From: Torsten
Message: 67649
Date: 2011-05-30
>Do you think the southward movement of the Przeworskers was related the fact that Mithridates had enlisted the Cimbri as allies in 89 BCE, cf Justinus' epitome of Trogus 38.3.6
> 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)
>