Talk:Costoboci

Costobocii-Dacians

• Ptolemy i think mention them among his list of Dacian tribes, as well acording with < Ancient Illyria : an archaeological exploration Arthur Evans, Publisher: London Tauris 2006 (Texts and introduction originally published in various sources, 1885-1976) / Archaeologia, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity by Society of Antiquaries of London: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 1770 ISSN: 0261-3409> and with <The provinces of the Roman empire from Caesar to Diocletian, by Theodore Mommsen, Translated with the author's additions, by William P. Dickson, London, Macmillan, 1909.> the names of Costobocii king, Pieporus, as well other names related with them, as Bithoporus (another Costoboci king) and Natoporus, are all Dacian names.
• the fact that they are show in Sarmatia too, first by Pliny the Elder, must be either a confusion, either the fact that during Burebista expansion in east (when he conquered and incorporated in his empire city of Olbia, near Crimeea), some Dacian tribes moved more in east as well (logical, especialy since they are first mentioned exactly in that period).

Pliny the Elder didnt clearly say they are Sarmatians, but that they live there. This doesnt mean they are really Sarmatians, but can be as much as well Dacians. Sarmatia wasnt a country or a kingdom with a well established ethnicity, but a teritory named like that inhabited by several diferent peoples.

• Lipita culture is considered Dacian as well, which need to be mentioned too on article
• That text mentioning Zia, the Dacian wife of Pieporus can be interpretated that maybe he had a Sarmatian or Germanic wife too (it wasnt uncommon to have more then one wife, such habit of Thracians are mentioned by Herodotus as well), or that pure and simple a statement of their Dacian ethnicity, since all names mentioned in that inscription are Dacian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.230.155.42 (talk) 11:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Pliny the Elder: This author (VI.7.19) states unequivocally that the Costoboci were a Sarmatian tribe: Tanaim amnem incolunt Sarmatae, Medorum, ut ferunt, suboles, ipsi in multa divisi genera: primi Sauromatae Gynaecocratumenae, connubia Amazonum, dein (list of tribes follows)...Costoboci... Translation: "The region of the river Tanais (Don) is inhabited by the Sarmatians, who are said to be descendants of the Medes. The Sarmatians are themselves divided into many tribes: to begin with, the Sauromatae Gynaecocratumene, husbands of the Amazons, then...the Costoboci..."

Ptolemy: Ptolemy (III.8.3) does NOT say the Costoboci are ethnic-Dacian, simply that they inhabited the northern part of Dacia (as defined by himself). As the article points out, since he also mentions two Celtic tribes, the Anartes and Taurisci as inhabiting northern Dacia, it cannot be assumed that the Costoboci were ethnic-Dacian, only "Dacian" in the sense that they inhabited Dacia.

Zia: What is the evidence that PIEPORUS and other names in the inscription are Dacian? Very little is known about the Dacian language, so I would be surprised if there is any certainty about this. PS: If the names of Zia's grandchildren's are really Dacian, these could have been given to them by their (half-Dacian) mother.

Lipita culture: Your statement that this culture was Dacian proves nothing, as it cannot be proved that Lipita belonged to the Costoboci. Nor, for that matter, can it be proved that the Lipita people were ethnic-Dacian, no matter how many "Dacian pots" they used. EraNavigator (talk) 01:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• it was posted on the first paragraph of the discussion the sources who said that those names was Dacian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.123.164.138 (talk) 13:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Zia:Pieporus is 100% a Thracian name, as is Zia, and their childrens names. If the Costoboci were Sarmatians they sure had a Dacian/Thracian royal family... The actual text of the roman inscripition reads: D(is) M(anibus) / Ziai / Tiati Fi(liae) / Dacae uxori / Piepori regis / Coisstobocensis / Natoporus et / Drilgisa aviae / cariss(imae) b(ene) m(erenti) fecer(unt)." If the children were given Thracian names by their mother, who gave Pieporus his Thracian name? Oh, wait, maybe he had a Dacian mother too... But that would make him also at least half-dacian, and so on...

