Why is half of Germania "unoccupied"?

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I mean why should they move anyway if not by the turmoil caused by Drusus' campaign? I read the pdf. I saw no other source supporting the Czech guy.

 

[Palando]

I mean why should they move anyway if not by the turmoil caused by Drusus' campaign? I read the pdf. I saw no other source supporting the Czech guy.

That's an assumption of yours'. But we know two things from archeology:

• The oppida culture ends around 50 BC in Bohemia proper and Germanic objects start to appear thereafter in huge amounts.
• The Main area has only a sparse amount of such objects.

You can obviously conclude quite many things from that. You could assume that Drusus only defeated a Marcomannic auxiliary force that came from Bohemia or somewhere else. You could assume that he repelled a splinter tribe. But you cannot assume that the Marcomanni went there from the Rhine and defeated the Celts, as Bohemia was already Germanic at that time.

He also cites some other sources that say the same thing. Obviously, old habits die quite slowly. That's why it took half an eternity to debunk De Situ Britanniae also known as The Description of Britain – a medieval forgery purporting to show Roman Britain.

 

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Drusus didn't fight in Bohemia or Thuringia. Why should the Marcomanni care if they already lived in Bohemia or Thuringia? Why should they move into a area occupied by the Boii and fight them? Also the Chatti lived in modern day Hessia north of the main it's not unlikely to suggest that some other tribes lived south of the main. The south of the main is not too far away from Bohemia.

Tacitus writes:

The Marcomanni stand first in strength and renown, and their very territory, from which the Boii were driven in a former age, was won by valour. Nor are the Narisci and Quadi inferior to them.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0083:chapter=42

Drusus was sent into the province and conquered the Usipetes first, and then overran the territory of the Tencturib1 He erected, by way of a trophy, a high mound adorned with the spoils and decorations of the Marcomanni.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/2H*.html#XXX

I mean this implies Drusus also fought against the Marcomanni for sure

 

[Palando]

Drusus didn't fight in Bohemia. Why should the Marcomanni care if they already lived in Bohemia? Why should should they move into a area occupied by the Boii and fight them? Also the Chatti lived in modern day Hessia north of the main it's not unlikely to suggest that some other tribes live south of the main. The south of the main is not to far away from Bohemia.

Tacitus writes:



http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0083:chapter=42




http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/2H*.html#XXX

I have never said that Drusus fought in Bohemia. That's only your interpretation of my words. I just stated that a Marcomannic host moving from Bohemia or somewhere else could have fought Drusus in Germania Magna or nearby, so that they didn't need to necessarily settle in an area at all. You cannot take much from that Florus passage.

And again the problem is that there's no trace of a significant population south of and around the Main. You have to post another source to contradict this, until then it's just your conjecture that a sizeable population lived there. Tacitus also has no proper tribe for that region apart from the Naristi.

 

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Well first of all I want to know where it acutally stated there is no archaeological findings around the main area from that time. Why did Drusus built Mogontiacum if no one lived there in the area.

 

[Palando]

Well first of all I want to know where it acutally stated there is no archaeological findings around the main area from that time. Why did Drusus built Mogontiacum if no one lived there in the area.

I linked you the source, and don't forget that we're talking about Germans only. And Mainz hardly qualifies as a town between Main and Danube, as it's a town west of the Rhine.

 

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In a figurative sense, the term "index fossils" refers to the fact that a common origin can be derived from the sites of prehistoric pottery at different sites. Archaeological finds have shown that Germanic tribes set out from 80 B.C. at the mouth of the Elbe, moved south to the Upper Main and settled here. The Semnons, Hermundurs, Quades, Marcomannes and Lombards belong to the Elbe Germans. An Elbgermanic land seizure by the Markomannen can be proven in the Main area between 40 B.C. and 12 A.D. and is associated with the Grossromstedt culture.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Source: https://www.obermain.de/lokal/altenkunstadt-burgkunstadt-weismain/art2415,713275

I guess for more information you have to ask the professor or read his book.

 

[Palando]

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Source: https://www.obermain.de/lokal/altenkunstadt-burgkunstadt-weismain/art2415,713275

I guess for more information you have to ask the professor or read his book.

