Talk:Costoboci

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Further data on Lipita

From Kozak's article

- dates penetration of "Dacian" elements early 1st century AD onto post-Zarubintsy ("Veneti") people, manifest by Celto-Dacian burials of Kolokolyni and Volotnya [this is Shchukin' Zvenigrod phase]

- the second 1/2 1st century, most number of sites (Zvenigrod, upper Lipita, Cherepyn, Hryniv, etc), most of which end at turn of 1st c AD

- two sites continued to beginning of 3rd c. AD. (upper Lipita, Remezivtsi)

- he describes the whole process as the "Lipita culture"

- he gives primacy to the post-Zarubintsy elements in the overall make-up of the Lipita culture, rather than Dacian; however, a "multi-ethnic population" as a result of "close and mutual ethnic and cultural contacts" (pg 214)

- the were numerous individual Przeworks type burials, but these were of an overall solitary nature and did not lead to huge transforamtion in local Dniester population

- he subsequently describes the zubra culture over a larger area which began also from mid 1st century and involved przeworsk, lipita and zarubintsy elements, forming what he sees a distinct proto-Slavic group which became part of Chernyakov culture.

I'l post the Batty quiotes tonight Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

SV, so what are the late 2nd century sites north of Carpathians? Anyway, it's good we have a non-"Dacian POV" on Lipitsa, does Kozak detail about what "elements" are rather post-Zarubintsy than "Dacian"? Daizus (talk) 08:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Trying to correlate your summary above with the article I have few extra questions:

- You mentioned Kozak's emphasis on the post-Zarubintsy elements, representing a "multi-ethnic population" as a result of "close and mutual ethnic and cultural contacts". But on p. 214 there's only Fig. 2 "Ceramic complex of Przeworsk culture of late Latenian time from Dnister region". Maybe you meant p. 213 or other pages? (see also below).

- Figs. 4, 5 and 6 (pp. 216-8) show pottery from three groups of Lipitsa sites: Bolotnia, Zvenigorod, Remezivtsi. What are the relations of these groups? Within Lipitsa but also considering the neighboring cultures. On p. 213 I've read something about Bolotnia group demonstrating a Celtic-Dacian synthesis.

- On p. 213 I've also read about the two sites mentioned for the 3rd century (Upper Lipitsa and Remezivtsi), and if my understanding is correct the author describes the assimilation (процес асиміляції) of Dacians by some Carpathian Slavs. Is this correct? Is the general historical "ethnic process" in this region: an assimilation of Dacians by Slavs? (perhaps already starting with 2nd century, if the "Dacian" sites are characteristic only for the 1st century? The two sites are also described as belonging to a mixed population: етнічно змішаному населенню). Daizus (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I think we should spell it the "Lipitsa" culture (in the article too), as the Romanian letter "ţ" does not exist in English. The notes above illustrate how "material cultures" are artificial classificatory schemes devised by archaeologists and thus their features and boundaries are subjective and controversial. Such "cultures" may not represent real socio-political entities, let alone particular ethnic groups. Identifying ethnic groups with cultures leads to absurd propositions such as half-sunken dwellings + cremation-urns + rudimentary pottery = Slavic-speakers; or cups with funny handles + "corded" decoration on pottery = Dacian-speakers. The fact is that material remains cannot tell you what language their owners spoke (unless, of course, they bear inscriptions: but these are absent in most barbarian remains, including those of the "civilised" Geto-Dacians). However, material remains can tell you about the lifestyle of their owners: whether sedentary or nomadic; hunter-gatherers or herdsmen or agriculturists. EraNavigator (talk) 00:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

We had long discussions above about what archaeology can or cannot, and it can prove the existence of real socio-political entities and ethnic groups and also boundaries. Sure, for language we need written evidence, and fortunately we have one inscription with Costobocan (royal) names. We have no inscription with Bastarnic names, but that hasn't deterred authors like Roger Batty (not an archaeologist) or editors like Era to consider them Celts, Germans or whatever. (one of Era's edits was: "Batty argues that the presence of Dacian-style pottery and other artefacts is an indicator of the material level attained by the indigenes, but does not prove their ethnicity. Batty notes that the Lipiţa region was also inhabited by the Bastarnae, a Celto-Germanic federation of tribes") Daizus (talk) 08:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The Bastarnae are considered Celto-Germanic because there is evidence from ancient sources about their language. Livy implies that they were Celtic-speakers; Tacitus (Germania xlvi) states that they spoke a Germanic language. All you have to prove the Costoboci language is the name of a single king, Pieporus (the other names don't count: obviously his wife's name, and her father's, are Dacian, as she is specified as ethnic-Dacian; her grandchildren may have been given Dacian names through her influence). But even the king's name is not decisive, as it was not uncommon for royalty of Roman puppet-states to use foreign names (as I demonstrated by reference to the dynasty of the Bosporan kingdom). You would need the names of at least 4 or 5 kings to provide significant evidence of the Costoboci's language: it would not surprise me to find that Pieporus' father was named Sauromates! EraNavigator (talk) 09:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That's no evidence! First and foremost neither Livy, nor Tacitus knew Bastarnian. We have no evidence of any Roman with knowledge of their language(s), so there are no reasons whatsoever to believe their claims. Then Livy and Tacitus do not support each other (if they wrote about the same speech community). Livy (Ab urbe condita libri XL, 57): "the Scordisci were expected to grant a passage to the Bastarnae without any difficulty, for neither in speech nor habits were they dissimilar". Tacitus (Germania, XLVI): "the Peucini called by some Bastarnae, are like Germans in their language". Tacitus' account is at variance with everything we know about linguistic diversity - no single language could have been spoken by all tribes between Atlantic and Black Sea (Germania, I), no such language was ever attested. Livy's claim is similarly dubious, however is even more dubious to conclude the Bastarnae were Celts, when we're not really sure the Scordisci were (and if we consider the latter a mixture of Celts, Illyrians, Pannonians, Thracians, Dacians - which of these languages was similar to Bastarnian? Maybe Dacian :) ).

And also check other contemporary accounts, such as Strabo's Geographica:

• VII, 3, 2: "For at the present time these tribes, as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians (more indeed with those outside the Ister, but also with those inside). And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes - the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci."
• VII, 3, 17: In the interior dwell, first, those Bastarnians whose country borders on that of the Tyregetans and Germans - they also being, one might say, of Germanic stock; and they are divided up into several tribes, for a part of them are called Atmoni and Sidoni, while those who took possession of Peuce, the island in the Ister, are called Peucini, whereas the Roxolani (the most northerly of them all) roam the plains between the Tanais and the Borysthenes.
• VII, 2, 4: [W]hat is beyond Germany and what beyond the countries which are next after Germany - whether one should say the Bastarnae, as most writers suspect, or say that others lie in between, either the Iazyges, or the Roxolani, or certain other of the wagon-dwellers - it is not easy to say; nor yet whether they extend as far as the ocean along its entire length, or whether any part is uninhabitable by reason of the cold or other cause, or whether even a different race of people, succeeding the Germans, is situated between the sea and the eastern Germans. And this same ignorance prevails also in regard to the rest of the peoples that come next in order on the north; for I know neither the Bastarnae, nor the Sauromatae, nor, in a word, any of the peoples who dwell above the Pontus, nor how far distant they are from the Atlantic Sea, nor whether their countries border upon it.

The Strabo quotes above are consistent with a Celto-Germanic linguistic affiliation for the Bastarnae.EraNavigator (talk) 14:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

So a tribe mingled with Thracians is Celto-Germanic. And Roxolani were Celto-Germanic, too. Good to know. Sure, you may reply that Strabo is wrong about this and that. I will say you and other authors are wrong. Dead lock. Enjoy it. Daizus (talk) 14:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Stop this nonsense, Daizus. There is overwhelming evidence in the ancient sources (Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Ammianus) that the Bastarnae were predominantly a Germanic-speaking group during the Roman imperial era and this is the view of mainstream scholarship. It is possible that in an earlier age (ca. 200 BC), they included Celtic-speaking elements, which may have survived into the imperial era (eg the Carpi?), or had been Germanified by then. Batty proposes an interesting theory that the Bastarnae became the bulk of the "Gothic" armies of the 3rd c onwards, when they accepted the supremacy of their "fellow-Germanic" Goths. In fact, I would go further, and suggest that the Bastarnae formed the majority of the sedentary population of Moldavia, Bessarabia and Ukraine in the imperial era.EraNavigator (talk) 17:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, there's no such evidence. Strabo doesn't even write "Germanic-speaking" at all (but of "Germanic stock" whatever that means, mingled with Thracians and other populations, and moreover that the Bastarnic tribes were Atmoni, Sidoni, Peucini and Roxolani - were Roxolani Germanic speakers? Celtic speakers?). Batty's speculations are irrelevant: his support won't create evidence out of nothing and authority he has none (in case you missed the discussion above, he's an economist). Look I know you have a strong anti-Dacian bias and you struggle hard to populate this space with Celts, Germans, Sarmatians, and whatever other "nations" even when there's no good evidence for it. Check also this recent study about Celts in Eastern Europe - the actual evidence for them is very thin. Same goes for Germans - see for example this chapter by Goffart, showing the nonsense in making tribes like Sciri Germanic (the Bastarnae are mentioned when presenting the theories he challenged, theories arguing for an ongoing Germanic expansion). Daizus (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

As for the mainstream on who the Bastarnae were, I think you're wrong. Quoting Guy Halsall (Barbarian migrations and the Roman West, 376-568), p. 49, n. 46: "The ethnic affiliation of the Bastarnae was a matter of some debate. Dio, Roman History 38.10.3, thought they were Scythians but then he believed that the Suebi – the archetypal Germani for Caesar – were Keltoi." and p. 51: "[The peoples variously called Getic or Scythian] included the Bastarnae, according to some definitions, and the Dacians, whom Dio Cassius divided into those who were Getic and those who were ‘Scythians of a sort’, illustrating the rather blurred ideas about this part of the world." See also Strabo's honest testimony (VII, 2, 4) that he doesn't really know about the Bastarnae. Daizus (talk) 18:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

As for Costobocan names, we don't need to name 4-5 kings, when we have a royal family with 5 members - all their names do count and are obviously Dacian. Sure, that's little evidence, but that's all the direct evidence we have and it's more evidence than we have on Bastarnae, Lugii, Venedi, Fenni and other tribes in Central and Eastern Europe. All the rants that they "could have been Sarmatians" have no value without a single Sarmatia/Iranic name or a single Sarmatian/Iranic word which can be interpreted in the context of this tribe and its language(s). Daizus (talk) 10:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Slovenski, be careful that your quotes from Batty do not infringe copyright: you may only reproduce short excerpts of one or two sentences, not more than one paragraph. Any longer quote requires the written permission of the publisher. EraNavigator (talk) 06:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Which specific areas do we need to clarify from Batty, becuase there are several pages devoted to the Basternae, Costoboci, Lipita culture, Poenesti-Lukashevka, etc Slovenski Volk (talk) 10:21, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

For this article all what is directly relevant to Costoboci. Also if he cites bibliography, please mention it, in case his views and arguments can be further explored in other sources. Daizus (talk) 12:41, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

- pg 249-50 (on Basternae & P-l culture) "given the fluctuating political and demographic conditions prevalent in the region, the identification of peoples by a 'typefront' method is most unsound"

- pg 250: "All this contrasts markedly with the seemingly endless research designed to show that the 'Daco-Getic' culture continued in the region untinterruptedly for centuries on end. A number of ROmanian scholars have documented the existence of a 'Daco-Getic' culutr to the borderbs of modern Romania, some even to the border of Bessarabia and the Republic of Moldova/ But even those researchers who have documented most fully the expansion of the 'Daco-Getae'towards the Pontic steppe have had to allow that the historu of the region will simply not permit them to occupy this area by themselves. The problem comes in trying to document how the cohabitation of the various peoples reflected the historical sources is apparent in the archaeological record. The 'Daco-Getic' cultures, to begin with, do not themselves for a cohesive or uniform body of material. Regional differences abound, and it is easier to identify archaeological 'microregions' than larger groupings - whch is precisely as it should be. [Here he sites Babes who admits to local differences but nevertheless maintains an overall unity]. Furthermore, attempts towards defining widespread cultures such as the Carpi in this area seem to be misjudged. Thus, the standard identification of the 'Lipita' culture with the Costoboci, a 'Poenesti' culture with the Carpi, or indeed the 'Poenesti-Lukashevka' culture with the basternae rests on a shaky basis".

- pg 375-6 general account of Cb history.

pg 378 , mainly about Carpi, but mentions CB: "the archaeology of this people is difficult to reconstruct. That a substrate population ysed 'Dacian' pottery and other material goods related to well-established Dacian types shws us the material level they atained, but has no actual bearing ont he ethnicity or identity of the people. Like the Costoboci, their area of habitation seems also to have held basternae, to whey they are linked in our texts. In any event, archaeology of this region seems to identify a number of influences in the region, and Sarmatian materials are often found alongside 'Carpic' objects..."

Slovenski Volk (talk) 04:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Few more questions if you don't mind:

Pleasure, friend

* on p. 275 Batty connects Lipitsa to Costoboci or a substrate population?

375 - "Similarly we should not be to distrurbed by the absence of any widespread 'Costoboccan' material culure. Key Sarmatian peoples such as the Roxolani and Iazyges are similarly unattested, .... In any event, the culture currently associated with them, the 'Lipita' culture is a poor candidate all tolf; it may represent merely one strand of the Costocovi, or the material culture of a sedentary, substrate population in the area they controlled". Coresponding footnote 137, he does hold that Lipita has connections to earlier Dacian cultures.

* on p. 378 I see only a "like the Costoboci" - is anything similar claimed about Costoboci and Bastarnae on the previous pages? Is there any explicit assessment of how this Costobocan-Bastarnic society was like?

On pp 241-52 he discusses about the Origins, homeland and archaeology, moreso than societal structure, etc

* does Batty locate the Costoboci in the Lipitsa region (cf. p. 250)?