Regarding Sarmatians: where is the proof that they were even ethnically homogenous? And why is there a need for the Costoboci to be either this or that? The simple existence of their own name hints that they were an identity. The material culture and the written sources hint to a mixed cultural heritage for this people, which is in itself neither bad nor good. comment added by Leinarius (talk • contribs) 08:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Zia inscription: OK, anonymous editor, if you have a source, why did you not add it as a reference when you wrote the new paragraph on the Zia inscription? Any statement in the article must be supported by an academic reference, giving the author, work, date of work and page number where your statement is supported (see my references for examples of how it's done). I have added "citation needed" where the reference must be entered. You cannot just state that the names in the Zia inscription are Thracian and expect readers to take your word for it. Same for your paragraph, Leinarius. What you say makes a lot of sense (and I agree with it). You can say what you like on this discussion page. But for the article's text, there are rules. Firstly, all statements must be supported by reference to a published academic source. Secondly, original research (OR for short) is not admissible. That means that your personal opinions are not admissible in Wikipedia articles. You may only present the opinions of published academic authors. Both of you, unless you add the necessary references, I shall be obliged to delete your contributions. EraNavigator (talk) 19:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The names on the Zia inscription are Dacian, EraNavigator. Both names with -per/poris and -gisa/-giza/-geis(s)a are atested on the egyptian ostraca and in Moesia- see http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main?url=oi%3Fikey%3D168614 and http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main?url=oi%3Fikey%3D170551

and also there is a study by Dan Dana of an ostraca of Dacian born soldiers in an army in Egypt which displays names like: Aptasa, Avizina, Bastiza, Blaikisa, Kaigiza, Damanais, Dekinais, Dida, Diernais, Diourpa, Eithazi, Rolouzis, Thiaper, Zourai, Zourazi,Dekibalos, Diourdanos, Natopor and others.

It is not only possible, but quite very probable that the king Piepor was a dacophone. I would say that otherwise his familly displays a curious daco-phile tendency :) —comment added by Leinarius (talk • contribs) 11:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)<!

An extra factual point about the Zia inscription: the persons who set up the memorial (Natoporus and Drilgisa), were the grand-children, not children, of king Pieporus and Zia (avia means "grandmother" in Latin: the children's parents are not named in the inscription. Most likely the family were hostages held in Rome as guarantees of the good behaviour of their grandfather, who was probably an amicus populi Romani, or client-king. Imperial Rome was full of the relatives of client-kings held as hostages, often for years (and for their entire adolescence in the case of children). They would be treated in accordance with their royal rank, and the children educated by top Greco-Roman tutors, alongside the children of noble Roman families. The holding of hostages to guarantee treaties was normal diplomatic practice in the ancient world - it was not considered, as we do today, a terrorist or criminal act).

Because of the fragmentary evidence, things are rarely certain in the ancient world. In the article text, it is unwise to make categorical statements such as "the names are Thracian". It is better to always qualify and say "the names may be Thracian" or, at most, "the names are probably Thracian". Note that in the article, I give two heavyweight ancient sources that attest the Sarmatian origin of the Costoboci (Pliny the Elder and Ammianus). But I do not say "the Costoboci were Sarmatian". I say: "the Costoboci may have been Sarmatian". This is because the ancient sources can be wrong - and frequently are. (Of course, they vary widely in their reputation for reliability and accuracy, with Pliny and Ammianus at the top end of the range and Zosimus at the bottom).