The professor in question is a linguist, so he at least doesn't have first-hand information. There's also no mention of how far that area extended at all, and how many people really lived there. I also haven't said that there were no people living at all, but a few don't consitute a large scale migration for me.
According to Bernd Steidl (2016, ISBN 9783939462293), the Germanic populace only really increased in the Main area in the 3rd century AD; before that it was just sparsely populated by Germans.


I don't think that you can take Florus's mention as a proof that the Marcomanni lived there. It does contain nearly no information.

It's highly unlikely that Drusus would've moved 200 kilometres southwards to the Main for a handful of Germans. Thus, the group of Marcomanni he defeated had to send a war host, and there's no reason why it had to be from the Main area. They could've come from Bohemia or from somewhere else, too. We only know for sure where the Marcomanni lived around the turn of the eras, namely in Bohemia.

 

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Well there were also the Quadi . The Germanic area was poor anyway in that timeline. The archaeological findings we have are from the Celts. I don't know anything about early Germanic findings they appear way later. We only have Jastorf culture which was poor.

 

[Palando]

Well there were also the Quadi . The Germanic area was poor anyway in that timeline. The archaeological findings we have are from the Celts. I don't know anything about early Germanic findings they appear way later. We only have Jastorf culture which was poor.

Well, yes, but you still can't conclude that the Marcomanni came from the Main area with 100% certainty. Instead it's just a possibility among many.

I don't really know what you want to say with the rest. We have Harpstedt-Nienburger, Jastorf, the Nordic groups, Przeworsk, Okyswie and some others from which Germans emerged. Beginning with around 300 BC, those (proto-)Germanic cultures saw an increasing La Tène influence, but they never adopted the Celtic (or later on the Roman) technologies. So there really were a great number of (proto-)Germanic findings in those areas, and they weren't invisible people.

 

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Yes I meant La Tène findings are much richer and of greater extent.

 

[Zerodv]

The professor in question is a linguist, so he at least doesn't have first-hand information. There's also no mention of how far that area extended at all, and how many people really lived there. I also haven't said that there were no people living at all, but a few don't consitute a large scale migration for me.
According to Bernd Steidl (2016, ISBN 9783939462293), the Germanic populace only really increased in the Main area in the 3rd century AD; before that it was just sparsely populated by Germans.

3rd century? Did it really remain empty for so long? Why so?

 

[Palando]

3rd century? Did it really remain empty for so long? Why so?

I suppose the Romans made somehow sure of that or many Germans didn't see a point in living there.
It seems like that from around the 3rd century, the Germans could make lucrative raids, ultimately leading to the fall of the Limes. Furthermore, it's also the area where the Alamanni formed.

 

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I have an interesting notion about the Hermunduri. There is a big cremation cemeterie in Großromstedt, Thuringia from middle of the 1st century B.C... It is indicated to be related with the Hermunduri. Archaeological findings indicate that Thuringia was celtic before. It is suggested that the Jastorf culture came from the north following the Elbe.

Source: https://st.museum-digital.de/index.php?t=sammlung&gesusa=621

 

[Palando]

I have an interesting notion about the Hermunduri. There is a big cremation cemeterie in Großromstedt, Thuringia from middle of the 1st century B.C... It is indicated to be related with the Hermunduri. Archaeological findings indicate that Thuringia was celtic before. It is suggested that the Jastorf culture came from the north following the Elbe.

Source: https://st.museum-digital.de/index.php?t=sammlung&gesusa=621

The Großromstedt culture is related to the Quadi, Marcomanni and Naristi, too. There's a map in the paper I linked earlier, and e.g. Bohemia proper is covered by that culture.
Southern Thuringia was indeed Celtic and some believe that the name Teuriochaemae (home of the Teurii - mountain dwellers) is related to them, as the name Thuringia is probably derived from Tyr.

 

[Zerodv]

I have an interesting notion about the Hermunduri. There is a big cremation cemeterie in Großromstedt, Thuringia from middle of the 1st century B.C... It is indicated to be related with the Hermunduri. Archaeological findings indicate that Thuringia was celtic before. It is suggested that the Jastorf culture came from the north following the Elbe.

Source: https://st.museum-digital.de/index.php?t=sammlung&gesusa=621

One thing, archaeological findings don't tell us the "ethnicity" or linguistic situation of a region, especially at tge fringes of a dominant archeological culture, also even non-La Tene cultures could have been Celtic.

