Readings on migrations and migration theory?

[Marja]

I read Peter Heather's Empires and Barbarians last year, and it's a good overview of the neo-migrationist position. But Heather focuses on the 1st Millennium C.E. and ignores the 1st Millennium B.C.E. It would be helpful to see a book on migration theory which tries to unravel the supposed migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones, and of the Helvetii, among others. Also Heather mostly avoids numbers estimates. Can anyone recommend works on the scale of migration, especially in eastern europe in Late Antiquity?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I read Peter Heather's Empires and Barbarians last year, and it's a good overview of the neo-migrationist position. But Heather focuses on the 1st Millennium C.E. and ignores the 1st Millennium B.C.E. It would be helpful to see a book on migration theory which tries to unravel the supposed migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones, and of the Helvetii, among others. Also Heather mostly avoids numbers estimates. Can anyone recommend works on the scale of migration, especially in eastern europe in Late Antiquity?

Actually his previous book, if you don't already have it, "The Fall of the Roman Empire, a New History of Rome and the Barbarians" does give theoretical numbers in the earlier chapters.

All and all, you really can't say for sure how large the groups were, but migration up until the huns was rather small scale. I might have a few other books on migration theory here at the house but I have to dig them out. I'll be sure to post if I find anything.

[Kai]

Peter Heather, while intelligent, knowledgeable and critical, not to mention very nice when we met, represents a minority in questions of migration during late antiquity/early middle ages, among the scholars specializing in that era, that is.


A vividly readable and precise English overview is given by Guy Halsall: Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568. It is the radical opposite position to Heather, and if you search the older RAT-forum-posts you will find Halsall’s opinion on Heather in rather frank words. (To be fair, he is not any less frank about that topic in person).

A more specialized case is made by Michael Kulikowski: Rome’s Gothic Wars, who deconstructs the idea that the Goths migrated from Scandinavia thoroughly, albeit with imho unnecessary harsh antagonism to Herwig Wolfram.

Herwig Wolfram should probably be called Gothicus Maximus :grin: , as his books on that subject are still standard and must-read literature for every one studying the Goths. His best known book, Die Goten, has been translated into English (History of the Goths). It is, by its very nature, a bit dated though.

His successor in Vienna, Walter Pohl, followed his tracks. In English, you will find the volume he edited on ethnic identity very useful: Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities 300-800.


While Peter Heather sells more books, and while – I stress it again – he is a most excellent scholar imho, the above named titles may give you a better of current trends in academia in late antiquity/early middle ages... in my humble opinion.
But this should not be mistaken as a single, unified position. All the authors above also have a lot of conflicting points!

[Marja]

I have read Peter Heather's previous books. However, I can't recall him explaining his estimates there as he explained his estimates in Empires and Barbarians.

I read Herwig Wolfram in translation. I don't have a copy handy, but if I remember correctly he tries to adopt the traditionalist narrative that the Vesi are the Thervingi and the Ostrogothi are the Greuthungi to the traditionskern model, with two dynasties moving instead of two population groups.

I have also read Michael Kulikowski and Patrick Amory. The idea that Kulikowski demolished Iordanes' migration narratives has always struck me as a red herring. Does anyone accept Iordanes' migration narratives? Maybe Ingemar Nordgren? Some type of migration and/or invasion from Germania into Scythia seems probable, to explain the presence of a Germanic-speaking population in Scythia, the Germanic names being more common than Alanic ones [we can't tell how frequent Dacian ones are] and so on.

If Peter Heather's work breaks dynastic traditionskern models, maybe Patrick Amory's breaks population group models, but where does that leave us?

I haven't read Halsall or Pohl. I went to the nearest Uni library, and looked over Halsall's explanation of the crisis of 376, and his arguments seemed awfully speculative. The Goths might already have been in contact with the Huns. It's possible, not proven. Since the Goths were already in contact with the Huns, the Huns couldn't have prompted the crisis. It's possible, but the first part isn't proven and the second part doesn't follow.

However, I was also interested in finding third-century and earlier comparisons for the fourth-century and fifth-century events, migrations or not. Peter Heather and Herwig Wolfram cover some 1st-century through third-century events beyond the frontier, but archaeology can rarely tell the difference between stylistic influence and immigration, while Tacitus et al. can rarely provide more than rumors too far beyond the frontier, and Iordanes indulges in pseudohistory. A good study of receptio before 376, might provide some of the needed missing information on the scale of events after 376.

[Kai]

I have also read Michael Kulikowski and Patrick Amory. The idea that Kulikowski demolished Iordanes' migration narratives has always struck me as a red herring. Does anyone accept Iordanes' migration narratives?

Only a short note left for today:

Since I could not know what you have read already :wink: Jordanes' migration myth is usually the first reference. Kulikowski’s points go deeper than that, indeed. Most important: Jordanes or not, there was no migration to the Balkans in his book leading to the Gothic formation there, which is a clear opposition to at least some people. The ethnogenesis happened on the Balkans, and only because of Roman influence on the Roman border, making the Goths as they appear in the late fourth century essentially a Roman creation.