Regarding the ethnic origin of the names on the Zia inscription, a Sarmatian origin cannot be excluded. Obviously the names ZIA and of her father TIATUS must be Dacian, as that is implied by the inscription. But for the other names, I am looking at F. Justi's Iranisches Namenbuch (1897), the supreme authority on ancient Iranic names (not just those from Iran itself, but also of the Iranic peoples of the Eurasian steppes - Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans etc). In this work, one can find close parallels to the names in the Zia inscription. For PIEPORUS, there is PORPES (meaning "Lucky"); for NATOPORUS there is NATAOR or NATRA-PUR (note that barbarian names were often distorted when Latinised or Hellenised e.g. Xerxes, which is the Greek form of the Old Persian name Kshayarsha); and for DRILGISA there is DILGIR (also a girl's name). OK, none of these parallels are conclusive, but I am simply making the point that a Sarmatian origin is a possibility. What are the parallels with attested Thracian names?

Even if we accept that the names are Thracian in origin, that does NOT necessarily mean the Costoboci were Dacians. That is because the Thracians may have been a different ethnic group from the Dacians, with a completely different language. It was the Augustan-era geographer Strabo who is the main support for the Daco-Thracian hypothesis. That is, the theory that Dacian and Thracian were essentially the same language. Indeed Strabo says that 3 nations spoke the same language: the Thracians (South of the Balkan Mts); the Moesians (between the Balkan Mts and the Danube), who Strabo says are the same people as the Mysians in Asia Minor; and the Dacians (North of the Danube). But Strabo's thesis has been strongly challenged by the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev, who agrees that Dacian and Moesian (Daco-Moesian) were similar, but argues that Thracian was quite different from Daco-Moesian. The main support for this view comes from place-name evidence. Above all, towns in Dacia and Moesia commonly end in -DAVA, while towns in Thracia mostly end in -PARA. For the distribution of DAVA and PARA placenames, see this map (scroll down to lower map): [1]. It has been suggested that while Daco-Moesian may derive from the Mysian language, Thracian may derive from Phrygian. If Georgiev is right, then the Thracian origin of the names in the Zia inscription proves that the Costoboci were NOT Dacian!

A Sarmatian or "Georgievo-Thracian" origin for the Costoboci would explain the reference to Zia as the Dacian wife of king Pieporus. As I explained in the article, before this sentence was deleted by Anonymous Editor, this emphasis on the grandmother's nationality suggests that it was different from that of Pieporus. The logic is thus: Say you are Romanian, and your grandparents (and parents) were all Romanian. If you drafted the epitaph for your grandmother's tomb, would you state: "to Elena, Romanian wife of Dan Ionescu"? You would not, because it would not occur to you to mention the grandmother's nationality if it was the same as her husband's and your own. But, if your grandfather was an Englishman who married a Romanian woman, and the family was mainly English, you might well mention her Romanian nationality because it is different. It would not seem strange to write: "to Elena, Romanian wife of Dan Taylor".

There is a final point about the name-evidence of the Zia inscription. It was not uncommon (and is still not uncommon today) for peoples to adopt the names of other ethnic groups, especially neighbours or those with whom a group had strong contacts. For example, the nephew of Chnodomar, the high king of the Alamanni at the Battle of Strasbourg, was given a Greek name, Serapio, by his father, who had become enchanted with Greek civilisation while a hostage of the Romans. If the Costoboci had a close association with their neighbouring Free Dacians (see my article on these), as the Zia marriage implies, then it is entirely possible that they might have adopted some Dacian names.

In conclusion, for these various reasons, the name-evidence of the Zia inscription cannot be considered reliable evidence for the Costoboci's Dacian ethnicity. EraNavigator (talk) 11:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• those names are from Dacian origin. Thracians at that point wasnt independent since a long time, and in no way able to pass over Dacians, from the roman empire, and form the rulling class of a Sarmatian tribe, this is really too fantastic. Thracian and Dacian was diferent dialects of the same language, according with modern researchers as Sorin Paliga and Sorin Olteanu.
• there was other name related with Costobocii, as Bithoporus (and a dacian name Mucaporus, from a tomb inscription with other dacian names from Adamclisi area), so its clear the names of Costobocii are Dacian.