No, rather he criticizes the connection, as above

* does Batty explain what is a "microregion"? A valley? It can be larger than that? If one considers Lipitsa a "widespread culture" then what about cultures such as Chernyakhov? Does Batty doubt the correlation between Chernyakhov and Gothic confederacy, as well? You quoted Batty on "Celtic penetration", does he associate Celts with La Tène? Is also dubious the Sarmatian vs 'Carpic' (p. 378) so Batty admits a "widespread" Sarmatian culture? Daizus (talk) 07:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

He does not elaborate on what a micro-region is. Re Celts he states "finds of La Tene material are not automoatically taken as evidence of Celtic peoples" (p 215). but "Despite these debates, however, the migrations of various Celtic groups to new locations withing and outside eastern EUrope have mostly remained uncontested. The textual and archaeolgical evidence for these is relatively strong." He sees that "Groups of Galatia- Gauls- seem to have infiltrate the Pontic-Danubian zone some time before the great invasion of 279 BC which touched GReece proper ... " Talks about the reported 300, 00 Celts and events in Macedonia , Illyria :This was the beginning of extensive Celtic involvement in our region" (217). "Various small groups of Celts probably made their way from this region via a northern route .... Bearers of La Tene culture materials penetrated from here (Galicia) into the forest-steppe zone of the NW Ukraine. That we should see Celtic people, not simply trade, is evident not just from occasional burials, such as the rider found at Marekvka in the Ukraine, bit from the sporadic density of such finds." Figue 4.9 depicts Burials, settlements, coinsm, stray finds, etc concentrated on Dniester and Dnieper. Re Sarmatians he mostly discusses the lack fo "Sarmatian" type finds in the region until 1st or 2nd century 'AD, although sources report earlier presence. Re Goths and their "immigration to Black Sea he writes "Archaeology migth give us some clues in this area of enquiry, but cannot be decisiveL the spread of fashion in material goods failing, ultimately, to prove or disprove movement of people. Material remains do seem to prvide some evidence, at least, about the southern drift of goods and their bearers from northern GErmany and the Baltic lands...However neither the scale nor the duration of these movements can be adewuately ascertained.If we want to access the historical impact of the early Gothic movements, we must be attentive to such information as our texts provide...." (384). Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I see Battty is somewhat critical of the Lipitsa-Costoboci connection, but where the Costoboci are located? I don't see any hint that they would have lived in other regions (e.g. more to the east, or south-east). EN ventured so far to claim they were a Sarmatian tribe first attested in Pliny's NH in the lower Don valley. I am curious if Batty goes in this direction too, or he places Costoboci north of Dacia, being only critical on the material culture which was assigned to them. Daizus (talk) 09:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The previous criticism on ancient people, ethncity and material cultures is apparently put aside when Batty writes: "Bearers of La Tene culture materials penetrated from here (Galicia) into the forest-steppe zone of the NW Ukraine. That we should see Celtic people, not simply trade, is evident not just from occasional burials, such as the rider found at Marekvka (misspelled?) in the Ukraine, bit from the sporadic density of such finds." Batty's drive against "widespread cultures" loses impetus when the "textual and archaeolgical evidence" is "relatively strong". Whatever that means, for authors like Daniel Dzino such evidence is spurious, as for authors like Guy Halsall. Amazingly Batty argues on dubious numbers such as 300,000 invaders(!!). Even if he doesn't take this number at face value, nevertheless he seems to believe it reflects "extensive Celtic involvement in our region". Compare this with the lucid remarks of Halsall (p. 144-5):

Writers in the classical tradition repeatedly employed large numbers like 80,000. Their audience expected such figures, deployed as a short-hand to describe a huge horde. A more solid basis would be provided by archaeology. Germania Magna and Britain north of the Wall were not urbanised societies. The economy and the surplus extracted from agriculture did not permit large numbers of people to remove themselves from subsistence farming – it often did not maintain a massively wealthy élite. Settlements were, on the whole, small; the largest sheltered populations of only a couple of hundred. Within these parameters it does not seem likely that barbarian armies can have been very big. The Alamannic army at the battle of Strasbourg (357) cannot have approached the 35,000 mentioned by Ammianus. Indeed it is most unlikely it matched the (according to Ammianus) 13,000 Roman troops facing them. A better indication of the numbers involved, taken from the same author, when not describing a pitched battle in a set piece of Latin literature, is that 600 Franks posed a serious military problem for Julian. It is also telling that it was thought sufficient, in quelling political disturbances in Britain probably including significant barbarian incursions, to dispatch four regiments, totalling only about 2,000 men. Similar points have been made about the military forces of the more nomadic or pastoral barbarian groups on the Danube frontier. These too cannot have mustered huge armies. The most generous sober estimates of the size of barbarian armies, proposed by historians who envisage the barbarian migrations as the movements of whole peoples, do not put them higher than between 20,000 and 30,000. These, furthermore, refer to exceptional and short-lived circumstances.

So a number like 20,000 is a "most generous sober estimate" (but only in exceptional and short-lived circumstances, when accounting for "whole peoples"): most likely the barbarian armies had hundreds or at most few thousands warriors. Daizus (talk) 09:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Those figures certainly make sense Slovenski Volk (talk) 21:07, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

More on identity

Halsall's book I mentioned above is one of the best accounts I know for Late Antiquity in the barbarian Western Europe and for barbarians in general. I know it's not directly related to our topic and I know we cannot directly use it (per WP:SYNTH), I can only hope there are similar perspectives for 2nd century Eastern Europe and that this book will eventually be put to good use in other articles. Nevertheless I choose to present few excerpts, to illustrate what I consider a modern approach on identity (SV may be familiar with it, after all he did such a great job in the article on Ancient Macedonians). I am starting with a quote from Cicero's Republic (I.37.58), used by Halsall as a sort of a motto (p. 45):

Scipio: Now tell me, was Romulus a king of the barbarians?

Laelius: If, as the Greeks say, all men are either Greeks or barbarians, I am afraid he was; but if that name ought to be applied on the basis of men’s manners rather than their language, I do not consider the Greeks less barbarous than the Romans.

Scipio: For the purposes of our present subject we consider only character, not race (gens).

Halsall then combines this view with the other classical view that the Romans and Greeks stood at the center of the world, being surrounded by barbarians, and of course with a modern concept of ethnicity (p. 42: "cognitive, multi-layered, performative, situational and dynamic"). Let's proceed with some nice quotes to shape our understanding:

p. 48: These ideas are also manifest in the ways in which Greek and Roman ethnographers habitually equated new barbarian political groupings with old tribes. Huns and Goths were called Scythians and Getae, and Sassanid Persians were referred to as Parthians or Medes. Partly this resulted from the demands of the genres in which these writers worked. Greek writers were expected to ape the great writers of ‘Attic’ Greek (that written during the heyday of the Athenian state) in precise vocabulary as well as in style and content. No Huns and Sassanids were to be found in the pages of Herodotus or Thucydides but there were Scythians and Medes aplenty. Latin writers inherited a less pronounced concern with ethnographic detail, and a lesser aversion to new words, but were still expected to use the language of their models. The stylistic replacement of ‘modern’ names for ethnic groups like Franks with more classical names like Sicambri persisted throughout our period and beyond. Quite aside from the exigencies of style, however, an idea underlay this practice that, fundamentally, barbarians from particular areas were all the same, no matter how they changed their names.

In many respects, the barbarian societies beyond the Rhine/Danube were, in most cases, the same: they were illiterate, they did not sustain a monetary economy, they were mostly herdsmen, not farmers (except close to the empire's borders).EraNavigator (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 49-50: Tacitus, in his Histories, set out the key characteristics of the ‘Germanic’ barbarian, which lived long in the minds of Roman authors. Like the Gauls, the Germani are emboldened by success. Wild and incautious, they obey only blind fury. Following lost work by the elder Pliny, Tacitus’ Germania presented a detailed geography of these peoples but, as is still too often forgotten, did this for moral purposes, to highlight Roman shortcomings, rather than to present a factual ethnographic report. This is especially apparent when one considers the ways in which the Germani become more stereotypical and extreme the further from the Empire they live, culminating in the Fenni [...] Here, at the ends of the earth, lay the complete opposite of the civilised life, with all its good and bad points, found at its centre.

The Greco-Roman viewpoint is, broadly, supported by archaeology: the further East one goes from the Rhine, the more rudimentary the dwellings, pottery and lifestyles: on the fringes of the empire, agriculture was practised; then we get into a pastoralist zone, then a hunter-gatherer zone (where Tacitus locates the Fenni).EraNavigator (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

This is not necessarily true. Maybe according to traditional marxist view which sees nomadism to be less developed compared to farming.

Era is wrong, and SV's observation is spot on (though not only marxist, but the generally nationalist and ethnocentric views of 19th century). For example Caesar thought the "society and settlement patterns were much more fluid east of the Rhine" (p. 49) and this is disproven by archaeology. Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 51-52: Although the Scythians were long gone, their name was still applied to the inhabitants of these regions: Taifals and Sarmatians, Alans and Goths. Although the Goths (or at least some of them) spoke a Germanic language, it is significant that when Graeco-Roman writers wanted a classical term for them they tended to use ‘Scythian’ rather than ‘German’. This implies that, as Cicero’s Scipio thought, lifestyle was more important than language in ethnographic categorisation. Whatever their language, it seems likely that a semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle unified the various peoples beyond the middle and lower Danube.

Nevertheless, Tacitus clearly defined the Germani by language, since we know that two of the easternmost groups of Germani he mentions, the Goths and Gepids on the Vistula, did, in fact, speak a Germanic language.EraNavigator (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

We only have evidence that the "Germani" along the border spoke Germanic. We don;t know what the "Przeworsk people' spoke. In fact, the idea that Germanic 'originated' far to the north in Scandinavia has no clear evidence. Slovenski Volk (talk) 11:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Tacitus didn't know what languages those people spoke, he just considered them one and the same (and of course, speaking the same language). There's no evidence what languages were spoken near Vistula in Tacitus' times. The persistence of a name proves nothing: the Bulgarians speak a Slavic language, however the Bulgars did not. Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 55: One definitive characteristic of the barbarian (at least in the wild) was his inability to live according to the law. Thus other people who refused to live by (Roman) law, like bandits and brigands, were, regardless of their origins, assimilated with barbarians. The elision of barbarians with all other enemies of the public order, or wielders of illegitimate or illegal force, was common in Roman thinking. [Note: this is why the reports calling Costoboci rebels or outlaws are not evidence for a previous Roman-Costobocan treaty, as Era assumed some time ago]

Nevertheless, it is highly likely that the Costoboci were, in fact, bound by treaty to Rome. It was standard imperial practice to bind all bordering barbarian tribes in order to create a security buffer-zone on the empire's borders: in return for Roman subsidies and/or guarantee of assistance in case of external attack, the ally would undertake to prevent a hostile force from crossing their territory to attack the empire.EraNavigator (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

There was no such standard Roman practice, nor any evidence whatsoever Costoboci had a treaty with Rome. Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 58: There can be no question of a general overriding ‘Germanic’ or ‘Celtic’ identity amongst the different barbarian groups. Shared language might have facilitated communication and alliance but there is no evidence for or reason to suppose a higher level of ethnic identity on this basis.

This is generally true, but one cannot entirely dismiss an "ethno-linguistic group consciousness", if only generated by common opposition to Rome. Marcus Aurelius was lobbied by the Iazyges to grant them free passage through Roman Dacia to commune with their fellow-Sarmatians, the Roxolani (Dio LXXII.19). This may indicate a common Sarmatian identity (cf also Arminius, who succeeded in building a coalition of traditionally mutually hostile West Germanic tribes to fight the Romans for "German freedom"). EraNavigator (talk) 10:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

No, this does not indicate common Sarmatian identity, but Roman stereotypes and at the same time the modern nationalistic stereotypes which are so present in your arguments. There was no such thing as "fellow-Sarmatians" or "fellow-Germans", and certainly no "German freedom". Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 61: These culture groups are formed around cores of associated artefact-types, but there is considerable blurring around the edges. Finally, we must repeat that ethnic identity is multi-layered. Even when a culture group can be linked with a historically defined confederacy, as it can in the case of the Sîntana de Mureş-Çernjachov culture and the Goths, it would not tell us whether a user of this material culture was a Tervingian or Greuthungian Goth or whether s/he was not also a Sarmatian, a Dacian or a Taifal (or which of these s/he was).

Indeed not (despite the devising by Romanian archaeologists of a fake "variant" of Cernachov, the Sintana de Mures culture, in order to distinguish their precious Dacians from the barbarous hordes of Goths etc). EraNavigator (talk) 10:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with you here

You're both wrong, many (most?) Romanian archaeologists do not assign Sîntana de Mureş to Dacians. For example in the History of Romanians (criticized by G. A. Niculescu for its nationalistic undertones), this culture is assigned to a "mixed population". Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Checking the historiography, the Sîntana de Mureş site was excavated when it was part of Hungary (then under the name Marosszentanna). See István Kovács, A marosszentannai népvándorláskori temető (1912). He also argued it displays a mixture of local and new elements, and among the local elements he identified also Dacian ones (e.g. see conclusion from pp. 341-342). Romanians and Hungarians conspired to devise "Dacian cultures" and drive you crazy :)) Daizus (talk) 13:15, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 118: Pre-migration society east of the Rhine is essentially an archaeological topic, although some aspects of political structures can be illuminated from Roman written sources. A major problem has been the view of Tacitus’ Germania as applicable across ‘Germanic’ society and across the historical gulf between his writing and Ammianus’ The view is untenable and Tacitus’ testimony is difficult to accept as an accurate report of Germanic society even in his own day. Where similarities exist between the two writers’ statements, we must be careful that these do not result simply from the fact that Ammianus saw himself as Tacitus’ continuator. We should acknowledge that the pre-migration societies of Germania Magna were diverse and dynamic. To do so we must treat the archaeological data in more sophisticated ways.

p. 134: It seems most likely that in the confusion of the third century and, specifically, the Roman abandonment of the Carpathian basin a Germanic-speaking military élite was able to spread its power down the amber routes into the lands of the Sarmatians, Dacians and Carpi and found a number of kingdoms, some grouped into a powerful confederacy. [Note: compare this with Batty's hypothesis]

I thought you didn't believe in overlords. In fact, Batty's thesis is entirely consistent with this scenario. If the in situ German-speaking Bastarnae were co-opted by the immigrant elite, that would explain how the Gothic elite acquired the numerical strength needed to successfully challenge the existing regional supremacy of the Sarmatians.EraNavigator (talk) 10:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Your thoughts are usually mistaken :) I don't believe in "ethnic overlords". Halsall points out that ethnicity was fluid in the Gothic confederacy, he even agrees that some Goths could have spoken some other language but Germanic (p. 51-52). Batty's thesis is fatally incompatible with this scenario because Halsall does not consider the Bastarnae Germanic-speakers and never mentions the Bastarnae among the Goths (to be sure Halsall repeatedly points out how many tribal names in the Late Antiquity were fictional, being used by Graeco-Roman authors striving to imitate their classical models; this is the case of Bastarnae, too, a tribe first attested in the Hellenstic era; however this was abused by Germanic pan-nationalism and then also by non-experts like Batty - if your summary was fair - to create Germanic sagas where none existed). Daizus (talk) 12:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

p. 134: It seems that the Gothic confederacy, like those of the Saxons, Franks and Alamanni, comprised a number of other ethnic identities: former Roman provincials, Dacians, Carpi, Sarmatians, Taifali and so on. Even Gothic identity itself operated on more than one level, those of the kingdom and confederacy. Inhabitants of the region thus, like most other people, possessed a hierarchy of ethnic identities. Some might have been more restricted than others, or were acquired through entry into political and military circles. Political circumstances might determine the efficacy of a particular identity or the desire to signal it. Nevertheless we should not assume that because other ethnic identities persisted within Gútthiuda, as Gothic sources call the Tervingian homeland (presumably adapting the Roman term Gothia), this means that ethnic boundaries were rigid. In some way all inhabitants could probably think of themselves as Goths.