[Marja]

For the record, Michael Kulikowski claims that both Herwig Wolfram and Peter Heather accept Iordanes' narratives. (2007 pp. 53-54) As far as I remember, Herwig Wolfram drew on Iordanes in Die Goten/History of the Goths. I don't remember if he continues to draw on Iordanes in later works. But Peter Heather largely rejects Iordanes in Goths and Romans and later works.

Also, Kulikowski puts Gothic origins in Ukraine and Romania in the 3rd century, not the Balkans proper in the late 4th century. (pp. 67-68)

Whether Goths existed earlier seems more a question of semantics [now] and of the construction of Gothicness [then] than anything else. The Gothic name [Gutþiuda], and possibly the burial practices, and presumably some portion of the people came from the lower Vistula, but it's hard to know what else came from there. The Gothic language may be derived from the Bastarnic one, but if it has genuine parallels with the Vandalic one [retention of the nominative -s endings in the o-stem? but that's mostly the absence of the innovations in North and West Germanic] then they might have passed from the lower Vistula. The Vesic name may be west Germanic, if it's cognate with east Germanic ius and iusiza.

[John W Davison]

Marja,

On your original question re. migration pre-1st millennium, there has been a lot of debate on the idea of the Celts, which, in simplistic terms, I tend to think of as a choice between accepting the idea of the spread of actual people versus the spread of culture. Have you looked at any of Barry Cunliffe's works?

I have read a few of his books in the past. The following is not one I have read but I think may well address some of the questions you raise:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Europe-Between-O...2&sr=1-2#_

There is a shorter book which discusses some of these questions by the same author which could used as an inexpensive sampler in which I think he briefly discussed the question of culture and migration:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celts-Very-Short...222&sr=1-6

He also dealt with interactions with the Greeks and Romans in the following, which was a good read but maybe note wide-ranging enough for you:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greeks-Romans-Ba...79&sr=1-41

It's a fascinating topic. Here in the UK, as well as the question of "Celtic migration", we also have the specific question of Anglo-Saxon culture versus gene pool. We are about the only major European province of the Western Roman empire (apart from along the Rhine frontier) where a Romance language fails to persist - is this because there was a population movement versus an elite migration with a predominating culture? Maybe we were particularly backward in terms of Romanistion. Even Spain (with a Muslim occupation lasting in some form from 711-1492, as well as Germanic influence before this) and Romania (with no major geographical "shield") speak Romance languages today.

Incidentally, Halsall also has a nice work in the excellent UCL "Warfare & History Series" (still some ancient titles allegedly pending) on warfare in the post-Roman period of Western Europe:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warfare-Society-...523&sr=1-1

Regards,
John

[Kai]

Well ok, just one before I make ready for bed...
Probably I expressed myself badly when I wrote "Goths as they appear in the fourth century" and Balkans. True, Kulikowski sees Goths in the later third century. The important point is still his rejection of migration nonetheless, just as his idea of the Roman creation of the Goths. Well he can say it better than I can:
"Nothing in the material evidence suggests that ‘the Goths’ came from somewhere else and imposed themselves on a polyethnic coalition; nothing contemporary tells us that Goths ‘came’ from anywhere at all. Instead, in the crucible of Roman frontier politics, people of very different backgrounds came together under leaders who were defined as Goths in their constant interaction with the Roman empire. The relative clarity of that relationship with the empire led to a stable political system just beyond the frontier in which the material culture we call Santana-de-Mures/Cernjachov developed" p.98 among many examples in the book... For this Gothic-Roman interaction, the north-eastern Balkans territory along the Danube was crucial, even though of course Cernjachov-culture extended beyond it.

The Gothic name [Gutþiuda], and possibly the burial practices, and presumably some portion of the people came from the lower Vistula, but it's hard to know what else came from there.

...which seems to me like a point of contention, not a commonly accepted fact. What exactly is the evidence for the existence of 'the Gothic name' in the lower Vistula-area for example? I presume there was no inscription with it found there... You are not referring to Ptolemaios, are you?

btw, I don't think the question is if a group which called itself Goths existed before. May be, may not be. Names can travel in most interesting ways. But how would one prove, assuming for the sake of the argument there were Goths in the Vistula-area, just these people migrated en masse? For Archaeology, as recent works (especially Sebastian Brather of course) have shown, this is almost if not entirely impossible, although Heather may disagree. The written sources leave us in the dark, too. So what now? DNA studies? I hope not!

Have a good night!

[Marja]

But how would one prove, assuming for the sake of the argument there were Goths in the Vistula-area, just these people migrated en masse?

From an archaeological standpoint one can't prove that. I'm not convinced any recent work assumes that. I'm not sure why it would be relevant, unless there were family and trade ties between the two areas, and other things could explain family and trade ties.

