--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- On Thu, 9/24/09, Torsten <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, "gknysh" <gknysh@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> > >(TP) This is what Lucan has Caesar say on his arrival in Rome
> > > after having crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE.
> > > ''tene, deum sedes, non ullo Marte coacti
> > > deseruere uiri? pro qua pugnabitur urbe?
> > > di melius, quod non Latias Eous in oras
> > > nunc furor incubuit nec iuncto Sarmata uelox
> > > Pannonio Dacisque Getes admixtus: habenti
> > > tam pauidum tibi, Roma, ducem fortuna pepercit,
> > > quod bellum ciuile fuit.'
> > > Pharsalia, Book III
> > > http://www.thelatin library.com/ lucan/lucan3. shtml
> > > which Riley
> > > http://tinyurl. com/ls8exo
> > > translates as
> > > " And have there been men, forced by no warfare, to
> > > desert thee, the abode of the Gods! For what city will they
> > > fight?
> > > The Gods have proved more favouring in that it is
> > > no Eastern fury that now presses upon the Latian shores,
> > > nor yet the swift Sarmatian in common with the Pannonian,
> > > and the Getans mingled with the Dacians. Fortune, Borne,
> > > has spared thee, having a chief so cowardly [Pompey], in that
> > > the warfare was a civil one."
> > >
> > > GK: Does nothing for your thesis. Merely "supports" Harmatta's
> > > view that the Sarmatians were across from Pannonia (he thinks),
> > > although frankly, it doesn't even do that.
> >
> > GK: Lucan may simply have projected the situation of 59/60 CE
> > (when Sarmatians were indeed located just across Pannonia on the
> > Danube) back to 49 BCE.
>
> True, Vannius' war would have given the spectacle of Germani joined
> in common operations with Pannonian Sarmatians.
But Vannius war did not involve Rome, Vannius even asked for Roman aid but was refused. Lucan can't have seen that particular case of cooperation as a threat, he must refer to something more generic.
> > Poetic license which Harmatta interpreted as historical proof.
>
> No, historical hint.
>
> ****GK: Which proved his point about the Yazigi being in Hungary
> much earlier than usually thought. It doesn't of course.****
Harmata:
'In spite of that it seems not impossible that the first bands of Yazyges in the Tisza region appeared even earlier. We can refer
to a statement ...'
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65075
Remember that if you want too prove someone wrong, it's better to disprove something he actually said than something you pretend he said, otherwise people get a bad impression of you.
> > I stand by my evaluation of your "expertise".
> >
> > GK: Neither Eusebius nor Lucan prove that the Sarmatians were
> > regular inhabitants (as against occasional raiders) of Illyria.
>
> I never claimed they did.
>
> ****GK: Of course you did. That was the whole point of your
> "frankish" speculation.****
I think you misunderstand. I never claimed they *proved* it.
> > Nor does Harmatta (who provides this dubious evidence) support
> > your notion.
>
> True.
>
> > Nor do any of the other sources you have adduced.
>
> Not to the exclusion of other scenarios, no.
>
> > Nor in fact any sources whatsoever.
>
> I didn't claim they did. But if Vannius' infantry cooperating with
> Sarmatian cavalry was understood as a one-off by the
> contemporaries, I don't think Lucan writing at the same time would
> have Caesar imagining it as a generic threat.
>
>
> > You've simply "sucked this from your finger" to use an old
> > Ukrainian expression. Par for the course for you.
>
> The problem with you in this field is that you don't get the
> concept of nomads setting up shop among sedentary farmers.
>
> *****GK: There's nothung problematic about the concept.*****
Then why don't you get it?
> If a sedentary population neighboring a nomadic population
>
> ****GK: This is what you have consistently failed to prove with
> respect to Germania. You simple assume it and apparently think that
> constant repetition is enough to make your point.****
Przeworsk and Sarmatians were neighbors, I think we can agree?
> suddenly develops an upper class showing many characteristics of
> the nomadic population next door, in your interpretation it has to
> be local. At least in Europe.
>
> *****GK: Scientists give the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans,
> Hungarians etc. their due where they have evidence. You drag nomads
> in without sufficient evidence. The evolution of Germanic societies
> cannot be shown to have been the result of new ruling classes of
> nomadic origin.
No one ever tried it before. It's on nobody's shortlist.
> It's that simple I'm afraid.
Yes, that's how simple it is.
> The fact that you disagree is your personal problem.****
Do people still talk like that a lot in erh Ukraine?
Here is where nomads come in:
Ludmila Koryakova, Andrej Vladimirovich Epimakhov
The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages
pp. 312-315
'SUMMARY: INTERACTIONS BETWEEN NOMADS AND FOREST POPULATIONS
In previous sections we have viewed three culturally different groups of societies, which by dint of their location had to interact. At the core of these contacts were nomadic societies, which periodically occupied the southern Ural and western Siberian steppe.
Mapping the nomadic sites demonstrates that, during the early period (the seventh to fifth centuries BCE), their territory was limited to only the steppe landscapes (Ivanov 1995b). However, in the west, by the fourth century BCE, the forest-steppe area of the Don and Dnepr basins was included culturally and politically into the Scythian kingdom (the so-called Scythoid cultures). To the east of the Volga River, the sites of the "Sauromatians" (Cis-Uralian nomads) are mostly situated in the steppe area rather than in the forest-steppe. There was no direct contact between them and the Volga Finno-Volgaic population of the Diyakovo and Gorodetskaya cultures. The Ananyino culture occupied the forest area and was open to association with the Cimmerians and Scythians but was almost closed for the south Uralian nomads. Additionally, the early Ananyino metallurgical centers were linked to Scythian polities. This is a very interesting observation, because the latter were more distant geographically than the south Uralian nomads. That is to say, material culture presents here the evidence about political preferences, which could exist between different Eurasian societies.