I find the last point dubious. "Goths" was, after all, an external label applied by the Greco-Romans to indicate the "the Gothic elite and their subject peoples". Internally, I doubt that a Gepid or Sarmatian or a Dacian would see himself as a Goth, any more than they later saw themselves as "Huns" or "Avars". Their acceptance of their status as serfs of a Gothic elite would vary with circumstances: they would willingly serve under Gothic leadership in invasions of the Roman empire, which could yield large amounts of booty (although the Gothic elite would bag the lion's share of this); or against a common external threat, such as the Huns. But resentment and a desire for political independence would never be far from the surface. It could erupt at any time eg the later Gepid revolt against the Huns; and the revolt of Samo's Slavs against the Avars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.110.43.19 (talk) 10:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

One can be, let's say, Chinese or Cuban and American at the same time. Of course, this was not a popular view in 18th-19th centuries Europe, and unfortunately often also in the 20th century and even now. It's not a popular view in marxist ideologies (about "nations" oppressed by other "nations", "ethnic"-conditioned serfdom and other hallucinatory theories), as the one behind the paragraph I'm replying to right now. Halsall's perspective comes from the most recent reassessment of the Late Antiquity using concepts from (post-Barthian) social anthropology. As Halsall explains it:

p. 38-9: Theodehad, who became king of the Goths in Italy in 534, was a Goth but also appears to have seen himself as a Tuscan landlord and as a Roman nobleman, involving himself in the traditional cultural pursuits of that class. Ethnicity is multi-layered. This point is vital to my argument in this book and has been given insufficient attention in many studies.

p. 42-3: Obviously, one cannot simply turn up at the border or at an airport passport control and claim to be British, French, German or what have you, at whim. However, these examples ignore the point that, once within a modern state, identities are as mutable as ever. The example of the USA is a case in point. Once past the formal and, theoretically, rigorous border and immigration controls, incomers from countless countries of origin have forged a common American identity, usually (and this is the real point) on top of or besides other ethnic identities (African-American, Latino, Italian-American and so on). Recognition of this fact gave the lie to what was called the ‘melting pot’ theory of ethnicity. Such examples also evade the question of knowledge. To deny someone membership of a particular group requires awareness of his or her background, family origins and so on. This is rarely to be had, even in close-knit communities, if reference is made to ancestors two generations back. Who, for example, would have the knowledge to deny a claim that someone who had lived all of her life in England and had a strong English accent had in fact had a Scottish grandfather? In a late antique situation who, within a mobile and fluid group of Goths could gainsay the claim of a Roman provincial to have had a Gothic grandfather?

p. 43: The fact that individuals possess a series of identities, which we might think of as ethnic, and can order and reorder them in terms of importance, further facilitates such strategies. There were members of numerous ethnic groups within Theoderic’s Ostrogoths. Here people had been accepted as Gothic despite additional identities. Once acknowledged as having both identities, however, one might very well play up one at the expense of the other until, in this example, the individual was more Gothic than Roman. In extreme cases, through marriage, name change and so on – both strategies well attested in late antiquity – the individual might to all intents and purposes lose his Roman identity completely.

Let's see what other experts on Goths have to say. From Herwig Wolfram's The Roman Empire and its Germanic peoples (English translation 1997, German first edition 1990):

p. 121-2: The army on the march held out the promise of social mobility and attracted the native underclasses. At the time of migration this attraction seemed very useful, as it helped to relieve the chronic shortage of man-power. But in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Africa the coloni were needed in the fields and not on the battlefield. Theodoric the Great, for example, staked his future on consolidating and stabilizing his kingdom, which is why he prohibited the Roman peasant underclasses from joining a Gothic army. However, the old attraction was still alive when the Gothic kingdoms were fighting for their survival. At the battle of Vouillé, a contingent of Roman magnates from the Auvergne with the free and unfree clientes fought on the side of the Visigoths. This unit was led by a Catholic senator and son of the former bishop of Clermont. The Ostrogothic King Totila not only accepted Roman slaves and coloni into the Gothic army, he even mobilized them against their senatorial masters with promises of freedom and ownership of the land. In so doing the king gave the Roman underclasses a chance and an excuse to do what they had been ready and willing to do since the third century: "to become Goths" out of despair over their economic and social condition.

p. 121: Thus being a Goth, enjoying the "freedom of the Goths", and marching in the Gothic army were one and the same thing.

These authors focus on the better-documented Western and Central Europe, and they find many examples of Romans fighting for Goths and becoming Goths. Saying that Dacians or Sarmatians couldn't have done the same thing is thus a biased position to say the least. Daizus (talk) 12:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

You can read some more in Google Books' preview. I have the full book in case you need citations or other quotes. Daizus (talk) 21:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I have Halsall's book its great. One would be correct to criticize Batty in that he takes the tasks of deconstructing the notion of a large "Daco-Getic" nation, yet on the other hand he a priori links the presence of Celtic looking burials in the forest-steppe with Celtic migrations, possibly Galatians and Scordisci, which probably weren;t Celtic (linguistic wise). Moreoever, for some reason he thinks the Ponto-Danubian peoples in particular had not need for identity (as if those in (more backward) west did). Notwithstanding, I'll post relevant quotes from him when I get a chance Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have also just obtained an article which seeks to update the repertoire of Thracian names c.f. Duridanov's list Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Quotes from Heather

I am less impressed with Halsall's "insights" than Daizo. Statements like that ethnic identity was "multi-layered" is, on the one hand, a statement of the obvious: family head, clan chieftain, tribal king would have all claimed the allegiance of a Carpathian barbarian (in that order: less so a distant Gothic "king-president" or menacing Avar khan). On the other hand, such vague platitudes do little to advance our understanding of the identity and languages of the subject ethnic groups of such empires, or of their prevailing languages, nor of the power-relationships both between and within these groups.

A far more useful source for our purposes is Heather's Empires and Barbarians (2009) which is the best comprehensive survey of the barbaricum in the first 8 centuries of the Common Era. It contains an up-to-date (and comprehensible) synthesis of the archaeological evidence and its bearing on other evidence. It is far more "meaty" than Halsall.

I wouldn;t agree. Heather's knowledge of the historical ABCs is second -to-none, sure; but Halsall's grasp of cultural anthropology and post-modernist archaeology is far more nuanced c.f. Heather. Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Since someone loves Heather so much, let's see his views on topics more related to article. Because the quotes below are as usually cherry picked to avoid the inconvenient. If Goths were Germanic speakers coming from the Baltic region, who were the indigenous populations in Carpathian basin? I don't have this book, but I have in pdf The Fall of the Roman Empire - A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (2010). The pages refer to the pdf document:

• p. 32 Apart from some Iranian-speaking Sarmatian nomads on the Great Hungarian Plain, and Dacian-speakers in and around the arc of the Carpathians, Rome’s immediate neighbours were all Germanic speakers: from Arminius’ Cherusci and their allies at the mouth of the Rhine, to the Bastarnae who dominated substantial tracts of territory at the mouth of the Danube
• p. 55 The new situation beyond the Black Sea was generated by the migration of Germanic groups from the north-west, largely from what is now central and northern Poland. In a series of independent, small-scale initiatives, between about AD 180 and 320, they had advanced around the outer fringes of the Carpathian Mountains. North of the Black Sea, the migrating groups were competing against each other, against indigenous populations such as the Dacian-speaking Carpi and Iranian-speaking Sarmatians, and against Roman garrison forces. The process was, not surprisingly, violent.

I know in some other book Heather calls Costoboci Dacians, too. So according to him, there were some Sarmatians in the Great Hungarian Plain, some Germanic Bastarnae at the mouth of Danube, and Dacians in and around the arc of the Carpathians (including the territories of both Carpi and Costoboci). I don't know for sure, but I assume he uses a similar mix of literary and archaeological arguments. So if one believes all the other claims Heather makes, he should believe this, too. If not, we can discuss. Daizus (talk) 16:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's see what he has to say on some of the issues discussed above:

• On the Costoboci's client-state status: (p95) "Rome's general military superiority was backed by an aggressive diplomacy, which turned the political entities closest to the frontier into Roman client-states". (P85) "Occasional major military interventions made it possible to construct region-wide diplomatic settlements" (p114) "Both Sarmatians and [free] Dacians became at least semi-subdued Roman clients after Trajan's conquest of Transylvanian Dacia, even though they were not formally incorporated into the empire". NB Daizo claims that there is no evidence that the Costoboci were Roman puppets. But coin-hoards found in Moldavia prove the receipt of Roman subsidies and the reference to the Costoboci as rebelles is a specific term meaning that the CB had violated a treaty accepting Roman suzerainty.

These quotes are not about Costoboci. Heather's claims are speculative and absurd - Sarmatian "states"? "Semi-subdued clients" - are they in "semi-revolt"?? :)) Did the 60 nomads who attacked Patkoua on 13 March 118 violate a treaty with Rome? Did they have a "state"? Were they bound to a "region-wide diplomatic settlement"?

Your claims are also wrong. Rebelles is not a specific term suggesting a previous treaty (see Halsall above), there's no solid evidence Costoboci inhabited Moldavia, coin hoards do not prove subsidies (they can be collected through trade, raids, etc), and these coin-hoards have the wrong end dates! (see Gh. Bichir, The Archaeology and the History of the Carpi from the Second to the Fourth Century A.D., 1976, p. 139: "We mention that 26 coin-hoards ending with issues of Commodus have been discovered in the Carpic territory" ) Daizus (talk) 21:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately this book can be read in limited preview on Google Books. The "Dacians" on on p. 114 are those "who came to be collectively known as the Carpi" (not the Costoboci). Also contary to what EN or Batty believe, Heather finds the Germanic Bastarnae more to the east: "The main Sarmatian group immediately north of the Black Sea was the Roxolani, who, together with the Iazyges, had dismantled the dominance of the Germanic-speaking Bastarnae in the region at the start of the first century AD." Heather further (p. 115) doubts that Bastarnae contributed much to the Germanic-speaking population in Gothia, arguing that "immigration of new Germanic-speakers played a critical role". This is coherent with Heather's perspectives upon mass migrations, upon overlords and their subjects, and with his methods of using literary sources and archaeology. It's funny how the slavish use of Heather ceases when Dacians are mentioned on the territory of Romania, and the Sarmatians and the Bastarnae mostly outside. Tough luck, EN, you must choose one of the two: either there's a coherent and stable Dacian ethnic group occuping most of this space, or Heather is wrong and identity is more subtle than that. Daizus (talk) 22:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• On the progressively more backward material cultures as you go eastwards from Rhine: (p5) "Pre-Roman Celtic material is famous for ... beautifully crafted artwork. Celtic settlements... shared a general sophistication... advanced wheel-turned pottery, substantial and often walled settlements (oppida), considerable use of iron tools to generate comparatively productive agriculture. The material remains thrown up by Germanic-speakers in the same period were generally much less rich and developed. Typical finds...consist of only hand-worked pottery, no developed metalwork and no oppida. The general level of agricultural productivity in Germanic-dominated areas was also much lower". (P8) Archaeologically, the picture of the inhabitants of the wooded and forested zones of Eastern Europe around the birth of Christ... were farmers with an extremely simple material culture, less developed even than that prevailing further West in Germanic Europe. The remains of its pottery, tools and settlement are so simple that the frustrate any attempt at stylistic or even chronological categorisation...it was a world of small, isolated farming settlements, operating at a lower subsistence level than the Germani, with little sign of any surplus..." (p6-7) "To the South [of the forested steppe] lay the much drier landscape of the steppe proper, whose expansive grasslands provided a natural home for the herds of the nomad. Further North and East, less intensive farming regimes gradually faded out, leaving the landscape for the hunter-gatherers of the Arctic Circle".

true to a certain extent. However it depends on time and context. Eg western Europe (esp the Atlantic fringe, including Gaul and Iberia) was decidedly less developed in Bronze Age c.f central-east (so -called Otomani culture in the Carpathian and succeeding eastern Halstatt area of Slovakia). Certainly, the La Tene heralded marked an artistic floruit in western Europe; but who is to say that this is "better" or "more developed" than the Scythian animal art, which anyway was partly the inspiration behind the La Tene art; as were symbols adapted by west European chiefs from nomadic societies, such as the horse and sceptre. And remember, "La Tene" Europe covered from Gaul to the border of Macedonia (!) Looking north, north-eastern Europe between the Vistula and Oder (Lausitz area) was highly developed, if anything more so than future Jastorf areas to its west, which in turn had a very similar outlook to, say, early "Slavic" cultures (eg Zarubintsy) (farmstead type settlements, grubenhauser, urn cremations). Certainly, the forest zones of the "Baltic area" in the upper Dvina and Numenas regions looked comparatively unimpressive, and yes, further north were simple HGs; however, even now one could argue that hunter-gathere societies are complex and 'at harmony with nature' and all the left wing stuff, ha ha.