IIRC, Wolfram's theory has identities coalesce around dynasties and dynastic loyalties. Certainly it's more common for ruling elites to set themselves up, and to set themselves up somewhere else, than for large populations to move.

IIRC, Heather's theory has smaller groups moving along the amber routes, more often towards the Roman empire than away from it, while ruling elites set themselves up on the amber routes. Heather also suggests larger migrations at some points in the process, because of population declines in the Weilbark culture, but even that doesn't imply that the Weilbark population migrated en masse to become a major part of the Chernyakhov population.

Weilbark continues after any hypothesized migration. Chernyakhov continues after one of the better-documented migrations. None of these involve entire populations.

At some level - I suspect this but can't really argue for this - I tend to think Heather tends to understate the numbers involved in the refugee crises of 376/386/405, to overstate the proportion involved in repeat migrations, and to understate the importance of Gothicization to the development of a Gothic society on the Black Sea and potentially to the development of Gothic groups in the Roman Empire. Now if we had reliable numbers for more of these events, we could sort out a lot of these questions.

[diegis]

Well ok, just one before I make ready for bed...
Probably I expressed myself badly when I wrote "Goths as they appear in the fourth century" and Balkans. True, Kulikowski sees Goths in the later third century. The important point is still his rejection of migration nonetheless, just as his idea of the Roman creation of the Goths. Well he can say it better than I can:
"Nothing in the material evidence suggests that ‘the Goths’ came from somewhere else and imposed themselves on a polyethnic coalition; nothing contemporary tells us that Goths ‘came’ from anywhere at all. Instead, in the crucible of Roman frontier politics, people of very different backgrounds came together under leaders who were defined as Goths in their constant interaction with the Roman empire. The relative clarity of that relationship with the empire led to a stable political system just beyond the frontier in which the material culture we call Santana-de-Mures/Cernjachov developed" p.98 among many examples in the book... For this Gothic-Roman interaction, the north-eastern Balkans territory along the Danube was crucial, even though of course Cernjachov-culture extended beyond it.

...which seems to me like a point of contention, not a commonly accepted fact. What exactly is the evidence for the existence of 'the Gothic name' in the lower Vistula-area for example? I presume there was no inscription with it found there... You are not referring to Ptolemaios, are you?

btw, I don't think the question is if a group which called itself Goths existed before. May be, may not be. Names can travel in most interesting ways. But how would one prove, assuming for the sake of the argument there were Goths in the Vistula-area, just these people migrated en masse? For Archaeology, as recent works (especially Sebastian Brather of course) have shown, this is almost if not entirely impossible, although Heather may disagree. The written sources leave us in the dark, too. So what now? DNA studies? I hope not!

Have a good night!

Well, thats some ideas i posted and i was previously criticized here i remember, that Goths appear in previous Dacian and Sarmatian teritories and are formed mostly from local Getae/Dacians with Sarmatians, Germanic and later even Roman elements.

Even the Vistula area from where some said the Goths came (but hard to impossible to prove beside Jordanes story) shows elements of Dacian/Getae presence all along, in fact the presence of Dacian nobility actually, close to the same period of appearence of Goths, which can be very well a transformation of Getae. Especially as Caracalla imposed a "damnatio memoriae" for his brother Geta (the singular for Getae) right before the first mention of "Goths" to show up in Roman writings

This is a map with the findings of bracelets/armlets worn by Dacian nobles (called Simleul Silvaniei type)

http://www.academia.edu/1455259/New_evid...ral_Poland

[Simplex]

To all:
I'll take chances for giving a big thank you for all involved in this interesting and lively discussion. (MORE ! ;-) )
@diegis/razvan: Thank you for bringing that linkk to my/our attention.
But honestly, I'd be more surprised if there had NOT been a cultural exchange of this sort an stature, given the importance of trade routes north-south -- in that case the "amber-road" in
its different branches. The map included here looks kind-a "Autobahn"-map to me.

Greez

Simplex

[Caballo]

On more Anglo-Saxon areas, I would recommend Dr Heinrich Harke (http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/abo...harke.aspx) He has also kindly posted many of his papers online- a real act of generosity- here http://uni-tuebingen.academia.edu/HeinrichHarke/Papers

This one is particularly apposite http://www.academia.edu/1178275/Anglo-Sa...2011._1-28


His papers are always stimulating , though I do not always agree with his conclusions.

On Prof Guy Halsall, you will find some interesting stuff on his blog here http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/ as well as on his dark ages wargames site!

[Marja]

Just found his wargaming site:

https://darkagewargaming.wordpress.com/

[Agricola]

Dr. Heinrich Harke's essays look very interesting, but I can't access them. IS there any way to get them without physically getting hold of the journals themselves.

[Caballo]

Hi,

Harke's esssays are accessible by clicking the download button- you may have to log in but a Facebook account will work. Just retried it and working fine, I think.