Problem n. 4: New foundations in the west?
The Przeworsk culture first appeared on the territory of Ukraine in the second half of the 1rst c. BCE. Its carriers occupied the "empty spaces" between Zarubinia group 1 and Late Poeneshti-Lukashovka (in Galicia and Southern Volynia) at approximately the same time that the latter was moving northward under Getic pressure. In fact it is arguable that both processes were instigated by Burebista. We don't know much about his activities north of the Carpathians (Strabo is silent about the area), but there seems no reason not to assume that his expansionism functioned in that direction also, and apart from direct subjugation and vassalization (as in the case of the Bastarnae and Iazigi) of some groups, he would have involved himself in the same time frame in sporadic raidings similar to those Strabo mentions in connection with Thrace and Illyria. That would be one explanation of
Jordanes' well-known comment in his Getica (#67) that under "Buruista" -- "Gothi Germanorum terras, quas nunc Franci optinent, populati sunt".
What is important, from the perspective of the historical developments in Bastarnia, is that from ca. 50 BCE a large group of "Germanics" was settling in between the aforementioned early Bastarnian groups, reinforcing (in the west) its Germanic elements.
In the period 50 BCE-> 50 CE, the links between the incoming Przeworkers, the remnants (after 28 BCE) of Poeneshti-Lukashovka, and group 1 Zarubinians would become tighter. Three other events would also exert an influence on the process of integration of these populations. From about 20 CE, a Dacian population (the bearers of the so-called Lypytsk culture) would start to filter in from the Dacian hinterland across the Carpathians, and group 1 Zarubinia would begin a process of southward migration into Galicia. As mentioned in an earlier Farzoi post, the Zarubinian migration would turn from trickle to flood after 50 CE and their erstwhile haunts close to the Prypjat/Pripet would empty totally. Interestingly, these Zarubinians did not create their own settlements, but occupied those of the Przeworkers, and with the passage of time created a hybrid culture with the latter (the
so-called Zubrytska culture /earlier known as the Volynia-Podolia culture/), to which the Lypytsk Dacians (at first separate) progressively contributed, and which eventually, in the later 3rd century, became the southwestern variant of the Goth- dominated Chernyakhiv culture. But all that came later. In the pre-Farzoi period, what existed in Galicia was a Przeworsk base with which the remnants of Poeneshti-Lukashovka integrated by 20 CE (as we now know), separate Dacian settlements, and a trickle of Zarubinian migrants from the north. Zarubinia group 1 was still a solid block, as were the two other Zarubinian groups.
Classical Bastarnia, despite the effective loss of most of the P/L population was still a functioning reality. We gather as much from the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (#31): "Nostram amicitiam appetiverunt per legatos Bastarnae Scythaeque et Sarmatarum qui sunt citra flumen Tanaim et ultra reges". This must have happened after the events recounted in Dio Cassius. The Sarmatian powers referred to would include the Roxolani and Iazigi ("citra"), and the Siraci and others ("ultra"). The Scythians would clearly be the resurgent power in the Crimea and Lower Dnipro, closely allied at that time to the Bastarnae group 2. A situation confirmed for the whole pre-Farzoi period by archaeology and, perhaps by the hint in Tacitus' Annals II.65 s.a. 18.
One other development is worth mentioning, this one occurring in the Middle Dnipro group of Bastarnia. When the Iazigi assaulted the fortresses of this group, some of the population began to seek safety on its left bank, along the course of a small tributary south of today's Kyiv area called the Trubizh. A number of early settlements (all dating from the last half of the 1rst c. BCE) have been discovered there. And some even began to trickle away even further, along the Desna river, towards the forests of the northeast. But in the timeframe of 50 BCE-> 50 CE this was indeed still but a trickle, similar to the southward mini-migrations of group 1. The vast majority of the Bastarnian group 2 population stayed put, behind their rebuilt fortresses (as of ca. 30 BCE). Some even preferred the neighborhood of the reneutralized Iazigi to that of their aristocrats, and archaeology
has discovered another small early trickle (again just from this group 2) towards the basin of the southern Boh (Bog) river.
The relative stability reestablished a few years after the fall of the Burebista empire lasted for about eighty years. Then came catastrophic events and the collapse of Zarubinian Bastarnia as heretofore constituted. (to be continued)