They say pictures worth thousands words. Here are some artefacts from Iron Age Eastern Europe. Did they belong to "farmers with an extremely simple material culture" from a world of "small, isolated farming settlements, operating at a lower subsistence level [...] with little sign of any surplus"? Is this not "beautifully crafted artwork"?

• Golden helmet from Cucuteni Băiceni (Romania), Moldavian Plateau (4th century BC?)
• Golden helmet from Poiana Coţofeneşti (Romania), at southernmost end of Outer Eastern Carpathians (4th century BC)
• Silver helmet from Aghighiol (Romania), in the Danube delta (4th century BC)
• Golden treasure from Kul-Oba (Ukraine), in eastern Crimea (4th century BC)
• Golden bracelet from Sarmizegetusa (Romania), in Şureanu Mountains in Southern Carpathians (1st century BC-1st century AD)
• Jewellery of all kinds from Ukraine (1st century BC-1st century AD)
• Golden treasure from Pietroasele (Romania) (4th century AD), Outer Eastern Carpathians Daizus (talk) 11:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

• On the Germanic language of the tribes on Vistula: (p104) "It is now generally accepted that the Wielbark culture incorporated areas that, in the first 2 centuries AD, were dominated by Goths, Rugi and other Germani, even if its population had not originally been (or still was not) entirely Germanic-speaking". ( p105) "The Przeworsk system... has traditionally been associated with the Vandals... but was so large that it must have included several of the 1st/2nd c Germanic groupings mentioned by Tacitus and Ptolemy". ( p120) "[Kazimierz] Godlovski's work was instrumental in undermining an old orthodoxy that 'submerged' Slavs had always occupied Polish territory". ( p115) "[In the 1st and 2nd centuries], groups known as Goths (or perhaps Gothones or Guthones) inhabited lands... beside the Baltic... Philologists have no doubt, despite the varying transliterations into Greek and Latin, that it is the same group name that suddenly suddenly shifted its epicentre from northern Poland to the Black Sea in the 3rd century... other Germanic-speaking groups also participated [in the southwards migration]: the Heruli...Gepids, Vandals and Rugi. The Rugi, like the Goths, had occupied part of the Baltic littoral in the time of Tacitus and the likeliest location for the Vandals is north-central Poland..." ( p114) "There is no doubt that [the Goths] were Germanic-speaking... the Gothic Bible was produced b them by Ulfila [in the 4th c]... and its Germanic credentials are irrefutable".

Very tenuous. No source clearly mentions Goths or Rugi in Poland. This was all the work of later school of observers who all used the topos of a Scandinavian homeland. That the Goths 'came from' Poland or sth Baltic has no proof, neither archaeological, linguistic, nor contemporary literary, apart from some dubious word -play on the variation of Gota- Goths, etc. That the Goths spoke Germanic is no doubt, I agree, but that the Goths, and East Germanic, tracked from southern Scandinavia to the Black Sea by way of Poland, is ultimately unproven. F Kortland has argued that Germanic spread along the Danubian limes, and not down the Vistula; and Polsih linguists have made the point that, had the Polish Slavs arrived after Germanic speakers, then they'd be calling their rivers Oter (a/p Germanic sound shift, and not Oder. Moreover, a substantial number of archaeologists doubt the Wielbark -> Chernyakov process, primarily, becuase it is based on "negative features" Ie the absence of certain traits (such as weapon burials), rather than any actual positive correlation. All the Vandals, Goths, Quadi, etc are never clearly mentioned to have lived anywhere but the Danubian region flanking Rome. See None of them were Germans by R S Burns.

• On the Germanic language of Bastarnae: (p114-5) "This was not the first time that Germanic-speakers had provided the dominant stratum in the [Pontic] region. The Bastarnae, subdued by the Sarmatians around the start of the 1st millennium, had also been Germanic. In theory, therefore, it might be possible to explain the rise of Gothic domination north of the Black Sea in the 3rd c as the reemergence of those groups who had been subordinated here in the 1st c. However, an extensive

range of evidence suggests that the immigration of new Germanic-speakers played a vital role..."

possible, but the term Germanic is poorly used. "Germanic" must refer to language, properly used, and not type of pottery or burial rite (in which case were highly diverse anyway). AFAIK, there is no evidence what language the Basternae spoke, is there ?

• On Jordanes' linking Sclaveni to Venedi: (p396) "The idea that [Jordanes] invented the link to the Venedi on the basis of Tacitus... is not a demonstrable fact, and there are some telling points against it. Jordanes was the military secretary of an East Roman commander stationed on the Danube frontier at the very time that Slavic attacks were intensifying. He also provides... very precise information on the resettlement... of various population fragments from the wreck of Attila's empire. This... makes it far from implausible that he had authentic information on what the Slavs of the region understood about their own origins." EraNavigator (talk) 23:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

again, possibly, but the term was used over too long a period and too wide an area to have consistently refered to any distinct ethnos. I do think that Curta is perhaps a bit rash to entirely dismiss this link, after all, even if the ancient historians did modify/exaggerate, some 'grains of truth' must be held. Nevertheless, a comparitive example: the Saxons. The Saxons of the 2nd century AD are not the Saxons of Medieval times (Charlemagne's unruly subjects), who are not the same as the Saxon stamme of the Holy Roman Empire. Had we any less info, we'd think there's a continuity of Saxon ethnicity from Before Christ. However, thanks to archaeology, we now know that the area of 'Saxony' aroun 400 AD became almost entirely depopulated, and was re-settled from neighbouring Frisia and west Slavs around century or so later, thus the "Saxons" of Charlemagne were essentially a 'new people' carrying an old name. Similalry, the Saxons of the HRE were again a greatly modified people, whose borders were re-drawn/ artifically created to suite the administrative wished of the Emperor. Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Good points, SV. Here comes a longer refutation of many of these views, based mostly on quotes. We already move further away from the scope of this article, but true this discussion explores many sources and can trigger improvements in many articles. (on Bastarnae, Goths, Slavs, a.s.o.) The main point of my digression was to explore the theoretical approaches: archaeology between culture-history and post-processualism, identity and ethnicity between primordialism and instrumentalism, literary accounts taken at face value or read through lucid textual criticism.

Motto: Heather is hoist with his own scholarly petard (Halsall 2006, p. 282)

On Vandals and Przeworsk:

• Goffart 2006, p. 94: Out of scraps of Tacitus, Pliny, and Ptolemy, mixed with abusively interpreted archaeology, reasons were found for giving the Vandals Scandinavian origins and a long Polish sojourn.
• Halsall 2007, p. 129: Przeworsk culture associated, somewhat dubiously, with the Vandals.

On Wielbark, Jordanes and Goths in the Baltic area:

• Halsall 2007, pp. 132-3: The Černjachov culture is a mixture of all sorts of influences but most come from the existing cultures in the region. It has been argued that it evolves directly from the Wielbark culture of the lower Vistula and that the spread from Wielbark to Černjachov is archaeological proof of the Goths’ migration from the shores of the Baltic. This notion should not be entirely rejected but it needs considerable modification. The source for the Gothic migration from Scandinavia is Jordanes’ Getica, which is deeply problematic and certainly cannot be used as evidence for migration. The Wielbark culture begins earlier than the Černjachov but its later phases cover the same period as the latter. There is thus no chronological development from one to the other. Furthermore, although the Wielbark culture does spread up the Vistula during its history, its geographical overlap with the Černjachov is minimal. These facts make it improbable that the Černjachov culture was descended from the Wielbark. Although it is often claimed that Černjachov metalwork derives from Wielbark types, close examination reveals no more than a few types with general similarities to Wielbark analogues. Migration from the Wielbark territories is also proposed from the supposedly distinctive mix of cremation and inhumation. However, burial customs are rarely static and more than one area of barbaricum employed, at various times, a mixture of rites. The fourth century, in particular, saw widespread change in such practices. This evidence will not support the idea of a substantial migration.
• Kulikowski 2007, p. 63 sqq: The argument has been made most explicitly by Volker Bierbrauer: the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov archaeological culture is Gothic; some of its characteristics – particular brooch and ceramic types, a tendency not to place weapons in graves – are similar to those of the Wielbark culture, which was centred on the Vistula river and lasted from the first to the fourth century A.D.; the Wielbark culture must therefore also be Gothic. [...] The Wielbark elements in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture are no more numerous than other elements, so there is no archaeological reason to privilege them over others. [...] More importantly still, the closeness of the artefactual connections between the two cultures is not as great as is usually asserted. Indeed, their chief point of intersection is not particular artefacts, but the fact that weapon burials are absent from the Wielbark and rare in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zones. In purely logical terms, a negative characteristic is less convincing proof of similarity than a positive one, and the fact that weapon burials are commonest where archaeological investigation has been most intensive suggests that our evidentiary base is anything but representative. Given this, why should the Wielbark–Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov connection seem so self-evident to so many scholars? One answer is an old methodology that seeks to explain changes in material culture by reference to migration. The other is Jordanes. [...] If we did not have Jordanes, that connection would not seem self evident. Taken on purely archaeological grounds, without reference to our one piece of textual evidence, there is no reason to interpret the Wielbark and the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov cultures as close cousins. [...] How are we to interpret the origins of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture and the Gothic hegemony with which it coincides chronologically? Is there such a thing as Gothic history before the third century? The answer, at least in my view, is that there is no Gothic history before the third century. The Goths are a product of the Roman frontier, just like the Franks and the Alamanni who appear at the same time. That is clearly demonstrated by contemporary literary evidence, and indeed all the evidence of the fourth and fifth centuries – everything except the sixth-century Jordanes. [...] The rise to prominence of a few strong leaders created a stable political zone in which a single material culture came into being, synthesized from a variety of disparate traditions. None was more important than the others – as the material evidence clearly shows – and there is no need to look for ‘original’ Goths coming from elsewhere to impose their leadership and their identity on others. There were, of course, immigrants into the region where the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture arose, from elsewhere in northern and central Europe and from the steppe lands to the east as well. But none of them need themselves have been Goths, because there is no good evidence that Goths existed before the third century.
• Halsall 2006, p. 279: In his excellent Goths and Romans, Peter Heather demolished the idea that the Getica's picture of Gothic history could be projected further back than about 376 for the late Visigoths, or beyond the break-up of the Hunnic Empire for the Ostrogoths. However, Heather seems to have retreated slightly from his earlier position. Partly this is because he wishes to show that archaeology might indeed prove that Jordanes was right to trace Gothic origins to the Baltic. [...] His analyses irreparably damaged the Geticas value for Gothic 'prehistory' yet, to reinstate the Gothic migration from the Baltic, he has to accept the value of at least a kernel of Jordanes' account; he accepts this on the basis of a reading of archaeological data which is itself driven by the uncritical 'pre-Heatherian' interpretation of Jordanes. The problem, as with many readings of late antique Origines Gentium is the 'pick and mix' approach. The Getica contains all sorts of nonsense about Amazones, Goths at Troy, borrowings and manipulations of classical sources about the earlier Getae and so on. It is illogical to weed out these episodes for rejection, while accepting other clearly mythical elements, many similarly deriving from classical ethnography, as Heather acknowlegdes.
• Halsall 2006, p. 281: The movement of artefacts is interpreted in line with apriori notions drawn from Jordanes (for which see above). Thus the spread of artefacts up the Vistula (i.e. in the 'right' direction) is used as proof of migration, the movement of Černjachov artefacts from the Ukraine to the Baltic (i.e. in the 'wrong' direction) is presented as evidence of trade or exchange. [...] Rightly, Heather queries previous attempts to make 'precise ethnic attributions on the basis of individual artefacts'. Yet that is exactly his own approach. Grave 36 at Leţcani is 'presumably Gothic' because of a pot with a runic inscription in spite of the presence of other artefacts of quite different, Danubian origin. Why one pot with runes outweighs four Danubian wheel-turned pots is unclear. This is, though, an example of precise ethnic ascription being made on the basis of an individual artefact.
• Halsall 2006, p. 283 (not about Goths, but it applies to all 'Germanic' finds): To accept the 'Germanic' nature of such burials we have to assume some unifying pan-Germanic mentality or ethos which allows groups of 'Germans' suddenly to adopt an aspect of a supposedly common 'Germanic' material cultural 'heritage', even when they have never used it before, on the grounds that another group or groups within the huge area of 'Free Germany' at some time or other did bury their dead, or build their houses, in this way. This absurd idea underlies much of the alleged archaeological evidence of Barbarian migration.

On east and west, and on the southernmost presence of Germanic tribes by 1st century BC (were Cimbri, Teutones, Bastarnae and similar other tribes Germanic?):

• Riggsby 2006, p. 65: Central Gaul exhibits a uniform material culture (centered on oppida, "hill-towns", of the type recorded by Caesar at, e.g., Alesia), generally called La Tène after such a site in Switzerland. This same culture, however, extends east, far past the Rhine to the areas around Regensburg, Prague, and even beyond. La Tène sites appear from the Alps to the Danube to the Main, slowly fading out for the most part around the Lippe. In areas far north, such as Jutland, we find numerous sites of another culture, poorer and less advanced, which could conceivably be made to correspond to Caesar's Germans. In between the two, the finds tend to be intermediate in type. In any case, the main distinctions are north/south, not east/west, and there is no single, sharp dividing line. The "Germans", if that is who they are, are technically east of the Rhine, but only by virtue of being so far north. The linguistic evidence, drawn primarily from proper names, is largely consistent with this picture. In particular, it confirms that the Southerners, east and west, were uniformly Celtic speakers. It is true that in places, La Tène peoples came to be displaced by "Germans", and that this tended to happen east of the Rhine, but these changes date largely after Caesar's time. In fact, it may be that the Roman conquest (and its restriction of migration in northern Europe for several succeeding centuries) helped to constitute precisely the rigid and east/west distinction between Gauls and Germans that Caesar had described earlier.