It is then more likely they was Dacians, and other theories are less probable, since not just the names, but archeology show that they was Dacians, as well other circumstantial prouves —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.230.155.41 (talk) 09:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

You have largely misunderstood the paragraph of mine that you deleted. First, I do not say that there was a Thracian ruling class over a Sarmatian tribe (if anything, the opposite!). What I am saying is that, if the names are Thracian, then maybe the Costoboci were a Thracian, not Dacian, tribe. Yes, Thracian tribes in Thrace proper (i.e. Bulgaria S. of Balkan Mts) had been under Roman rule for about a century in AD 140. But there were probably several Thracian tribes outside the empire. For example, the BIESSI mentioned by Ptolemy as residing in Sarmatia, most likely a branch of the Bessi of Thrace. You cannot just dismiss Georgiev's thesis that Thracians spoke a different language from Daco-Moesians. Sure, Paliga and Olteanu may support Strabo's claim that they spoke essentially the same language. But in Wikipedia articles, editors are not permitted to take sides in academic disputes, but must present all opinions even-handedly. I am not clear about the relevance of BITHOPORUS and MUCAPORUS. Are you saying that the ending in -PORUS is typically Dacian? But they could equally be Iranic names, which commonly end in -PUR (Hellenised as -POROS, compare POROS, the king in India who fought Alexander the Great). Also, they may be Thracian, not Dacian names.

• Biessi might be as much a Dacian tribe, it is very unlikely to be a southern thracian one. Dont forget that Moesi was as well a Dacian tribe, and Getae inhabited both south and north of Danube, up to Haemus mountains, and , as Leinarius said, some names was pan-thracian, and appear at both northern and southern branches.
• Porus was an indian king, not an iranic one

Also, you seem to have changed your position. Before, you wrote in the article that the names are Thracian. Now you say that they are Dacian. And again, you have failed to add a supporting reference. In an article at this level (B or above), all statements of fact MUST be supported by a reference to a published academic source, or they will be deleted. Please add a reference NOW. EraNavigator (talk) 12:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• i added the references, they are on romanian page too. I might several references in romanian, but i dont have time now

I am deleting your suggestion that the Costoboci could be a Dacian tribe that moved eastwards. This is unsupported by any reference. You say they are first mentioned during the period of Burebista's eastwards expansion. But Burebista's rule came to an end in 44 BC, while the earliest mention of the Costoboci, I believe, is in Pliny the Elder, writing in ca. AD 60, about a century later. Since Pliny makes clear that, at this time, the Costoboci were a Sarmatian tribe, your argument is clearly nonsense. EraNavigator (talk) 13:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• your sayings that they migrated westwards is as well not suported by any evidence, they maight be already there and apear "on radar" after the fall of Decebalus kingdom. Those are both supositions, and either we put them both, or none of them. Fact that they was in Sarmatia is not a definitive prouve they was Sarmatians

I disagree with your insistence that the proto-Slavs did not enter the Carpathian region before ca. AD 500. For example, Tacitus, writing in ca. AD 100, states: "The Venedi roam in their predatory excursions all the wooded and mountainous regions between the Peucini and the Fenni" (Tacitus Germania 46). Tacitus states that he was not sure whether the Veneti should be classified as Germans or Sarmatians (which, together with the Celts, were the main ethno-linguistic affiliations familiar to the Romans). This supports the Venedi's much later (ca. 550) classification as Slavic by Jordanes. Tacitus adds that the Venedi were more like the Germans in that they had settled homes and generally moved around on foot, whereas the Sarmatians lived on horseback and in wagons; however, the Venedi shared many customs with the Sarmatians, notably their propensity to raiding. The territory "between the Peucini and the Fenni" is the vast area between the Danube Delta region (where the Peucini Bastarnae lived) and the Baltic states (where the Fenni apparently lived) i.e. western European Russia, White Russia, Slovakia, W. Ukraine, Bessarabia, Moldavia - this makes sense as most of these regions are still today dominated by Slavic-speaking peoples. This passage implies that proto-Slavic groups were active in and around the northern and eastern Carpathians at the time of the Dacian Wars - indeed, they may have taken advantage of the collapse of Decebal's state to establish themselves in Bukovina/Moldavia. It is therefore wrong to exclude the possibility of a proto-Slavic identity for the Carpi and Costoboci. EraNavigator (talk) 14:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• we know nothing about proto-slavs, we have no idea where those Venedi moved (btw Moldova, Basarabia and even parts of Ukraine are dominated by romanian language, not the slavic one), they are usualy placed north of Dacia, at a quite big distance, no near Danube Delta. More then that, at Dniester river (on both parts, so up to river Bug, are located the Dacian tribe of Tyragetae, and Ptolemy give us even their capital, Clepidava (btw, no much conections betwen dacian and slavic names). Then in the region apear Costoboci, Carpi, free Dacians, Bastarnae etc. It is just a baseless speculation, with no prouve (chronics, archeology, linguistics) that some of them was slavic. Slavs will be formed (probably from a mix of diferent peoples) long after

