Getae and Dacians? Are they the same? Or is this unknowable?

[Alanus]

"PhD Sydrome" does nail it on the head.
This is probably why we're getting a number of refudiations of previous Gothic histories. The biggest bandwagon theory is that they originated "somewhere else," not Scandinavia. Rumo swallows this stuff, but the serious scholars, men like Herwig Wolfram, who knew his subject and the languge, equated the Goths with the Gutones and the many linguistic variations. Of course, today postulating anything remotely "Germanic" is persona non grata.

But for me, the proof in the pudding is not "perfect" written history. It's the Singers of Songs, the oral history that Cassiodorus used. It's the Old Edda and the Gotsaga which date back to heaven know's when. These are from what I call "cultural memory'" or "tribal memory." In all and each, we find truth. Perhaps they were exagerated, boastful, but they were a reasonably honest attempt at recording Scandian history, of which the Goths played an important part. These guys weren't shooting for a PhD; they were just trying to record a family saga.

I would imagine that most writers of the "PhD syndrome" have overlooked these old verbal histories/legends in favor of scenaric arguments involving Pliny's "inaccuracies," or perhaps "reevaluating" archaeological interpretations. "Let's not just rewrite history; let's rewrite archaeology."

The upside to all of this is we end up with "entertainers" like Professor Heather-- good for a belly laugh. And maybe next time, in the "second edition, revised," he'll get it "righter."

Fact is Pliny didn't get it 100% right, so what makes us think we can rewrite it again for the umteenth time and finally get it right?
Let's ask Sun Tzu: "There is no history. Only stories."