Re: More on Bastarnian archaeology

From: Torsten
Message: 67466
Date: 2011-05-04

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "gknysh" <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:

> > >
> > > > Note the Hachmann quote here:
> > > > http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66893
> > >
> > > > The strange Jungian synchronicity between Middle German and
> > > > Poieneshti forms stretching into time period B and dying then
> > > > in Poieneshti seems to be better explained by a wholesale
> > > > transfer of the Bastarnae to Central Germany.
> > >
> > > GK: The problem with this hypothesis is that the Poieneshti
> > > culture only evolved in Moldavia (more precisely in the Getan
> > > sections conquered by the Yastorfers). The originating Middle
> > > German culture of the incoming Yastorfers (incl. their fibulae)
> > > was not Poieneshti since that did not yet exist. It doesn't seem
> > > reasonable to assume that this "wholesale transfer of the
> > > Bastarnae to Central Germany" would have been preceded by a
> > > total loss of all the "local" cultural elements they had
> > > developed in Moldavia. And Hachmann doesn't see any such in
> > > Middle Germany esp. in ceramics.

He doesn't see it, and especially doesn't see it in ceramics? Explain.


> > > Therefore this later time
> > > period Middle German culture cannot be (and has not been)
> > > interpreted as successor to the Poieneshti culture which
> > > existed in Moldavia until the end of the first half of the 1rst
> > > c. BCE. On the other hand, the late Poieneshti culture of
> > > Bukovyna/Galicia certainly is such a successor culture, in all
> > > details. It also has Kostrzewski's type M fibulae.
> >
> > I understand your objection, but I think there is an unspoken
> > premise in it which does not hold. It is that of non-
> > reseparability of merged cultures. If we use again the comparison
> > with Eastern Europe in WWII we know that that definitely doesn't
> > hold in real life, populations that seemed to be merged are
> > suddenly separated, to put it very mildly. This presupposes of
> > course that they made up separate and identifiable (to each other)
> > layers of that seemingly merged culture.
> >
> > In other words, perhaps we should imagine the collapse of the
> > Bastarnian entity (state?) as the flight of anyone who could be
> > associated with the top layer, whereas their Dacian slaves, of the
> > people they had picked on for so long, stayed and welcomed
> > Burebista's troops. Think 1945 again. You will probably also find
> > the Slavic element of the pre-1945 Silesia underrepresented in the
> > Silesian homeland organizations of Ostflüchtlinge in Germany.
> >

>
> *****GK: But the main point still remains. Do we really need to
> postulate a "Bastarnian" influx into Przeworsk and beyond as a new
> upper class ca. 70 BCE etc. in order to explain the appearance of a
> "Fursten" burial rite and culture which reflects neither the
> practice of Poeneshti-Lukashovka nor of the original Yastorf
> disentangled therefrom as a contribution of the newcomers rather
> than a continuation of the culture of the people in place? Could we
> not then simply see this new culture as an internal development of
> Przeworsk et al. due to other influences (particularly since such
> have been recognized for some areas in the South /the Cracow
> graves/)? And all that, of course, in the context of the non-
> disappearance of Bastarnia! Despite the success of Burebista's
> empire building, we note that most of the Bastarnian population of
> Moldova relocated slightly to the north, en masse, plus indicators
> that already at that time some were rejoining their Peucinian
> relatives. There were about 70 archaeologically known functioning
> P/L Bastarnian settlements when Burebista invaded North and Central
> Moldova, and about 45 have been discovered for the late period,
> after the migration to Bukovyna/Galicia and to the mouth of the
> Dnister (on the way to Peuca [it is easier to assume that masses of
> North and Central Bastarnians already moved to Peuca at that time,
> as indicated by the newly discovered "on the way to Peuca"
> settlements, e.g. the equivalent of 20 or more dissolved North and
> Central Moldavian settlements). All of the known late settlements in
> Buk/Gal.continue the common culture of classic Poeneshti-Lukashovka
> (no disentanglement). I really don't see why one needs to assume
> that whereas the overwhelming majority if not near totality of
> Bastarnians remained in Peuca and in Galicia/Bukovyna (these almost
> certainly migrating to Peuca in the first decades of the 1rst c.
> CE), a very small number of "upper class" people made their way to
> the Przeworsk et al. area as new rulers. This does not make sense,
> and is not a conclusion that flows naturally from the available
> evidence. Substitute any other small group from anywhere instead of
> "Bastarnians" and you would reach the same result.*****

In other words, the new upper class in Przeworsk can't have been Bastarnian, since it can't be derived from any of the components in the Bastarnian ethnos. But in the other hand, one of the components in the Bastarnae was the people of the Przeworsk culture, so ruling out in principle that the new upper class developed from the Bastarnae at the same time rules out that it developed from the Przeworsk culture, as I think you are aware too. This is a problem.

Also: An egalitarian culture, such as Przeworsk I (the one before the new upper class) was, and such as Scandinavia before the recent immigration wave, has very strong social rules in place to ensure that such a class does not arise from within.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
A new prestigious upper class in such a culture can arise only as a result of violence from the outside. An invasion.
Thus we have one more problem.

Therefore I will pull another event out of my hat:

from my timeline, slightly modified:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67060

Plutarch
On the Fortune of the Romans, 11

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Fortuna_Romanorum*.html#T324
'the Sarmatian and Bastarnian wars restrained Mithridates during the time when the Marsian war was blazing up against Rome', ie. 91 - 88 BCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_%2891%E2%80%9388_BC%29
which seems to suggest that Mithridates had to wage war either against or together with the Sarmatians and Bastarnians at some time in 91 - 88 BCE, most likely in the beginning of that period. In 89 BCE, he sends ambassadors to the Cimbri, the Gallograecians, the Sarmatians,
and the Bastarnians, to request aid,
(Justinus: Epitome of Pompeius Trogus' "Philippic histories" 38.3.6-7)
http://attalus.org/translate/justin6.html#38.3
'6 In the next place, well understanding what a war he was provoking, he sent ambassadors to the Cimbri, the Gallograecians, the Sarmatians, and the Bastarnians, to request aid;
7 for all the time that he had been meditating war with the Romans, he had been gaining over all these nations by acts of kindness and liberality. He sent also for an army from Scythia, and armed the whole eastern world against the Romans'

In other words, he is lining up for an attack against Rome (as also Harmatta thinks)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66932

The Cimbri I believe now to be Jastorf and the Jastorf element in Przeworsk.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66719
and the thread following. Result:
Sciri = Cimbri "the pure, real ones" (or "the sexually abstinent ones, those who don't whore around", cf ktistai?) cf. Slavic čist- "pure". Pekkanen has already suggested that 'Germani' is a loan translation of 'Sciri', ie. also "the real ones". Since now Sciri = Cimbri we see Mithridates' front line before the attack on Rome: From Przeworsk over Moldova to the Black Sea coast. Before the attack he would send all his allied armies to that front. That would include the Scythian one he sent for.

Thus is possible that at that time an army comprising contingents of Mithridates' other allies were present on Bastarnian homeland territory. They would have shared the fate of the local in an unexpected defeat against Burebista.


BTW, this interpretation of who the Cimbri were (Jastorf, later plus Przeworsk, later (Monumentum Ancyranum) reduced to the land north of Hamburg, later reduced to just Jutland) would answer your objection to a Przeworsk origin of Ariovistus' army that Caesar obviously somehow identified that army with the Cimbri, since it identifies the Cimbri as the Jastorf part of the Przeworsk culture, the culture where Ariovistus would have recruited at least a large part of his army.



Torsten