On Iron Age Eastern Europe as advanced as Western (i.e. "Celtic") Europe (hillforts, pottery, iron weaponry and tools, etc. and "signs of surplus"):

• Oltean 2007, p. 115: In the early Iron Age (Hallstatt) Transylvania had some of the largest fortified settlements in Europe at that time (30 hectares enclosed at Ciceu-Corabia for instance) capable of accommodating a large population. [...] For some reason the later evolution saw the return of small-sized enclosures. But rather than indicating a decrease in population, this opposite evolution in Dacia could relate to a change in the social structure and the devevelopment of aristocratic/royal sites. Dacian hillforts are invariably related to the social elite and this is largely supported by the finds coming from such contexts, with luxury items including fine pottery (even painted pottery), imported goods and coinage, but their function has been less explored. Associated finds and amenities in their ancillary settlement (workshops, sanctuaries, public spaces, etc.) indicate that some of them had complex functions, but only at Sarmizegetusa Regia has it been estimated that craftsmanship managed to surpass the central role of agriculture.
• Oltean 2007, p. 117: The social elite did not necessarily hold a monopoly on craftsmanship as a whole, although their residences did attract industries, especially metallurgy and pottery. At both Deva and Costeşti, pottery kilns were located within the open settlement around the hillforts, along with evidence of metallurgy (iron, bronze, silver and gold).

On philologists doubting that "despite the varying transliterations into Greek and Latin, that it is the same group name that suddenly suddenly shifted its epicentre from northern Poland to the Black Sea in the 3rd century":

• Christensen 2002, p. 343: This study has shown that neither the Greeks nor the Romans had any original knowledge whatsoever of a people called the Goths. They might possibly have been mentioned in some geographical and ethnographical works dating from the first century AD, but the similarity in the names is not significant, and no antique author later considers them to be the forefathers of the Goths. No one tells of how the Γούτωνες (Strabo), Gutones (Pliny), Gotones (Tacitus), or Γύτωνες (Ptolemy) wandered southwards and became the fearsome Gothi. No one sees this connection, even during the Great Migration. [...] The Goths surface in the Graeco-Roman historiography in various unrelated notes from the middle of the third century, in the area around the lower reaches of the Danube. Before this time we cannot say with any certainty that a people existed whom we routinely refer to as Goths.

On Jordanes having no precise information on the geography and the history north of Danube (neither Gothic, nor Slavic):

• Christensen 2002, p. 349: When confronting a text such as the Getica, and when we are able to conclude that it is not what it purports to be - namely a history of the Goths - we naturally find our options reduced to a single logical course of action: we must reject the text as a source of Gothic history. [...] Today we are able to conclude that this narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framework and the context of the story.
• Curta 1999, p. 326 sqq: In an attempt to establish an ancient origin for the Slavs, Jordanes talks of Venethi, Procopius of Spori. Procopius classifies Sclavenes and Antes as nomads, Jordanes gives them swamps and forests for cities. Procopius insists in locating the Sclavenes close to the Danube frontier of the empire. In contrast, Jordanes knows that the abode of the Sclavenes extends northward as far as the Vistula. Procopius maintains that the Sclavenes and the Antes "are not ruled by one man, but they have lived from of old under a democracy", Jordanes gives the Antes a king, Boz. [...] Both Procopis and Jordanes had a rather vague, often erroneous idea about the territories beyond the Danube frontier. [...] Jordanes describes Scythia as reaching even to the rivers Tyra, Danaster, and Vasogola," without noticing that Tyras and Danaster are two names for the same river. [...] Jordanes claims that Venethi is one of the three current names (tria nunc nomina ediderunt). He repeats nunc when claiming that they, the Venethi, are raging in war far and wide. [...] He thus goes as far as to imply that Venethi was a name still in use during his lifetime. That this is not true is proved by contemporary evidence, first of all by Procopius, who only knows of Sclavenes and Antes. In his "Romana," Jordanes himself only speaks of Bulgars, Sclavenes, and Antes. His audience must have been familiar with attacks by Sclavenes and Antes, but might never heard of Venethi. The reference to Venethi may therefore be interpreted as an attempt to link the narrative of the Gothic history to current concerns. [...] Moreover, when compared to Procopius, Jordanes' account of the Slavs is rather poor. Besides locating them in Scythia, the only thing Jordanes seems to know about Sclavenes is that they have swamps and woods for cities, a passage that has distant parallel in Tacitus' description of the wooded and mountainous country raided by Venedi.

More on the languages and the origins of the Goths in Ostrogothic Italy:

• Amory 1997, p. 107: The king [Theoderic] expresses astonishment and delight that the soldier and minister Cyprian learned nostra lingua and taught it to his children: learning the language was unusual. Another Italian commander much praised by the king, Liberius, is recorded as having done no such thing, but he seems to have had no difficulty leading troops. All the king's letters to soldiers and the army are written in Latin. To be sure, perhaps they were read aloud or translated, but we have references to no readers, translators or problems in communication. Nor need we hypothesize any. With the army's absorption of Italian troops, intermarriage, recruitment and civilian connections, many soldiers need not have known a non-Latin tongue at all, let alone had the barely attested spoken Gothic as a first language.
• Goffart 2006b, p. 226: However alien Jordanes would later have them look, Totila's Gothic followers were not foreigners to the land they fought over. They must all have been Italian-born, perhaps of Italian-born parents; Gothicness, to them, could not be something hatched even as far away as Theoderic's Pannonian birthplace.

On the communities for which Wulfila's Bible was written:

• Matthews 1989, p. 331: That the Goths as a nation were still heathen up to the time of their entry to the Roman empire in 376 is widely accepted, nor does Ammianus imply otherwise. It is evident that they contained some Christians, the missionary work of Ulfila, especially among prisoners of war and other Roman expatriates among them, having produced a considerable number of converts and Christian communities; but one would not imagine that these formed more than a minority of the population at large, nor that they penetrated to any great extent the higher echelons of Gothic society. Many Christians would have been the expatriates just mentioned, their names having been identified as Asian or Syrian, rather than Gothic in origin. Gothic converts are however recorded, such as the Inna, Rema and Pinna, Wereca and Batwin and others mentioned in Gothic martyrologies. It is a reflection of both the modest size of Christian communities and the unassuming social status of their members that apart of Ulfila, who after a seven-year mission abandoned Gothia under persecution in 347/8 and never returned (Constantius settled him and his followers near Nicopolis in Moesia), the Christians among the Goths were led by presbyters rather than bishops; we saw that this was the case in the village communities mentioned in the Passion of St. Saba.

On the inexistent "German" ethnos:

• Kulikowski 2007, p. 59: Nothing in our sources, even filtered through an interpretatio romana as they are, suggests that the later empire’s Germani felt any kinship amongst themselves, or that Goths and Sarmatians, both Scythians in our sources, were aware of any similarities between themselves.

On the homeland of Gothic language:

• Here are some perspectives and arguments suggested by Frederik Kortlandt. He's a linguist, so I won't quote or assess his historical arguments - what's important here is that Gothic seems a language originating in Central Europe, "in the southernmost part of the Germanic territories, not in Scandinavia". The main arguments seem to be:

- "Gothic is closer to Upper German than to Middle German, closer to High German than to Low German, closer to German than to Scandinavian, closer to Danish than to Swedish"

- "Gothic phonology resembles that of Latin and Romance more than that of the other Germanic languages"

- "Greek words usually appear in their Latin form in Gothic, which points to a western origin of the Goths"

- "Baltic loanwords from Gothic were transmitted through Slavic, which suggests that the Balts never had direct contact with the Goths but were separated from them by the Slavs"

On spoken Gothic language and Germanic dialects:

• Kulikowski 2007, p. 68: Language probably made a difference, and when Gothic was codified as a written religious language in the fourth century, the use of the Gothic Bible will surely have identified its user as a Goth as well as a Christian. But languages can be acquired and many of the philologically Germanic languages spoken in central Europe were mutually intelligible. We have no sources to tell us that specifically Gothic idioms or accents could be used to tell a Goth from a Gepid on the Danube frontier – perhaps they could not.
• Amory 1997, p. 103: The spoken language called "Gothic" and attributed to some sixth-century soldiers need not have had much in common with the written biblical and liturgical "Gothic". The spoken language presumably came from the Balkans, where groups speaking various Germanic dialects had settled since the late 300s. These dialects were mutually intelligible.
• Amory 1997, p. 106: Given that all references to spoken Gothic occur in a military context, a Mediterranean-wide military context, perhaps this "Gothic" refers to the pidgin of the Mediterranean armies. As we have seen, Procopius attributes the name of the language to Byzantine soldiers, but also to the Vandals, Gepids, Visigoths and Goths (Ostrogoths), all of whom served as soldiers in the Mediterranean. Armies can develop a pidgin or cant of their own when moving around and taking in wide recruits speaking different languages. The Roman army of preceding centuries had had a specialized Latin with a large vocabulary incomprehensible to the layman. Some of this Latin military slang had penetrated the fourth-century Balkan Germanic tongue that formed the basis of Ulfila's translation of the Bible in the fourth-century Balkans.

John Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (1989)

Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 (1997)

Florin Curta, "Hiding behind a piece of tapestry: Jordanes and the Slavic Venethi" in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 47 (1999), pp. 321-340

Arne Søby Christensen, Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the history of the Goths: studies in a migration myth (2002)

Andrew M. Riggsby, Caesar in Gaul and Rome: war in words (2006)

Thomas F. X. Noble, From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (2006). The chapters of Walter Goffart, "Does the distant past impinge on the invasion age Germans?", pp. 91-109 and Guy Halsall, "Movers and shakers: the barbarians and the fall of Rome", pp. 277-291

Walter Goffart, Barbarian tides: the migration age and the later Roman Empire (2006)

Ioana A. Oltean, Dacia. Landscape, colonisation and romanisation (2007)

Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 (2007)

Michael Kulikowski, Rome's Gothic Wars: from the third century to Alaric (2007)

Thus many of Heather's counter-arguments are shown to be either speculative (Goths migrating from the Baltic shores) or counterfactual (Iron Age Eastern Europe having a primitive economy with no metalworking, fine pottery, surplus, a.s.o.) Daizus (talk) 09:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Overlordship and identities

• On the Hunnic empire (p263) " The historical evidence... makes it clear that becoming part of the Hunnic empire did not mean that one became a Hun. The empire was essentially an unequal, involuntary confederation. All the participating non-Huns that we know about were forced to join, were systematically exploited under its auspices and eventually forced their way free of its domination" (p230) "For some scholars... group identities within this multicultural empire were infinitely malleable...the original nomadic core and the largely Germanic-speaking contingents who bulked out Attila's manpower all came to share fully in the same Hunnic group identity". ( p231) "[But it is clear that] larger group identities were not broken by participation [in the empire]. The Huns themselves had a basic interest in maintaining these identities, since being a Hun was to occupy a position of privilege..."( p238) "The empire was destroyed from within, when its various subject peoples reasserted their independence militarily after Attila's death. If they had all been subsumed voluntarily into an equal Hunnic identity, why would this have happened?"

• On the Gothic kingdom: (p166-7) "the Tervingi [Goths] comprised a dominant Germanic-speaking Gothic elite, most able to trace their origins back to the 3rd c immigrants, with dependent freedmen ans slaves of various origins closely tied to them. Alongside... these Goths "proper" existed many communities descended from the older indigenous populations of the region. They had certainly been subdued by the Goths...may well have paid them tributes, but were probably largely autonomous..."

• On the Avar empire: (p443) "the Avar empire was... [similarly to the Hunnic empire] a hegemony, established by military conquest and maintained by intimidation". ( p444) "Avar domination was something that many Slavic groups wanted to avoid - or to throw off... [as did] the Sorbs...under Samo".

To the above quote has to be added the testimony of Fredegar, that in battle the Avars would stay in camp and watch while their Slavic subjects did the fighting, and that nevertheless the Avars would keep all the campaign booty for themselves. Also that "every year the Avars would winter with the Slavs and sleep with the latter's wives and daughters, and in addition the Slavs paid tribute and endured many other burdens". NB If these Avars do not qualify as "overlords", who does?

( p443) "[there were] numerous instances of the determined efforts of Avar khagans not to lose face even in defeat, since any sign of weakness was a signal for... disaffected subjects to rebel". (Gives example of siege of Constantinople in 626: after the failure of the final Avar plan, the Avars slaughtered large numbers of their Slavic foot-soldiers as scapegoats).

Bollocks. Heather has not read the sources. From Priscus' embassy to Huns:

This man, on the contrary, resembled a well-to-do Scythian, being well dressed, and having his hair cut in a circle after Scythian fashion. Having returned his salutation, I asked him who he was and whence he had come into a foreign land and adopted Scythian life. When he asked me why I wanted to know, I told him that his Hellenic speech had prompted my curiosity. Then he smiled and said that he was born a Greek and had gone as a merchant to Viminacium, on the Danube, where he had stayed a long time, and married a very rich wife. But the city fell a prey to the barbarians, and he was stript of his prosperity, and on account of his riches was allotted to Onegesius in the division of the spoil, as it was the custom among the Scythians for the chiefs to reserve for themselves the rich prisoners. Having fought bravely against the Romans and the Acatiri, he had paid the spoils he won to his master, and so obtained freedom. He then married a barbarian wife and had children, and had the privilege of eating at the table of Onegesius. [so contrary to Heather's empty rhetoric, as the other authors pointed out, fighting in a barbarian army was a way of gaining freedom and rights and this born Greek merchant was for all purposes a Hun (a Scythian to Priscus)]

Matthews 1989, p. 326 (the book is mentioned in the previous section): It would not be surprising if the Gothic federations, like their settlements, were more varied in composition than first impresions might suggest. According to Ammianus, the Huns killed and despoiled many of their Alan rivals and took the rest into alliance (31.3.1) - a pattern of warfare and accomodation among the barbarian peoples that must have been very frequent in the turmoil of this unsettled period.

Then there's evidence of Hunnic generals and chiefs having Germanic names, most famous is Attila himself. As for Goths, there's rich evidence (some quoted above) that in the Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms, many Romans and non-Gothic barbarians had high positions in the Gothic society. There's also evidence for volunteers.

