But if they did, no evidence of any kind remains. Nothing as clear as the attacks against the Zarubinians. *****
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.
(TP) 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
cean, pillars of hercules, and
into the Mediterranean" ). This is all elementary stuff.
(TP) 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.
...
> 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).
(TP)Those germs that kill the host are not very successful compared to
those who don't; any nomad tribe which conquered its way deep enough
into Europe faced the choice between razing the ground and then
having to retreat for want of new targets, or set up a semblance of
governance structure and become the settled lords of the land, as
described in Wolfram's "The Goths", discussed here earlier. A
charismatic enough leader would have realized, like Alexander, that
if you live in permanent hostility with the local providers of
foodstuff, your empire won't last long, and would have discouraged
such predatory behavior,
****GK: I don't think you understand the point. (BTW neither Goths nor Alexander were nomads, but that's peripheral.) It's a question of social economics. Nomads were quite ready to co-exist with settled agriculturalists. The Scythian example is sufficient. As is that of the Huns, and many others. But co-habitation was another matter. Genuine nomads would not share the same habitation space with agriculturalists. Only when (and if) a decision was made to switch economies, and I know of no example where this was made upon first contact, massively. Otherwise, they lived separately, even if frequently (not always) amicably enough with "their" agriculturalists (even the Yazigi once they had carved out their space.) Military campaigns would be another matter.****