I gave the reference for the dacian nature of the names and I do protest that you apply double standards: you deny the possibility of a dacian origin for the Costoboci based on a sharp sense of proof/argument being mediocre but you seem keen on embracing a possible "proto-slavic" nature for the same nation based on nothing but wishfull thinking.Some of the Dacian names were indeed "pan-Thracian" but there are specific enough. A thracian ancestry at least for part of the dacian tribes can not be ruled out. The association that the old greeks made between the Getae and the Thracians is proof.Also I can argue that although names of nations and identities may not change simultanously with the languages. People of a certain nation may speak the same language as another but have a different self-awareness due to long-time historical antagony or other factors or they can have the same name as their ancestors but speak a different language.--comment added by Leinarius

Indeed. The Costobocci, or Carpi, could have spoken a wide possibility of languages. A mosaic of interrelated idioms could have existed from village to vilage, with intersecting glosses going in many directions. Thus, one cannot draw a line separating, say , "Dacian" to some pre-Slavic dialect. In any case, they are likely to have been quite similar.

What is certain is that Costobocii were not a 'people', but like other 'barbarian tribes', a mixed colleciton of young warriors drawn from the various communities beyond the Danube. One language might have dominated, but likely the men were multilignuial (or multi-dialectical), being from different villages.

Only with more organized political structures, such as the 4th century Goths or 7-9th century Avars did languages homogenize, whether through the use of a lingu franca or by linguistic convergence, to form a more unified linguistic state- that being Gothic and Slavic, respectively. Arguably, the same might have happened with Decebalus' state and Dacian Hxseek (talk) 08:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• there is no prouve of what main language spoked even Goths during they stay in Dacia so you can say they spoke even klingonian language. Fact is that the names, which are thraco-dacian, show what language is the most probably Costobocii speak. Slavs wasnt even in existence back then, and for sure wasnt around even their suposedly ancestors (whoever they may be).

I am pleased that you are finally entering references. However, you are still not doing it correctly. You must give the page number of the quote which supports your particular statement. If you follow the way it's done in the article, the in-line citation should be an abbreviated entry, with author's surname, year of publication (in brackets) and page number. The full name, title and other details of the publication should be entered in the list of References at the foot of the article. Also, you don't need to enter more than one citation for each statement (unless the statement contains more than one fact). So I've removed all but the Mommsen reference. Please enter the page number in the citation now. One final point: in general, it's best to use the most modern sources possible. Although Mommsen is very authoritative, he was writing over a century ago. There has been a vast amount of archaeological discovery since, which he obviously could not be aware of.

Your claim that the Costoboci were a Dacian tribe that moved eastwards at the time of Burebista is speculation and cannot be admitted, because there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Pliny the Elder clearly states that these tribes were Sarmatians. Also, I object to your removal of my referenced statement that a Sarmatian origin for the names cannot be excluded. You cannot remove statements simply because you don't agree with them, but only if they are not supported by evidence. Please note that it is only some, not all, scholars who believe the Costoboci were Dacians. Others think they are Sarmatian, Celtic or Germanic.