Heather's marxist and anachronic fantasies of "nations" oppressed by other "nations" ("Avar domination was something that many Slavic groups wanted to avoid - or to throw off") are so laughable that they are usually ignored when not ridiculed by other scholars (see some of the quotes I presented above). When Heather writes of "the Sorbs...under Samo" he fails to notice Samo was a Frankish merchant, not a "Slav" throwing off Avar domination. Daizus (talk) 15:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's see what scholars who know something about Avar society have to say. From Tivadar Vida's "Conflict and coexistence. The local population of the Carpathian Basin under Avar rule (sixth to seventh century)", in Florin Curta and Roman Kovalev (eds.), The Other Europe in the Middle Ages. Avars. Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans (2008), pp. 13-46:

• p. 29: There is ample evidence for advanced social stratification within the Avar qaganate. Lavishly furnished “princely” burials stand out among poorer graves of common wariors, and the structure of many cemeteries with several hundred burials strongly suggests social differentiation. What remains unclear is the relationship between the ruling Avar aristocracy and the local population. There are several mentions in Byzantine sources of Gepids fighting in the Avar army. No indication exists in the archaeological record that these were slaves of the Avar, nor can burial assemblages with weapons found in Pannonia be interpreted as an indication of anything less than free men.
• p. 32: In my opinion the theory of the transplanted POWs does not work with the existing archaeological evidence. The wealth of the cemetery by the horreum of the Late Roman fort in Keszthely-Fenékpuszta, which is outstanding even by early Byzantine standards, cannot be easily reconciled with the idea of an enslaved population of prisoners. It is also very unlikely that the captives brought from the Balkans would have been moved to such a strategically important location, undoubtedly a hub of trade and cultural routes. Much more persuading is Walter Pohl’s interpretation of the Keszthely culture as an “island culture” formed in a foreign milieu and playing the role of a cultural bridge between the nomadic traditions of East European origin and the local traditions of Central and Southeast European character.
• p. 40 The ethnic melting-pot of the early Avar history is well documented in written sources. For no more than a couple of generations, the Avar qaganate was in fact a more or less odd mosaic of groups with different traditions and political aspirations. The “Germanic” and “Roman” components of that mosaic seem to have been much more prominent than previously assumed. By means of a refined chronology, it is possible to monitor the process and to see how from initially clearly distinguished cultural groups, a new culture emerged after ca. 600 by means of contact, integration, and acculturation, integration. The first traces of cultural syncretism cannot be dated earlier than the first three decades of the seventh century, but the process of cultural unification and “standardization” did not start in earnest before the second third of the that century. By 670, most “Germanic” and “Roman” traditions have completely disappeared, making room for the Middle Avar culture of a distinctly East European appearance.

In other words by 670 the "subjects of the Avars" became "Avars". Daizus (talk) 22:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Non sequitur. A common material culture does not necessarily imply a common ethnic identity (come on, we've been over this ground before!) Nothing in the archaeological record excludes the scenario of the Avar realm continuing to be ruled by a Turkic tribal elite. Non-Turks could, no doubt, in some cases attain high status, but only by marrying a Turk (to the extent that this was permitted: probably intermarriage was limited to non-Turkic females). Evidence: Avar khans continued to carry Turkic names and there is no record of a khan with a Slavic name. EraNavigator (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You don't understand. The early Avars had a specific settlement pattern and a specific material culture brought with them from the steppes. Their subjects had also their specific settlement patterns and their specific material culture ("Roman", "Germanic", etc.) After few generations all these differences faded away, evidence that the bearers of the two cultures intermingled. It would be absurd to claim Avars maintained "biological purity" but instead they forgot their ancestral rites and culture and replaced them with a new culture strongly influenced by their subjects. It is also absurd to claim that the well-defined communities like Keszthely abandoned their culture (in this case a Christian one!) and embraced a new culture, only because their evil overlords oppressed them. Besides we have plenty of examples from Goths, Huns, Alans and many other barbarian confederacies that subjects could attain high status. "Intermarriage was limited to non-Turkic females" is nonsense, it is demolished by Priscus' story above: a born Greek merchant proved himself in battles, earned his freedom, married a Hun woman, and became one of Onegesius' close commanders/soldiers (eating at his table).

As for onomastic evidence, you're wrong again. We don't even know the names of all Avar khagans (Bayan can be a title as well, in modern Chuvash puyan means "rich (person)" and apparently some scholars derived it from a proto-form *bayan). In fact we know so little of early Avars, that some scholars assume they spoke an Iranian language. Daizus (talk) 16:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Priscus' tale: note that the former wealthy merchant Greek did not marry a "Scythian" (ie Hun), but just a "barbarian" (ie non-Greco-Roman), who could be any non-Hunnic inhabitant of Hunno-Carpathia: a Gepid, Goth, Sarmatian, Dacian etc. Also, as Heather points out, the experiences of high-status Greco-Roman captives cannot represent the position of the Huns' subjects. The Greek would have been given VIP treatment because of his social status and his literacy and education, which would have been useful to his master, enhancing his prestige. As regards the khans, several names survive (eg Tudun, Yugurush, Katun) all are Turkic, none Iranian. So are the tamgas found in Avar graves.EraNavigator (talk) 20:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Heather is wrong again, this Greek was enslaved ("allotted to Onegesius in the division of the spoil") and his high status only made him prisoner to a chief ("as it was the custom among the Scythians for the chiefs to reserve for themselves the rich prisoners"). His prestige did not come from literacy and education, but from martial prowess and gifts or payments ("Having fought bravely against the Romans and the Acatiri, he had paid the spoils he won to his master, and so obtained freedom.") Daizus (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

All what you call Avar names, are in fact titles. Among the Avars there are some people with high status (certainly not slaves) with non-Turkic names such as Kunimon, an envoy of Bayan (whose name can be a form of the Gepidic Kunimund). Also in 796 we have a mention of the councillor of the Avar khagan Unguimeri who bears a Germanic name (Inguimer). Daizus (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Avar/non-Avar biological apartheid would have been assisted (as it was in S. Africa) by the fact that the Avars were racially, not just culturally, distinct from their Caucasian subjects: they were slitty-eyed Mongoloids. In the words of an exhibition-guide produced by the Inst of Archaeology (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) : "in the upper stratum of Avar society, the Mongoloid anthropological type prevails". EraNavigator (talk) 20:47, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I have a Hungarian physical antrhopology paper on the Avars from various settlements - looking at those in "Avar" burials, etc; they were mixed. Some were indeed East Asian appearance, others were Dinaric., Nordic, Meditteranean, Iranian. Like with the Scythians, there is no proof that Avars came from Mongolia. People did;nt just migrate across entire continents. Even nomads had well defined, rather limited, ecologicaly bound transmigration routes. The Ruanruan-Avar thesis is a load of s*@t. The Avars were from the Ponto-Caspian region, just like all European nomads. And they probably spoke Slavic that is why there are no Turkic toponyms in Hungary pre-dating the Arpad arrival, and that is why that Slavic language suddenly 'exploded' during this period. IT must have been the lingua Avaria; just like Latin was the lingua Roma.

EN, let's read that paper, shall we?

• "Though it happens only rarely that all of the elements can be traced at one site, people of different origins and cultures inhabited the same settlements and used common cemeteries, forming many-sided contacts. The material and spiritual culture of these peoples was characterized by continuous changes and interrelations, it was strongly influenced by the civilisations surrounding them, like Byzantium, Iran and China. In the Carpathian Basin, we can trace the colourful mosaic of ethnic and cultural traditions of foreign origin up till the late 6th and early 7th century. Later on, acculturation and integration occurred." [no apartheid!]
• And as usual your quotes are fabricated: "In the leading stratum of Avar society, the Mongoloid anthropological element prevails. " (leading meaning khagans and the topmost ranks; among soldiers and other free men there's no evidence of prevailing anthropological elements, see SV's comment just above) Daizus (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I have another paper written by a Hungarian scholar in 1970s, overall Mongoloids comprise 16% throughout Avar period, although this varies with settlements, and many settlements are "purely Europoid". Ullo I peaks at 41% for Mongoloids. The entire basis on which "leading" members/ clans of Avar society was made is on presumption of archaeological finds, ie those with griffin and tendril belt mounts are "Asian nobles" vs those with bow belt mounts; itself a questionable basis. Nevertheless, the book does suggest that 'pure Avars" were decidedly Mongoloid, specifically hailing from Trans-Baikal region. I wouldn't think many modern scholars would make too much of this other than showing its mixed nature. Interestingly, I have always that that this female Serbian tennis player has some faint Mongoloid features left over ? from the Avars :) Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC) [1]

Re: Avar archaeology: Dazius you're correct in that identifiable 'ethnic' elements disappeared after early Avar period, however, each site & region was nevertheless varied, as expected. As you mentioned, previous decidedly "Germanic" , "East Roman" etc features dissolved. What's more, by the 8th century, the Carpathian/ Pannonian basin was densely settled. A thriving, poly-ethnic empire indeed. It is during this latter time when mentions of Avar raids cease and they are barely mentioned in chronicles, is after the 630 disaster at the gates of Constantinople. Despite reverberations, the Empire 'settled down' and began to flourish

There are hardly any names of Avars other than a few Germanic names and Zabenger - the Kutrigur envoy. We have Bayan which was the name (? title) of the leader and his sons. It might mean "wealthy" in Mongoloid. However, neither this, nor chaganus proves that they were "Mongol" stock, coz if we recall, the Rus leader was called a chaganus by the Franks, he certainly wasn;t a mongol. Also check this paper out by D Sinor [2]; very good about "Asian" origins of Avars and Huns and etymologies, etc Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

More overlordship and identities

Thank you, Slovenski, for providing scientific evidence which supports the overlords scenario: "the Mongoloid element constitutes 14% [of burials found] throughout the Avar era ". If, as Dz claims, the ethnic groups mixed freely, then the proportion of skeletons identified as Mongoloid would have declined over time as they mingled with the indigenous Caucasian majority. In fact, given that the original Mongoloid immigrants probably did not exceed 1% to 5% of the total population, one would, in a free intermarriage scenario, expect the Mongoloid element to effectively disappear over the 300 years (15 generations) that the Avars ruled the Hungarian Plain. The fact that instead, the Mongoloid proportion held steady can only be explained by restrictions on intermarriage and/or the continued influx of new Mongoloid immigrants into the region. Most likely the latter would have been other Avars invited by the established ones, precisely in order to keep up the numbers of the ruling elite.EraNavigator (talk) 17:00, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You're again abusing the quote: "14% of the burials found throughout the Avar era", not "14% throughout the era". The "the Mongoloid proportion did not held steady", there was no continuous flux of "fresh Avars" from Central Asia coming in. Daizus (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The link between high status and Mongoloids is proven by the fact that the latter constitute a far greater proportion of high status graves than is proportionate to their likely share of the total population. Thus the figures are consistent with a privileged, racially-defined ruling class (although one would need a more up-to-date, statistically rigorous and sophisticated analysis of the achaeological data to confirm this.

As regards to the common culture=common identity scenario, let me quote Heather again (the following remarks concern the Hunnic empire, but are applicable to its Avar successor, which ruled much the same region and which Heather considers largely similar in nature and structure:

• (p237) "Nor...is the view of the Hunnic empire which emerges from the historical evidence - one riven with internal tension between ruler and ruled - remotely contradicted by the archaeological evidence, even if you take the [unproven] view that the Huns' invisibility stems from their...starting to bury their dead in ways [similar to] their Germanic subjects".
• "Everyone is now clear...that individual groups cannot be assumed to each have their own diistinctive material culture. But it is sometimes assumed that if a...culture does not show any clear differences, then there cannot have been any clear distinctions of identity within it. But this is just an inverse application of the mistaken assumption...that distinct groups should have distinct culture".
• "The whole point of the Huns in conquering Goths, Gepids, Heruli and others was to turn them into subjects whose military and economic potential could be...exploited. If they were all allowed to become fully-fledged free Huns...the overall benefit to the Huns from their initial conquests would have been lost."

I'm sure that the Avars was stratified and exploitative; however, Im not sure this operated on a 'racial' basis. Rather, as with all nomadic confederacies, this was on a "Clan" base. ie the level of standing of the individual clan one came from; not whether they were "slanty-eyed" or not. And I think the Avar's of 568 were probably different to the Avars of 750 AD Slovenski Volk (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's read Ammianus' Roman History, XXXI, 3, 1: "Therefore the Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who are called Tanaitae, and having slain many of them and acquired much plunder, they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who remained. And when they had united them to themselves, with increased boldness they made a sudden, incursion into the extensive and fertile districts of Ermenrichus, a very warlike prince, and one whom his numerous gallant actions of every kind had rendered formidable to all the neighbouring nations." Daizus (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

More studies contradicting EN and Heather's theory:

