This is excellent stuff, Torsten. Keep it coming. I have some comments below.
--- On Fri, 10/23/09, Torsten <
tgpedersen@... com> wrote:
The second half of the 3rd century BC witnessed the collapse of Celtic expansion and the Celts retreat from Italy and Thrace. This was the period of "central European consolidation" , corresponding to the transition from early to middle La Tène (i.e. from LTB to LTC), when the Celts' northern neighbours probably took advantage of the former's military failures.106 The Celts and local celticised populations disappeared from southern and central Germany towards the close of La Tène B.
****GK: This I don't get. When does LTC begin for Shchukin? Ca. 200 BCE? I thought southern Germany was still full of Celts at that time. And even later, at
LTD (ca. 53 BCE) Caesar notes in his DBG 6 that the Volcae are still in place in their old German haunts. *****
***R: Besides, weren't the Celts resposible for the shifts in HochDeutsch? Or is this just a wives' tale? Ot make that a spouses's tale in respect for XXI c. advances.
contemporary historical, archaeological and philological analysis helps us to discern within this Teutonic territory another population, neither German nor Celtic but intermediate between the two, a third group, whose language has not survived to our times.112 This group could have occupied an area extending southwards to the mid-German plateau on the right bank of the Rhine, northwards to the river Ruhr and in parts even to the river Lippe, eastwards to the river Leine. This people was strongly celticised, and was at the same level of development as the Celts in the oppida. They also constructed fortified semi-towns, used the pottery wheel, were metal workers (a manufacturing centre has been discovered in the Siegerland locale), manufactured iron weapons (a cache of
which has been found), and minted coins. Their burials recall those of the Jastorfers, consisting of urns containing calcified bones cleared of funeral pyre debris, although the ceramics
are quite distinctive. The Romans of Caesar's and subsequent times, during the expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius, called them Germanics. But this territory contains a concentration of toponyms which can not be interpreted in terms of either German or Celtic languages. An intermediate people indeed, neither German nor Celtic!
****GK: One question comes to mind. I forget whether the term for "foreigner" based on the Celtic Volcae appears anywhere in this intermediate area.****
A paradox surrounds the term "Germani". Amongst surviving sources it first appears in the "History" by Posidonius (135-51 BC), a 52-volume work covering the period 146-96 BC, which survives in fragments cited by other authors. Fragments from his 30th volume contain reference to the
Germans as occupying the right bank of the Upper Rhine adjoining Celtic areas and remarks on their habit of drinking a barbaric mixture of milk and wine as accompaniment to roast meat. But Posidonius does not use the name "Germani" for the Cimbri and Teutons who were emerging from the area of Jastorf development and whom all later authors were to recognise as Germans.115
****GK: I still think that the notion that Posidonius borrowed the Celtic designation for the trans-Rhine "neighbour" people is a good one... ****
The area in which Posidonius places the Germani was most likely occupied by the intermediate people, one group of whom probably bore the name "Germani";
****GK: This I find doubtful.*** *
later the name was extended to the entire population of the Rhine-Danube basin.
****GK: By the Romans.****
The historic Germans, the heirs of the Jastorf culture, were most likely not related to the "Germani"
mentioned by Posidonius
****GK: I'm still curious as to whether the Jastorfers considered them "welsh"...** **
The following approximate sequence of events can only be proposed very hypothetically. At some early point of "latènisation" , perhaps when the Podmokly group was emerging in the Czech locale, the pressure of population moving southwards caused an exodus of some of the bearers of east Jastorf culture together with their eastern neighbours of the Pomeranian culture. Perhaps the pattern of this relocation can be traced by mapping the distribution of crown-shaped neckrings (Kronenhalsringe) . Isolated examples of these artefacts, a symbol of power or some other attribute of German leaders and definitely not intended as objects of trade, have been found far to the south-east of the area where they predominate, i.e. Denmark, Northern Germany and Western Pomerania.122 They have been found
in Rumania, contemporaneously with the
Poianes,t,i- Lukashevka culture which bears many elements deriving from the eastern variant of Jastorf civilisation, particularly of the Gubin type.123 They have been found in the Ukraine, specifically in Vilkov within the Lvov area, in Zales'e within the Ternopol area, in Dashievo within the Vinnitsa area, and in the small village of Leski on the river Desna basin where four examples were found together (see illustrations 7, 16).124 All these discoveries were accidental and their relation either to local early Iron Age cultures or to the Zarubintsy culture which emerged here on the threshold of NELT remains unclear. But even if warrior bands headed by leaders who wore crown-shaped neckrings did not reach the Desna region, then they must have operated somewhere nearby and contributed, even if indirectly, to the conditions which gave rise to the Zarubintsy culture. These same conditions are also recorded in the
northern Black Sea littoral at the turn
of the 3rd-2nd centuries BC by the decree honouring Protogenos. At that time Olbia was newly-arrived Galatians and Sciri. We shall return to this later.