It's probable that a fair amount of what appears archeological to be Celtic by the 1st century BCE would have been at least a mix of Germans and Celts(this mixed region would include more or less the area north of a line connecting Bonn and Dunkirk and the region north and around the Main)

 

[Palando]

One thing, archaeological findings don't tell us the "ethnicity" or linguistic situation of a region, especially at tge fringes of a dominant archeological culture, also even non-La Tene cultures could have been Celtic.

It's probable that a fair amount of what appears archeological to be Celtic by the 1st century BCE would have been at least a mix of Germans and Celts(this mixed region would include more or less the area north of a line connecting Bonn and Dunkirk and the region north and around the Main)

Insular Celtic and Celtiberian would be some examples of Celts who weren't really a part of La Tène. However, the first Celtic inscriptions (8th century BC, written with a Phoenician alphabet) were found in southern Lusitania. The first inscription written in Lepontic Celtic was over a century later.

 

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Found something interesting about the confusing "tribe"/name of the Saxons at the time. The site (source below) seems trustworthy:

The first mention of the Saxons was made by Ptolemy of Alexandria around 150 AD. He probably used news collected during Roman explorations in the year 5 AD (Capelle, 1999). According to Ptolemy, the "Saxones" can be found as a tribal group north of the Elbe and south of the Cimbrian isthmus, i.e. in today's Holstein (Rech, 2000). Ptolemy located the Chauci in the north of today's Lower Saxony. However, it is highly probable that the separation in Saxony and Chauci did not correspond to the actual conditions and that these were one and the same ethnic group, which is confirmed by archaeological findings (Rech, 2000; Capelle, 1998). Saxony" or "Sahsnôta's sword comrades" may have originally only been a warrior group (Genrich, 1991; Rech, 2000), whose name derives from the "Sax", a single-cutting sword widely used by the Saxons. "The prestigious, sonorous name of the Saxons" (Böhme, 1999a) passed to the entire people, so that the name of the Chauken disappeared in the 3rd century A.D. (Capelle, 1998), since this time today's northern Lower Saxony is undoubtedly Saxon.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Source: http://www.sachsengeschichte.de/altsachsen

 

[Palando]

Found something interesting about the confusing "tribe"/name of the Saxons at the time. The site (source below) seems trustworthy:



Source: http://www.sachsengeschichte.de/altsachsen

That's doubtful and speculative, as neither Tacitus, Plinius, Strabon nor any other author before Ptolemaios mention the Saxones. Additionally, most of the hand-written Ptolemaic Geography's have the form "Axones" which might indicate a shift from Tacitus's Aviones. Klaudios Ptolemaios is also well known for his name corruption.

 

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Another source:

The first mention of Saxones is in the geography of Ptolemy, a Greek scholar who lived in Alexandria in the 1st century AD. Geography describes the world known at that time with topographical data as accurate as possible. The work mentions the names of the peoples only to name different landscapes and not to describe the peoples themselves.[5] It remains questionable from where the Alexandrian Ptolemy obtained his information, since it is unclear whether he ever travelled through the respective regions. Ptolemy writes:

The land along the ocean [North Sea and Baltic] is inhabited beyond the Bructerians by the Frisians up to the river Amisia (Ems). Behind them sit the small Chauken up to the Weser, then the large Chauken up to the Elbe, then to the isthmus of the Cimbrian peninsula the Saxons.[6]

If the translation of the individual river names is correct, the Saxons can be located according to this source in the area of today's Schleswig-Holstein (see Fig. 1). According to traditional doctrine, this is evidence that the Saxons in the 2nd century after Christ were already a fixed factor in the world view of that time, who at the beginning of the 1st century had formed a tribal union under the name 'Saxony' from the tribes of the so-called Nerthus federation, the Reudigners, the Avions and the Angels, listed at Tacitus.[6] Since Tacitus does not mention the Saxons, a tribal formation is only assumed after 100 AD.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Another source

Today we know that this expansion model is wrong. Archaeologists have been able to show that in the first millennium the population of north-western Germany was made up of autochthonous groups, all of which were stationary from the Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages, and in many respects had very different characteristics. It was only in the confrontation with the Frankish Empire and above all in the supra-regionally organised resistance against Charlemagne that a common "Saxon" identity slowly developed among these people, one that spanned regions and groups and united them.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Whether Ptolemy mentioning is true or not the Saxons formed way later than at the game start so that is surely incorrect according to the current state of research.