• [3] p. 89 on Huns: "According to his [Bartucz's] opinion the Gepids inhabiting the territory of later day Hungary were not only in close contact with the Huns on the political and trade level, but these peoples lived in a state of strong racial amalgamation, too. [...] Skull deformation was a widespread custom among the Gepids (21 of the 54 skulls examined were deformed), that they took over from the Huns living with them. It was present in all six groups identified within this population, but its ratio was the highest among the Mongoloids. [...] The Gepid cemeteries of the Hungarian Plain contained Mongolid deformed skulls as well as Nordic ones." but p. 90: "We have very few Hun finds, archeological and anthropological as well. The Huns spent only a brief period in the Central Danubian Basin, therefore no Hun cemeteries of any size worth mentioning were uncovered. Only the skeletal material of a limited number of Hun graves became known."
• same study, p. 90 on Avars: "Bartucz (1934) was the first scholar to go one step further beyond the analysis of individual cemeteries and to attempt the formation of a general anthropological image of the Avars. He declared that the Avars were characterized by a heavily mixed racial composition." on p. 91: "Lipták paid the most attention to the Turanid (South-Siberian) and to the Ural types from the Europo-Mongoloids. None of the two had much significance in the Avar Period, but they were dominant among the conquering Hungarians. Lipták identified and described in detail three kinds among the Mongoloids of the Avar Period: the Northern-Chinese (Chinid), the Central Asian Mongol and the palaeo-Siberian types. He considered the two later types the key components of Avar Period Mongolids. [...] "Lipták went on refining his taxonomical system and he establihed five types of Avar Period Mongoloids in the Carpathian Basin. These were: Chinid (Far Eastern Mongoloid), Baykal (Palaeosiberian), Tungid (Broad-faced Mongoloid), Jenysej (Americanoid) and Central Asiatic (Northern Mongoloid) types." and more recent research p. 93: "Fóthi (1998) carried out examinations by systematic cluster analysis. She placed the Avar Period population of the Central Danubian Basin in the focus of her analysis. She took 224 series under consideration. Anything resembling a permanent Mongolid population appeared with the arrival of the Avar in the Central Danubian Basin, and the author classified this group as the “true” Avar. This people probably evolved from two tribes, as the differing similarity circles of its two main components, the Sajanian and Baykal elements, indicated it." (so the Avar slit-eyes overlords were of different origins themselves) and as I said, the people intermingled: "The majority of Avar Period Transdanubian individuals were long-skulled and tall in stature. This group has a common feature: they all had analogies in the Pannon autochton peoples and Germanic Periods of the Central Danubian Basin, and among the Slavic peoples. The Avar Period groups who populated the regions to the east of the Danube were mostly new elements in the history of the Central Danubian Basin. The 8th century inhabitants of the Danube-Tisza interfluvial were one of the most markedly characteristic groups of the whole Avar Period. They simply had no analogy whatsoever in the Central Danubian Basin, but also no parallel in the Eurasian steppe populations. Fóthi proposed the view that most probably this characteristic type came into being as a result of local evolution. The Danube-Tisza region already had a Europid population and they intermingled with a low-skulled, mongolid (possibly Tungid) group. The process took something like 200 years."
• [4] p. 147: "Seventy-seven graves of a Late Avar Age cemetery were excavated near Jászberény (Hungary) in 2006. Bones of 23 males, 30 females, 24 children and juvenile individuals of undeterminable sex were examined in this study." and p. 161: "Each excavated individual from Jászberény-Disznózug is reckoned into the Europid taxon. Altogether three individuals (objects 36, 46, 92) have some features that are common in Europomongolids or Mongolids (e.g. shovel-shape teeth, flat fossa canina, typical-shaped nasal bones)." (so again mixture: in this cemetery out of 77 individuals 3 have Mongolids features)
• [5] p. 387: "In the medieval necropolis of Vicenne (Italy) among 130 skeletons, thirteen horsemen, recognized on the basis of the contextual burials with horse, have been found. This rite, rarely found in Europe, recalls an Asian rite, attested from the Iron Age to the Age of Migration in nomadic Asian populations. Local and Germanic goods were also found. In order to study the anthropological composition of this population, some morphometrical skeletal features have been analyzed. Heterogeneity both in the horsemen and in the other males of the necropolis has been observed. Besides the multicultural context testified by archaeological data, a multiethnic society seems to emerge by the anthropological analysis. [...] The early medieval necropolis (7th–8th C.) of Vicenne-Campochiaro is an important site in Central Italy because of the presence of material attributable to the Asian cultural context in addition to the Lombard one." and "We found heterogeneity both in the horsemen and in the other males. Both the samples showed morphometric heterogeneity and some individuals present biological characteristics resembling Central Asian typologies. This suggests some crossing between the autochthonous, Germanic and Oriental populations and makes it difficult, if not impossible, to associate specific cultural elements to a particular group. The multicultural picture observed in the necropolis by the archaeologists does not prevent us from recognizing that the horsemen may have had a special role, as shown, not only by the contextual grave with the horse and some burial goods, but also by the observations of particular habits and behavior (anomalous lingual wear) that could suggest a restricted social group." (please note: two 'social groups', both heterogenous)
• [6] p. 4: "Among the 254 individuals examined, 73 women and 73 men were found.", p. 5: "There were 25 male and 11 female skulls suitable for detailed analysis. Male and female skulls show similar taxonomical characteristics, in similar portions. This could be a very unified population from the taxonomical aspect. The skulls analysed all belong to the Europid type. We could not carry out a clear-cut classification in the majority of cases, as most of the skulls belong to intermediate groups. On the other hand the taxons taking part in the mingling are markedly traceable. These are Nordic, Mediterranean, and Cromagnoid A in the sequence of their ratios. [...] The anthropological image of the Kaposvár Avar Period population is presumably created from the intermingling of the ethnic groups that were co-inhabiting Transdanubia for centuries."
• [7] p. 619: (citing other works): "Toward the demise of the Avars, it is reasonable to assume that the individuals had, during their lifetimes, interbred with other ethnic groups that ultimately became their masters with the consequence that the sample studied was probably not ethnically homogeneous." Daizus (talk) 16:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Well done on all the studies. Slovenski Volk (talk) 20:51, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually some of Heather's claims are more nuanced, but EN distorted them through his cherry-picking and eliminating inconvenient information (and thus creating an illusory ignorance of sources). The quote from p. 237 is "The whole point of the Huns in conquering Goths, Gepids, Heruli and others was to turn them into subjects whose military and economic potential could be harnessed and exploited. If they were all allowed to become fully-fledged free Huns like the former Roman merchant ..." What Roman merchant? The one I mentioned already, see also Heather, p. 235-6: "All of this has strong implications for the operation of group identities within the Hunnic Empire. They were not unchanging. Priscus' former Greek merchant shows that it was possible for particularly succesful individual slaves to rise to full free status among the Huns - that is, to pass across pre-existing divides in status and identity. But the original Hunnic core was itself at this times experiencing substantial changes in group identity. I mentioned earlier that as far as we can tell, its original identity was based on immediate loyalty to a series of ranked kings, whose association created the larger group, but these lower-level identities were swept away by the political restructuring that came with the rise of the dynasty of Rua and Attila." I still think Heather's argument about Huns, Goths and Gepids is speculative, as he brings no evidence. But at least he admits the story of Priscus as evidence for a slave rising to "full free status among the Huns".

Now, even though Heather is fully aware of the literary sources, apparently he is not familiar with Eastern European archaeology (and sites) and his research was restricted to few works readily available in English (or maybe even less than that). For example at pag. 446 Heather writes: "Recent excavations of the early Slavic village of Dulcinea in Wallachia have shown that this settlemetn of ten to fifteen houses shifted its site on several occasions in response to the need to open up new arable fields." and also p. 683 in an end-note (so we can be sure it's not a typo!): "On Dulcinea see Curta (2006), 56-7". However there's no Dulcinea in Wallachia! The village's name is Dulceanca (see Curta 2006, p. 57) and there's no evidence this was a "Slavic village", at least not according to Heather. Heather objects to Curta's theory that Slavs were a new identity formed near the Roman border (where Dulceanca is also located) and instead makes them migrants from the north (the "Korchak migrants" as he calls them). In this case to call this village "Slavic", he must equate the material culture with ethnic groups, which is something he argues against when he writes about Huns or other groups. As Halsall so eloquently put it, Heather is hoist with his own petard. Daizus (talk) 23:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

although he is probably just following literary sources and general historiography that groups called "Slavs" lived in Wallachia in 6th century, whether we can say those in Dulcanea were is the same as asking whether those who lived in 2nd century upper Lipita were Costoboci (perhaps, more secure for the former) 203.10.55.11 (talk) 05:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

In general perhaps he does that. But not on this particular issue. It's also wrong to write of "recent excavations" because the Dulceanca sites were excavated in the late 60s and the 70s (not sure about the dates, just checking the bibliography in Curta 2001). And also in that chapter Heather makes several such mistakes, e.g. Dabritas instead of Dauritas (on pages 424, 682 and 723), indicative of a poor bibliography, rather based on hearsay and sloppy notes than on other scholarly materials and careful examination of primary sources. Heather's patchy bibliography is most obvious when he writes things like "there do seem to be more, slightly earlier, datable imports in Podolia than in Curta's favoured spot to the south-east" (p. 396), but see Curta 2001, p. 308 and more specific, p. 235 sqq. (some pages are not in preview) showing that Baran's Podolian homeland is supported by two iron crossbow brooches from Kodyn, which however are not the earliest artefacts in the south-eastern Europe. Curta eventually concluded on p. 246 that on some sites (such as Kodyn and Bucharest-Mihai Vodă) "occupation must have begun much earlier", but there's no reason to date the Podolian sites before the other early sites. Let's also note Heather cites Curta 2001 but he ignores Curta's discussion on Podolia (Kodyn). Daizus (talk) 12:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I do not distort quotes: I abbreviate them, in order to focus on their central points, and in order to avoid copyright infringements. Obviously, there are nuances and exceptions to each point, but in order to include those, one would have to reproduce large chunks of text, which is forbidden. It is true that Heather accepts that the Greek merchant became a fully-fledged Hun (a point I would dispute, given Priscus' wording and the fact that it's unlikely he would be permitted to marry a Mongoloid woman), but it is also true that Heather considers the Greek's case to be limited to high-status individuals among the non-Huns.

I don't understand how quoting hundreds of words from Heather is ok, but adding five more suddenly becomes an issue. It's obvious Heather doesn't support the extremist, misguided view that all free Huns were coming from some Hunnic homeland in Central Asia as you suggested. So yes, you distorted that quote, making Heather the author of an absolute statement, whereas he supports not only "the Greek's case" but also that "it was possible for particularly succesful individual slaves to rise to full free status among the Huns" ("individual slaves" - plural and no preference for Greeks or Romans). Daizus (talk) 22:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Anything not in quote marks is my own opinion and not that of Heather. Neither Heather nor Curta address the racial issue, but I think it's an important point, because racial distinctiveness makes it easier to maintain an overlord class. None of the quotes given by Dz above really addresses the core question: is there are a significant correlation between Mongoloid features and high status graves? In other words, is the incidence of Mongoloid features greater in high-status graves than in the population as a whole, and was such incidence maintained through the Early, Middle and Late Avar eras? I appreciate that intermingling was substantial (eg Avars taking the Slavs' wives and daughters). but is there any evidence that "pure" or at least "predominantly" Mongoloid types persisted throughout the Avar era?

Of course they do. In most of those studies it's pointed out there's no correlation between skull morphology and high status (e.g. "We found heterogeneity both in the horsemen and in the other males"). In some studies it's pointed out the intermingling happened gradually ("The Danube-Tisza region already had a Europid population and they intermingled with a low-skulled, Mongolid (possibly Tungid) group. The process took something like 200 years.") Daizus (talk) 22:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Curta's argument that the common language (lingua avarica) of the Avar empire was Slavic is just a theory, not a fact. Paulus Diaconus states (IV.37): rex Avarum, quem sua lingua Cacanum appellant ("the king of the Avars, whom they call the Kakan in their own language") may imply that the Avars (at least the ruling elite) still spoke their original Turkic language ca. AD 800 (there is nothing surprising about this: the ruling Norman elite continued to speak among themselves in Norman French for 300 years after the Conquest in 1066). Whether Turkic was became the lingua franca of their subjects is uncertain. (Norman French became quite widely spoken by educated persons in England, although the illiterate masses spoke only English). Since the core of the empire (Hungary/Transylvania) was previously the realm of the Gepids, it is more likely that Gepidic German (an East Germanic dialect which was probably similar to the Gothic language) was the common language of the non-Turkic inhabitants than Slavic, which was only spoken in peripheral areas. Heather considers that Gepidic German was already the common language of the Hunnic empire, which ruled much the same region. It is probable that the Avars communicated with their Slavic military serfs in Wallachia and Austria in German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.97.7.190 (talk) 18:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

the Deacon's evidence of Avar's speaking in their "own language" does not exclude that this "their" language was Slavic. you're presuming that just because more of those in 'noble graves' were of Turanid phenotype they must have automatically been Turkic speaking (which in any case is incorrect; they were Oghuric - different to "Turkic"). Morepver, you are assuuming that their was some "core" of "real" Avars which rode their horses around Eurasia before settling down in Pannonia, keeping distinct from others and practicing endogamy and closed cultural contacts (against the evidence we have for nomadic societies); rather than having simply 'just formed' c. the 550s in opposition to the GokTurks. Nor does the fact that they used the term "chagan" imply anything about their origin or language, heck, we do'nt even know for sure where it first originated, it is merely just passed around from scholar to scholar presuming this was a "Mongolic" term (whatever that means) without any real evidence or scrutiny. I wholly agree that Gothic was the language of the Hun Empire, however, that of the Avars was Slavic; whilst open to interpretation, we do have strong support for it (a) absence of Turkic pre-Magyar toponyms in Hungary and strong presence of Slavic toponyms and loanwords into Hungarian. (b) the chronological synchronicity between the "Avar Empire" and spread of Slavic language (c) literary sources note that "Slavs" and "Avars" spoke the same language, and by 8th century interchange/ confuse the two term Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

So the language of the Rus (and maybe also of the Russians) was Turkic, because the Rus called their leader Chacanus?