If we stop this childish arguing and take a balanced and objective view of the thin available evidence, the most likely scenario is that the Costoboci were a group of Sarmatian tribes residing around the Don/Dnieper region during the whole Roman imperial era. One of these tribes moved into the Carpathian region, probably in the period following the collapse of Decebal's state in 105, and, through mixing with Free Dacian elements, acquired elements of Dacian culture and possibly language (although, given the relatively short period of their occupation, they most likely remained bilingual). In 171, they were invaded and occupied by Germanic elements and lost their separate identity. I don't think any reasonable person could dispute this.

Gh. BICHIR, a senior Romanian archaeologist who has personally excavated many sites in Moldavia (and supports the Geto-Dacian paradigm), admits that the sites identified with the 3 DAVAs mentioned by Ptolemy as on the East bank of the Siret, including Poiana-Tecuci (probably PIROBORIDAVA) were abandoned at the end of the 1st century AD, at the time of the Roman conquest. Bichir (1976) p141: "It is known that the Dacian settlements in Moldavia ceased at the end of the 1st century and especially at the start of the 2nd century (esp. Poiana-Tecuci). Their destruction was connected with the 2nd Dacian War (105-6)". This supports what I said in the Carpi discussion, that these DAVAs were outposts of Decebal's kingdom and were already destroyed by the time Ptolemy wrote about them in ca. 150.

BICHIR goes on to admit that the archaeology of the region shows that the Sarmatians took advantage of the Dacian collapse to invade Moldavia in strength. BICHIR (1976) p162-4: "The Sarmatians played an important role within the Carpic tribal union. They spread to the West of the Prut from the first decades of the 2nd century, as shown by the finds at Stefanesti and Vaslui; they lived with the Carpi and the Costoboci in the territory of Moldavia. The defeat of the Dacians by the Romans facilitated the penetration of some Sarmatian groups West of the Prut... The Sarmatian presence in Moldavia is attested by their graves ... Until now [1976], Sarmatian tombs have been discovered in the territory of Moldavia in about 38 places, especially on the plain... The large majority of the Sarmatian graves discovered in Romania are flat-graves [i.e. not tumuli], these are burials of men, women and children and this shows that the Sarmatians were with their families [i.e. settlers, not just raiders]".

This all fits well with the scenario of the Costoboci being a Sarmatian tribe that entered Moldavia in the aftermath of Trajan's victory and then mingled with Free Dacian refugees, Bastarnae and possibly Celtic elements in this region.

Although I need to do much more study of the archaeological issues for the Carpi and Costoboci articles, it is immediately apparent from reading the "high priest" of Carpi studies, Gh. BICHIR (History & Archaeology of the Carpi - 1976) how his interpretation of data has been distorted by nationalist ideology, in line with Niculescu's criticism. Bichir is a professional and honest archaeologist, who refuses to suppress archaeological data: for example, he makes clear that there is abundant evidence, in the form of Sarmatian graves and deformed-skull burials, of a substantial influx of ethnic-Sarmatian settlers into the whole of Moldavia and even Muntenia after the Roman conquest of Dacia in 106. He rejects attempts by Geto-Dacianists to either ignore this evidence, or to pretend that it was Dacians imitating Sarmatian customs. Bichir presents the archaeological data in a clear, thorough and honest manner. But Bichir is himself a convinced Geto-Dacianist, so that, after presenting the data, he often draws conclusions which are totally contrary to what the data indicates. Sometimes, Bichir's self-contradictions are almost comical (although , to be fair, he was writing during the Ceausescu nationalist-communist era, when academics were under pressure to conform to the official orthodoxy on Romania's past, and could lose their jobs if they did not).

