From: george knysh
Message: 64639
Date: 2009-08-07
--- On Fri, 8/7/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
I found in Shchukin in his comments to chapter IX
****GK: Which Shchukin work are you citing?****
'* It is noteworthy that from the mid-first century AD the burials started to appear in what is now a long chain of barrows along the Kuban' river, called "The Golden Cemetery". Male burials with weapons decidedly predominate here, and the number of Roman objects is so impressive that N.I. Veselovskiy supposed that these are burials of barbarised Romans28. However, one would have more reason to speak of Romanised barbarians. Possibly, what we have here is the cemetery of the detachment of catafracti warriors employed by the Romans to maintain order in the former Siracian lands. So far, it is hard to decide whether this auxiliary contingent of foederati consisted of the Aorsi, the Alans, or the Siraci enrolled to the Roman service. It could even consist of the representatives of different tribes.'
That means these Romanized Sarmatians left no particularly Sarmatian trace.
****GK: Why? Shchukin doesn't say that, and Veselovskyi must have reasons to feel they are "barbarised" Romans (elements of the burial rite? objects?)****
In fact this could be a description of the suddenly appearing new upper layer in Przeworskia and later. Whatever Sarmatian relics was found among them might as well by archaeologists have been characterized as stray finds.
****GK: Were Sarmatian relics actually found? That's news to me. As to the Shchukin text: :one would need to have a look at the description of these graves. The defeat of the Siraci by combined Roman, Bosporan, and Aorsan auxiliaries occurred in 49 CE. We know of many Aorsan (and Alan) graves in the ensuing period. It would be totally unusual for these "Golden Cemetary" burials to be so "Romanised" as to be genetically indistinguishable (if they are indeed "Romanised" barbarians.) But independently of what one decides as between the hypotheses of Veselovskyi and Shchukin (the former seems much preferable, given the cultural environment of these burials), I don't see how this applies to the Przeworskia of the time frame which is important for you, viz. 75-50 BCE. There can be no talk of Sarmatian Romanization at that time. Or "Germanization" for that matter. We have good examples of "Germanized" Scythians and (various) Sarmatians in the Gothic Chernyakhiv
state. From what we know of the (incompletely discussed) Przeworsk inhumations of Ariovistus' time there is no reason to view them as the reliquiae of Germanized Sarmatians. Germanized Celts at most or Celticized Germanics more probably. And when one gets to the 1rst c. CE it's too late for you isn't it?****