We also can see that at least a part of the forest-steppe was not populated during some time between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. The south Uralian nomads who were more involved in relations with the Saka tribal groups, used metalwork made in Trans-Uralian (Itkul culture) workshops That is why we can see the evidence of a direct nomadic shift to the southwest forest-steppe as far as the Itkul territory. Of particular interest is that these two participants of interaction remained culturally different, as is seen in their absolutely different archaeological material culture, sign system, and funeral rituals.
It follows from the general theory of nomadism that this kind of economy and mode of life is very dependent on the environment and corresponding ecological conditions. The theory of ecological stress explains an alternation of periods of high nomadic activity and their periodic migrations (Zhelezchikov 1986). Because of the different climatic changes in different regions of the Eurasian steppe, some parts experienced conditions that were either overly arid or overly humid. During such conditions, the nomads were concentrated in highly productive regions. However, at other times, conditions were such that animal and human population growth forced nomads to migrate to other areas in search of better pastures and free lands. A high concentration of sites during the fifth to third centuries BCE in the southern Urals indicates that this area was one such center in Eurasia.
However, not just ecological factors determined nomadic activity. It was important to have access to sources of metal, the closest of which was located within the Itkul territory. The new metallurgical centers, situated on both slopes of the Urals, were oriented to nomadic needs, supplying them with weaponry. The division of labor between different societies connected with different landscapes maintained mutual exchange relationships. Nevertheless, military and political factors, conditioned by nomadic activity and expansion, reinforced the tendency to internal integration.
As we have seen, until the late sixth century BCE, the forest-steppe of western Siberia was relatively free of nomadic (Saka) influence. Initially, some individual objects of harnesses and weaponry indicated their presence, later, kurgan burials, including large barrows, appeared on the southern margin of the forest-steppe Western Siberia, together with the Kazakhstan steppe, became a part of the same cultural and economic system, which centered on Central and Middle Asian states.
By the fifth century BCE, a turning point for north-central Eurasia and the western Siberian forest steppe experienced the direct impact of the nomadic population. The new synthesis of cultures is represented by numerous sites displaying a settlement hierarchy and burial grounds which show an almost completely nomadic model of mortuary practice. It gives us a clear example of relationships between different economic systems and social structures.
This culture has been formed through interaction between nomads and the aboriginal population. The model of such interaction can be based on relations between settled herders, hunters, and pastoral nomads (Koryakova 1994c).
Reciprocal influence from the forest-steppe cultures, however, is traced in the Prokhorovo aspect of the Early Sarmatian culture. We see Prokhorovo sites spreading westward, some of them into the forest-steppe of eastern Europe. The southern part of the forest cultures of the Volga-Kama basin provides the evidence for strong Sarmatian influence; maybe even political domination. However, this influence is found mostly in the material culture and weaponry, but it absolutely did not touch any ideological sphere as there were strong differences in mortuary practice, art style, and sign system during the same period.
In the Cis-Urals, the forest population and nomads had to interact because of various factors, but they remained culturally and ethnically separated and never mixed. As has been described previously, the opposite situation was characteristic for the western Siberian forest-steppe, where the process of interaction with the nomadic population was much deeper.
In conclusion, we can note different forms of interactions that existed in the area under study.
The exchange of material goods appears quite inherent to all contacting societies, and it is evidenced by everyday objects. Ornaments and luxury goods (glass beads, female decorations, horse harnesses, and distinctive forms of weaponry), which at the beginning were not so numerous, were concentrated in the possession of the tribal elites of the forest population. There were several levels of exchange: from simple interclan and intercommunity barters to long-distance core/periphery relations. States could trade luxury goods with the intermediary of nomads to exchange of service, employ, horses, fur, leather, and even women. Core/periphery relations became of great importance in the second half of the first millennium BCE. For the Uralian nomads, the states of Central Asia played the same role as the Greek cities of the Northern Pont for the Scythians, who regarded them as a source of wealth and luxury, coming both from robbery and from frontier trade.
With reference to nineteenth- to twentieth-century ethnographic examples from the same area, it is possible to suppose that some forms of tributary dependence of some forest societies on their nomadic neighbors may have existed. This can be seen through the traces of specialized production of the Ananyino and Itkul cultures, which were discovered in nomadic graves. Yet, most probably, it was distant exploitation, and nomads did not occupy the territory of these cultures.
Social interactions can be traced through the structural modifications of a culture. Changes in the funerary practices of the forest-steppe population toward the adoption of nomadic social and ideological models are visible only in the Trans-Ural forest-steppe. A necessary condition of this process is a readiness to accept new ideas and a new social order, a development usually occurring initially at the elite level.
Finally, direct invasion of nomads into the forest and forest-steppe was limited by environmental factors. However, in the event of this happening, its impact led to major cultural change and the formation of a new social network.'
Now tell me, you and the rest of established science, why is it so that the Przeworsk culture must be an exception to the general rule and have developed its steppe-like upper layer without any impact from the steppe?
Torsten