For example, Bichir gives the following data on post-106 burial customs in Moldavia (p18): "The Carpi generally practiced the rite of cremation. Inhumation is scarcely attested." In contrast, the Sarmatians mostly practiced inhumation. Then he states that (p164): "There exist inhumation graves within Carpi cemeteries... Consequently, the most plausible explanation is that the inhumation graves represent the alien population, namely the Sarmatians, and the children interred in inhumation graves were for the most part the progeny of marriages between Sarmatians and Carpi". As stated above, in the initial phase of Sarmatian occupation, these used flat-graves, in contrast to the "classic" tumulus-graves of Sarmatia. However, from 200 onwards, according to Bichir (p. 163), the Sarmatians of Moldavia often buried their dead in "secondary" tumuli i.e. tumuli already in existence, an apparent reversion to traditional Sarmatian practice.

From this data, Bichir draws the absurd conclusion (p163) that the Sarmatians "accepted Carpi supremacy" and "lost the distinctive features of their funerary rites under the influence of the Daco-Carpic indigenous population". In fact, the exact opposite is true, since the Sarmatians clearly did NOT give up their rites, insisting on inhumation, even in "Carpic" cemeteries; and it was the "Daco-Carpi" who gave in to Sarmatian influence, by agreeing to bury their children! Indeed, the Sarmatians apparently reverted to more traditional burial practices after 200 (although this may be due to a fresh wave of Sarmatian migrants into Moldavia at this time).

• this burial of children and incineration of adults is the common practice of Dacians, and not a sarmatian inlfuence lol. See here (this is from Transilvania area, not far from Sarmisegetuza, the capital of Dacia) http://eprints.jiia.it:8080/148/1/Luca_dacian-warriors.pdf

As well carpic (of dacian facture) burial sites as about 10 times more numerous then sarmatian ones

Bichir also has the problem that the Roxolani Sarmatians are clearly described in ancient sources as dominant on the Wallachian plain, including the southern part of Moldavia. He deals with this by drawing a distinction, totally without proof, between the Sarmatians in Carpi-land from the Roxolani. He then claims that the latter, unwilling to accept indigenous domination, moved to the Hungarian Plain to join their cousins, the Iazyges. Again, this flies in the face of the evidence.

• what evidence you talk about? And you consider Bichir a very good scholar just when he is on agree with your views? What you have to disaprove this? Who studied more the sites and the history of the place?

Bichir's broad conclusion is that, on the currently available evidence, the Carpi culture can be dated between AD 106 and 319. (p 144). These are the dates of the end of the 2nd Dacian War and the last acclamation of Carpicus Maximus (that of Constantine I). One obvious possible conclusion is that the Carpi entered Moldavia after 106, and were totally resettled in the Roman Empire by 319. But Bichir will have none of this. In his ideology, the Carpi were Geto-Dacian indigenes who had inhabited the area for time immemorial, and continued to do so for centuries after 319. Prior to 106, their culture was "classic" Dacian and after 319, it was Sintana- de- Mures/Chernyakhov. But he fails to explain why their culture should change at those dates. Also an examination shows that the differences between Bichir's "Carpic culture" (e.g. Poienesti) in the 3rd century and other Chernyakhov sites are not very significant. Also, there are other possible explanations for the post-106 archaeological data. One obvious possibility is that the Carpi (and/or the Costoboci) were Sarmatians themselves, whose entry into Moldavia after the abandonment of Dacian outposts is attested in the archaeological record. Alternatively, the Carpi may have been a non-Dacian indigenous people, under Dacian hegemony until 106, and under Sarmatian control; or non-Dacian migrants who entered Moldavia after 106, at the same time as the Sarmatians, and formed a fused culture with them. These and other options fit the data as well as, if not better than, the Geto-Dacian continuity theory. But the alternative possibilities are not even mentioned, let alone explored, by Bichir and other Romanian archaeologists of the region.

EraNavigator (talk) 18:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Bichir is pretty much right about archeological findings, see what i post on Carpi discussion page