Germanic peoples

[6] Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE.

[21] Several scholars continue to use the term to refer to a culture existing between the 1st to 4th centuries CE, but most historians and archaeologists researching Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages no longer use it.

[25] Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl, have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation,[26] and argued that there is little evidence for a common Germanic identity.

[51] A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish.

[62][64] New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania.

[74] The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars.

[77] Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE, after which contacts with Proto-Germanic speakers began to intensify.

The Alcis, a pair of brother gods worshipped by the Nahanarvali, are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of *alhiz (a kind of 'stag'), and the word sapo ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic *saipwōn- (English soap), as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword saipio.

[82] By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic dialect continuum (where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily mutually intelligible due to accumulated differences over the distance) covered a region roughly located between the Rhine, the Vistula, the Danube, and southern Scandinavia during the first two centuries of the Common Era.

[106] Alternatively, Hermann Ament [de] has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani, one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser, and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia.

[125][126] Before 60 BCE, Ariovistus, described by Caesar as king of the Germani, led a force including Suevi across the Rhine into Gaul near Besançon, successfully aiding the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga.

[135][138] Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius of the Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

[153] Following sixty years of quiet on the frontier, 166 CE saw a major incursion of peoples from north of the Danube during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, beginning the Marcomannic Wars.

[173] The Migration Period is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the Huns prompted the Visigoths to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376.

[209] By 434, following a renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman magister militum Flavius Aetius engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths.

[243] The Franks ruled a multilingual and multi-ethnic kingdom, divided between a mostly Romance-speaking West and a mostly Germanic-speaking east, that integrated former Roman elites but remained centered on a Frankish ethnic identity.

However, elements of religious practices are discernable throughout the textual record associated with the ancient Germanic peoples, including a focus on sacred groves and trees, the presence of seeresses, and numerous vocabulary items.

In Old Norse texts, the death of this entity results in creation of the cosmos, a complex of motifs that finds strong correspondence elsewhere in the Indo-European sphere, notably in Vedic mythology.

[281] Germanic peoples began entering the Roman Empire in large numbers at the same time that Christianity was spreading there,[282] and this connection was a major factor encouraging conversion.

The runestone D359 in Istaby, Sweden provides one such example, where three generations of men are connected by way of the element *wulfaz, meaning 'wolf' (the alliterative Haþuwulfaz, *Heruwulfaz, and Hariwulfaz).

[313] Heinrich Beck suggests that, on the basis of Latin mentions in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the following genres can be adduced: origo gentis (the origin of a people or their rulers), the fall of heroes (casus heroici), praise poetry, and laments for the dead.

These heroic legends mostly involve historical personages who lived during the migration period (4th–6th centuries CE), placing them in highly ahistorical and mythologized settings;[319][o] they originate and develop as part of an oral tradition.

[325] Early ideas about Germanic law have come under intense scholarly scrutiny since the 1950s, and specific aspects of it such as the legal importance of Sippe, retinues, and loyalty, and the concept of outlawry can no longer be justified.

[351] Villages were not distant from each other but often within sight, revealing a fairly high population density, and contrary to the assertions of Roman sources, only about 30% of Germania was covered in forest, about the same percentage as today.

[352] Based on pollen samples and the finds of seeds and plant remains, the chief grains cultivated in Germania were barley, oats, and wheat (both Einkorn and emmer), while the most common vegetables were beans and peas.

[365] An iron mine discovered at Rudki, in the Łysogóry mountains of modern central Poland, operated from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE and included a substantial smelting workshop; similar facilities have been found in Bohemia.

[363] Pure gold objects produced in the late Roman period included torcs with snakeheads, often displaying filigree and cloisonné work, techniques that dominated throughout Germanic Europe.

[407] Equally important was Jordanes's Getica, rediscovered by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in the mid-15th century and first printed in 1515 by Konrad Peutinger, which depicted Scandinavia as the "womb of nations" (Latin: vagina nationum) from which all the historical northeastern European barbarians migrated in the distant past.

[408] While treated with suspicion by German scholars, who preferred the indigenous origin given by Tacitus, this motif became very popular in contemporary Swedish Gothicism, as it supported Sweden's imperial ambitions.

[10] Many medieval specialists have even argued that scholars should avoid the term Germanic altogether since it is too emotionally charged, adding that it has been politically abused and creates more confusion than clarity.

Roman bronze statuette dated to the late 1st century – early 2nd century CE, representing a Germanic man with his hair in a Suebian knot
Several different regions called Germania in the Roman era, about 0-200 CE (names in red were peoples called Germani , despite not living within Germania )
The approximate positions of the three groups and their sub-peoples reported by Tacitus:
Suebi (part of the Herminones)
Other Herminones
The inscription on the Negau helmet B , carved in the Etruscan alphabet during the 3rd–2nd c. BCE, is generally regarded as Proto-Germanic. [ 80 ]
Replica of an altar for the Matrons of Vacallina ( Matronae Vacallinehae ) from Mechernich-Weyer, Germany
Iron Age : Orange Field – La Tène culture ( Celtic ), Dark Red – Jastorf culture (Germanic), Dark Green – Iron Age Scandinavia (Germanic)
The Roman province of Germania , in existence from 7 BCE to 9 CE. The dotted line represents the Limes Germanicus , the fortified border constructed following the final withdrawal of Roman forces from Germania.
A bog body , the Osterby Man , displaying the Suebian knot , a hairstyle which, according to Tacitus, was common among Germanic warriors [ 149 ]
Depiction of Romans fighting Goths on the Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus (c. 250–260 CE)
2nd century to 6th century simplified migrations
A replica of an ivory diptych probably depicting Stilicho (on the right), the son of a Vandal father and a Roman mother, who became the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire from 395 to 408 CE [ 193 ] [ 194 ]
Barbarian kingdoms and peoples after the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE
Mausoleum of Theodoric the Great
Frankish expansion from the early kingdom of Clovis I (481) to the divisions of Charlemagne's Empire (843–870)
The Sutton Hoo helmet from c. 625 in the British Museum
Wooden idols from Oberdorla moor , modern Thuringia . The idols were found in context with animal bones and other evidence of sacrificial rites. [ 260 ]
An image of a museum reproduction of one of the two golden horns of Gallehus, found in Denmark and dating to the early fifth century. Composed in Proto-Norse, the Elder Futhark inscription on the horn features the earliest known generally accepted example of Germanic alliterative verse.
Page from the Codex Argenteus containing the Gothic Bible translated by Wulfila
The Vimose Comb , housed at the National Museum of Denmark and dating to around from c. 160 CE , bears the oldest generally accepted runic inscription. [ 296 ]
The Istaby Stone (DR359) is a runestone that features a Proto-Norse Elder Futhark inscription describing three generations of men. Their names share the common element of 'wolf' ( wulfaz ) and alliterate.
Germanic bracteate from Funen, Denmark
Image of Romans fighting the Marcomanni on the Column of Marcus Aurelius (193 CE)
A 5th-century CE gold collar from Ålleberg, Sweden. It displays Germanic filigree work. [ 363 ]
A pair of trousers with attached stockings found in the Thorsberg moor (3rd century CE) [ 379 ]
The Minerva Bowl, part of the Hildesheim Treasure , likely a Roman diplomatic gift. [ 388 ] The treasure may date from the reign of Nero (37–68 CE) or the early Flavian dynasty (69–96 CE). [ 389 ]