****GK: These "crown-shaped neck rings": how many of them have been found in Denmark, North Germany, Western Pomerania? Are they part of Jastorf complexes there?****
The process of change in Central Europe culminated in the mid-1st century BC, concurrently with the predominance of fibula variants K, J, G/H and the emergence of arched fibulae M-N (Geschweiftfibeln) ; the collapse of oppida in Thuringia, Bavaria, Moravia and the Czech lands139; the abandonment of certain burial complexes in western Germany140; the disappearance of the Kobyly group in Czech lands; and in the Rhine area the intermediate population (between Germans and Celts), characterised by a highly evolved social structure as well as the production of wheel-turned pottery and coins, was displaced by the poorer and more
primitive Jastorf culture.142
****GK: So according to S. the "intermediate population" began to be germanized around and shortly after ca. 50 BCE. *****
The unique and spectacular culture of the Grossromstedt Horizon emerged as a result. The population coalesced into large groups. The burial fields of the time were generally colossal, but were not used for very long. The burials contained many weapons. The burial ritual was apparently borrowed from the Przeworsk culture, whose bearers possibly constituted the most active part of the new population. Men and women were generally buried separately, this aspect of the ritual originating in the Elbe region.
The pottery is characterised by tall vessels which are black polished and have smoothly curved setms. This pottery is sometimes called "situlae" on the assumption that it imitates Italian bronze buckets: however, the origins of the form should be sought in northern Europe, especially
in Denmark. The fibulae are mostly the late La Tene arched variant M-N and variant 0 is very common.
The population's expansion drive clearly went southward and westward. The monuments of this cultural horizon are found in Altenwald on the Main, near Bamberg, in Wetterau on the lower Main, occasionally on the left bank of the Rhine (the Landau burial), on the mid-Rhine at Gladbach, and also in southern Bavaria in the Manching region (the Kronwinkl and Uttenhof fen burials with Grossromstedt features). The main concentration of finds lies however in the mid-Elbe region, Saale and Saxony. The Tišice type monuments from the Czech lands may also be related to this horizon. The latter sites ought to represent only the late phases of the horizon, i.e. subsequent to the Marcomanni migrations of 9-6 BC.145 The dating of the sites, however, remains a subject of controversy. 146
It is quite reasonable to juxtapose the Grossromstedt horizon with the
Suebi tribal federation. However, the Suebi in question were probably not contemporaries of Caesar or Ariovistus. They were the Suebi of the later 1st century BC, against whom the campaigns of Domitius Ahenobarbus were directed.
The northern limits of the Grossromstedt horizon are unclear. Some elements of this entity, most probably the social rather than the ethnic, are scattered throughout Germany: these include men's burials with weapons, black-polished situlae vases, and arched fibulae. Nowhere do they display such a unity as in Thuringia and Saxony, the area of the Suebian tribe of the Hermunduri. We must remember that we are speaking here of a horizon, not an archaeological culture. Most of the bearers of the culture represented by this horizon can be assumed to have originated primarily in the Elbe region. The development of this culture also involve the "east German" bearers of the Przeworsk tradition: their role in the development of the
social structure and external shaping of this culture was probably comparable to the role of the Celts in the formation of Przeworsk culture.'
****GK: Can we assume that the Celtic and "intermediate" populations of Germany were not killed off or pushed out, but "drawn in" to the process of Grossromstedtizatio n (where Jastorf and Przeworsk carriers were active "role models")? And, perhaps, that linguistic germanization was not immediate, and was prepared by a period of bilingualism in certain areas? For instance, the Transrhenic Volcae were culturally "Germanic" already in 53 BCE (as intimated by Caesar) but presumably continued to speak their older Celtic tongue at that time.*****