The presence of numerous Turkic in this region and this time is not supported by evidence. Even the often claimed numerous Germanic speakers in Gothia left little/no toponyms/hydronyms. Were they that many? We do have ancient Latin, Greek, Germanic, Celtic hydronyms throughout Europe. We do have Thracian, Illyric, Iranic, possibly even Dacian hydronyms. We have hydronyms of unknown origin (possibly from other unknown languages). We have many Slavic hydronyms. We have even later Turkic hydronyms (e.g. Ottoman). We have Magyar hydronyms. Where are the ancient Turkic ones (it is often claimed the Turkic language of the Avars was a language closely related to the Turkic Bulgar)? And I echo SV's query, how can one explain the Slavic substratum in Hungary (of both language and toponymy)? And the same question goes for Romania. Daizus (talk) 22:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and this discussion reminded me of this unfinished draft. As for titles and languages, you should also read this. The Slavic župan was often related to a loanword from the Turkic languages of the Avars and of the Bulgars. It seems that these tribes borrowed this word from Iranic speakers. The etymon was either *fšu-pāna "protector of cattle" (cf. the later Persian šubān = "shepherd") or *ču(b)-pān = "protector of a region, district", where ču and čub are forms attested among the Turkic and Iranic speakers of Central Asia, borrowed from the Chinese zhou = "region, district". Daizus (talk) 02:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

great article, good link Slovenski Volk (talk) 07:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Hungarian toponymy [8]

Buyla inscription

• Astonishingly, Daizus, in the process of trying to support the view that the Avars were Slavic-speakers, has instead proved that the Avar elite (at least) continued to speak their own Turkic language into the later Avar era, as I contended above. The Buyla inscription is dated 650-800 and, it is generally agreed, in a Turkic language. Given the splendour of the Nagyszentmiklos Treasure, it is likely that it was created for the Avar khan himself, or at least for one of his highest-ranking barons (the inscription is most likely a dedication to the owner). If by this stage the Avars were Slavic-speaking, the inscription would have been in Slavic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.106.125.150 (talk) 17:50, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it might well be Oghuric, and yes it likely belonged to someone wealthy/ important. However, there is no reason that a high-ranking Gepid or Sklavene didn;t own it, it does not follow that the person who owned it must have had Mongolid features and spoken Turkic. The medal's worth was its gold and decorative appeal, and the Turkic runes embue it with mystical / magical properties. Whoever owned it, it's purpose wasn;t to read things in sua linga in a proud display of nationalism. Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

• On the basis of the Buyla inscription, it is clear that the sua lingua mentioned by Paulus Diaconus was indeed Turkic. This continued to be spoken by the Mongoloid elite and those closely associated with them: leaders of their subject peoples, senior administrators, regular soldiers, servants etc. The mass of the peasantry in Hungary and Transylvania would have continued to speak their existing language, Gepido-Gothic German. The latter was probably the real second language of the Avar elite, used by the Avars to communicate with their subjects (as the Normans used English). The toponymic evidence of Slavic settlement in Hungary/Transylvania is far from conclusive. The paper indicated by Daizus makes it clear that it is impossible to date the Slavic placenames with sufficient accuracy to establish a major Slavic presence during the Avar era. The Slavic-speakers may have entered the region at the same time as the Magyars, or if earlier, during the the century-long interim between the Avars and Magyars (804-895). Contrary to Slovenski's statement, there is no direct evidence that Slavic was the language of the Avars. The argument advanced by Curta from Life of St Pancratius, where Slavs were used as interpreters with some Avar prisoners in southern Italy, is speculative: the Slavs very likely understood Gothic German, the lingua franca of the entire Transdanubian region for several centuries (300-800) (including Wallachia and Moldavia, which had been occupied by Slavic-speakers from at least 300), as did the Avars. The point is that Gothic, being an East Germanic dialect, would have been incomprehensible to the Lombards of Italy, who spoke a West Germanic tongue.

As above, the inscription doesn't necessarily mean that that was the language of its user. Your linguistic theory isn;t supported by the archaeology. By the 2nd Avar period, there is a marked increase in number of weapon-containing/ 'warrior" burials, meaning power spread from a few to a more substantive number. These burials show a diversity of pehnotypical features, predominantly Europoid. These were the military leaders and they came from different ethnic and linguistic groups. Hence the need for a lingua franca. That is why scholars have suggested that Slavic was used; and this wasn;t first espoused by Curta, a multitude of scholars had already proposed it including Omeljan Pritzak and Geroge Holzer. You're correct, we have no decisive evidence for this, however, the totality of philological studies show a heavy concensus of scholars, perhaps excepting 'oriental'-leaning Hungarians, that Slavic was spoken in Pannonia-Carpathian region pre-Magyars (that is why Hungarian administrative terms derive from Slavic - meaning long-established instituionalised use). Moreover, as I said above, the previous view that Slavic spread by an outmigration of Slavs from the Pripet marshes or elsewhere in Ukraine is simply impossible. The Pripet marshes were not even inhabited from mid c 1 - late 7th c AD, and there simply wasn't enough of them to (?re-)populate half of Europe. Therefore, the spread of Slavci must have had a strong economic-political-military impetus: ergo - the Avar realm. I am not saying the Avar's "native language" was Slavic (if there was such thing as native "Avar" given that the Avars themselves were just a political confederacy), but Slavic was spoken in their realm. If it was Gothic, then Serbs, Croats, Czechs, Moravians and Poles would be speaking East Germanic, not Slavic.

• There is nothing surprising about the Avar elite remaining largely endogamous for a long period. Studies of the Norman aristocracy in England show that that they mainly married each other for at least 200 years, and in their case there was no racial barrier with the indigenous people. Obviously, some intermarriage occurred, but the fact that skulls with clear Mongoloid features turn up in late Avar graves proves that intermarriage was restricted. The portrayal of an Avar warrior on a plate of the Nagyszentmiklos treasure is clearly that of a Mongoloid steppe horseman, holding a hapless Caucasian captive by the hair. This highlights the fact, documented by Diaconus (IV.37) that the Avars always fought on horseback, while the Slavs provided foot-soldiers.

it is a bit worrying that you automatically equate Mongolids with "native Turkic speakers", especially in absence of any convincing evidence. A person's phenotype doesn't dictate what language they must natively speak; unless they have bird-like mouths which are unable to make certain sounds :) Slovenski Volk (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Straw man after straw man. Curta's theory (actually this theory was mainly promoted by linguists such Johanna Nichols, Horace G. Lunt and Georg Holzer) is that Slavic was a lingua franca, i.e. a second language for Avars and most of their subjects. Just because I write in English here it doesn't mean this is the only language I know. So an inscription in Turkic doesn't prove the Avars didn't speak or know Slavic. As for EN's theory that Gothic/Gepidic was a lingua franca, that's contradicted by all linguistic evidence. The impact of Gothic on languages in Eastern Europe is non-existent or minimal. There are virtually no Gothic toponyms in Eastern Europe (in northern Italy, France, etc. there are Germanic toponyms, even though the main language is Romance). In Avar cemeteries the Mongoloid skulls are mixed with the other skulls which is evidence for intermarriage. Daizus (talk) 23:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

For those of us who can't sprachen da Deutsch, whats the basic premise of Holzer's argument ? Slovenski Volk (talk) 07:19, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

It's mostly a summary of previous research (especially p. 552):

- Lunt's hypothesis explains both the unity and the sudden wide spread of Slavic in Avaria

- Some scholars believe that Slavic was a Kommandosprache in Avar armies (like Latin in early Byzantine armies) and Holzer cites Herbert Galton, Der Einfluss des Altaischen auf die Entstehung des Slavischen (1997)

- Holzer further argues for no dialectal differences around 600 p.Chr. but he concedes that migration of speakers can also neutralize dialects.

Holzer holds a similar position here. He quotes Nichols on "here is no reason to assume the Slavic expansion was primarily a demographic event. Some migration took place, but the most parsimonious assumption is that the Slavic expansion was primarily a linguistic spread. […] Slavic ethnic identity […] spread more or less simultaneously with Slavic speech" (p. 134) and then again claims the Slavic language around 600 p. Chr was a lingua franca in the Avar qaganate (citing his own work from 1995, "Die Einheitlichkeit des Slavischen um 600 n. Chr. und ihr Zerfall" an article published in Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch, 41). Daizus (talk) 08:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Dz that Heather is inconsistent on the material culture=ethnic group issue. After strongly endorsing the "New Archaeology"'s rejection of this fallacy, he then falls into exactly that trap: his attempt to use the distribution of "Korchak" materials (the word "culture" hardly applies to these pathetic quasi-troglodytic remains) to track the advance of Slavic people is ludicrous: I cannot see how such simple and commonplace (half-sunken huts, rudimentary hand-made pots) remains can be interpreted as having any ethnic connotations whatever. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the advance of Slavic speech into Moldavia/Wallachia in the East and Slovakia/Poland in the West PRECEDED the arrival of the Avars in the Hungarian Plain and thus had nothing to them. The Venedi/Sclavenoi (Ptolemy's Stavanoi are clearly a corruption of Sklavanoi prob by a medieval monk) were located in central European Russia/Ukraine, both Tacitus and Ptolemy agree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.102.91.47 (talk) 14:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC) From this region, one migration-flow of Venedi was along the eastern side of the Carpathians into Moldavia and Wallachia, most likely exploiting the vacuum left by the Roman genocide/ evacuation of the Carpi, prob a pre-Indo-European-speaking people, from this region in the period 270-318: the Tabula Peuteringiana confirms the presence of Venedi in E Wallachia in the 4th c. (Contrary to Slovenski's trendy view, I believe that the conversion of this region to Slavic speech was achieved by substantial migration, not simply by elite transfer or by proximity transfer). The spread of Slavic speech in the West is more difficult to date, but was also already in place by 550. This map shows the position then broadly accurately:

File:Slavic peoples 6th century historical map.jpg

(note that the core region of the Avar empire, Hungary/Transylvania, was outside the Slavic-speaking zone, being German-speaking at the time of the Avar conquest). So Curta's bizarre theory (what I call "Curtavski Slavic"), that Slavic speech arose in Wallachia as a result of Byzantine fort-construction, and spread elsewhere as a result of being adopted by the Avars, is clearly just nonsense. And we don't need to assume that the Avars used Slavic as a military language: it is far more likely that they used their own Turkic language for this purpose, or possibly a rudimentary Gothic).

Curta did not say that Slavic langauge arose in 6th century Wallachia. He states that the Sklavenes ethnic grouping arose there. This is a big difference. Of course languages do not just "pop out of the ground" like Tolkien's Dwarves :) It evolved over thousands of years like all other languages. However, he rejects the implicit equation that just because some form of Slavic was spoken in EE it doesn;t mean that a Slavic ethnicity also existed, at least not until the 6th century. The two are not inseparable, rather, related to entirely different processes, although as that Slavic language played a role in Slavic ethnicity is certainly a prevailing paradigm in scholarship (eg Nichols) but not Curta.

Secondly, you argue that "there is little doubt that the advance of Slavic speech into Moldavia/Wallachia in the East and Slovakia/Poland in the West PRECEDED the arrival of the Avars in the Hungarian Plain and thus had nothing to them." What is this based on ? The dating of Slavic in more westerly regions is difficult to establish, and has largely been based on texts (eg Fredegar, etc) and the typology/chronology of hand-made -> wheel made pottery. On a purely visual basis, with added later "statistics" archaeologists presumed that handmade pottery (the earliest Slavic phase) is dated to, say 550 AD (based on the texts) and later more complicated pottery is from 700, which tracks their final spread into the west and north-west. Therefore the arguements are entirely circular and not indepedntly corroborated. More recent analysis has shown that Slavic hand made pots co-existed with wheel made wars, and the hand made post from west Balkan / east Alpine region had nothing to do with hand -made ware from Ukraine , but were based on sinmplified forms of the late Antique Roman wares. Dendrochronological dating from the Elbe region does not yield anything before 7th century; and S Brather's work suggests that there was no 'migration' into that region. The "Slavic" cord-ornamented pottery of the Danubian tradition (which became prevalent throughout balkans and west Slav areas) developed during the middle Avar period, precisely from the middle danube/ Pannonia reigon.

Thirdly, again, there is a difference between arguing that the Avars "native" langauge was Slavic, or that Slavic was native to the Carpathian basin; with Slavic expanding from that region and with that Empire. Where Slavic "arose" is of less importance, and the question itself meaningless given that we have no records. What we do have strong evidence for is that Slavic spread from the Carpathian basin during the Avar period Slovenski Volk (talk) 07:32, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

You have largely ignored what I said above. First, when will you get it, that you can NOT track the movements of Slavic-speakers (and even less the spread of Slavic speech) through archaeology? That is the fallacy that a "material culture" (as defined by archaeologists) can be equated with a particular ethnic group. There is no such thing as a "Slavic material culture", just as there is no "Dacian material culture" either (unless you use the term "Dacian" in a purely geographical, as opposed to ethnic, sense): there are only remains which may (or may not) have (partly) belonged to Slavic-(or Dacian-) speakers. So forget archaeology and look only at literary evidence as well as (with caution) personal names/placename evidence. If I am right, that Ptolemy's Stavanoi are a corruption of Sklavanoi, then the Venedi=Sclavenoi equivalence was probably accepted at least as early as the 2nd c and was not invented by Jordanes: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.97.143.175 (talk) 17:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you ignore much of what others say. Your map above depicts the Slavic-speakers based on the works of historians and archaeologists (Boris Rybakov, Volodymyr Baran). That territory is defined by Korchak antiquities and other similar cultures. The reason there are no Slavic-speakers on the map in the Carpathian Basin is because in that region there's a different culture, the "Avar culture". So if you forget archaeology you have no map.

As for Ptolemy, he did not connect Stauanoi to Ouenedai but to point out they are geographically close, so there's no equivalence between the two. The Stauanoi = Sclavenoi equation has no arguments, it is just wishful thinking. It has been said that Σταυανοί is a corrupted rendition of Σθλαυανοί which is a reasonable Greek form for a *Slav-/*Slov- ethnonym (cf. the Slavic name Svętoslavъ which was rendered in Greek as Σφενδοσθλάβος; the Greek name of the Sclavenes, Σκλαβηνοί / Σκλαυηνοί, displays a similar epenthesis as the sl- cluster was not familiar to the native Greek speakers). However there's no evidence or actual argument to support this hypothesis, it is just an attempt to push the "Slavic history" as early as possible. Daizus (talk) 20:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

RE literary evidence, whilst one might argue that Curta is a bit hasty to dismiss Fredegar, eg; he argues that it was a political work revolving around the Frankish royal family. And whilst that's true, it deosn;t mean that it renders untrues everything in it about Wends and Slavs in central europe. This is where I think Curta is a bit rash. Whilst it is true that the literary evidence is problematic in the sense that it has long chronologic intervals and deos not distinguish much the difference between settlements and raids. I didn;t mean to ignore your position, its just that, in the absence of clear history, one turns to archaeology. Even if we entertain the idea that Sloveni/ Sclaveni is related to Stavanoi/ Soubenoi, it doesn;t necessarily follow that this implies cultural/linguistic/ethnic identity between the groups. As for Venedi, the use is too imprecise; denoting large and rather undefined area of europe spanning several centuries gap. Plenty of time for significant change inter alia Slovenski Volk (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The map may be based on archaeology (spuriously, if so), but an analysis of the literary and placename evidence would produce much the same result. According to Godlinski, the oldest Slavic river-names are found in northern and E Ukraine, while Tacitus' Venedi and Ptolemy's Stavanoi are also located here. Thus, it is likely that Slavic developed in this region originally. We know from the Peutinger map that the Venedi had reached Wallachia by the 4th c. We also know from Fredegar that the Venedi/Sclavi had reached the eastern borders of the Frankish dominion by the 6th c (SV is quite right that Curta's dismissal of Fredegar's evidence has no valid basis).