The Great Migrations

Originally posted by Styrbiorn Originally posted by Polish-UkrainianCanadian Holy ****, I meant the Germanic tribes i am sure they came from Indo-European land in Central Asia. As Komnenos said, the Germanic culture appeared in southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany. The very oldest archaeological traces are from around 700BC in Southern Sweden and the Prussia iirc, and the earliest written record is from 300BC, when Pyteas placed the Teotones in what now is Sweden. There is no point in trying to say the Germanic people came from this or that place, since the word denotes the culture that appeared in Scandinavia/Germany as a probable mix of original inhabitants and immigrants. Similarly, there is no point in saying the Americans come from England, just because quite a few Americans traces their heritage to the English isles.

What archaeological evidence from around 700BC is connected to the Germanic tribes? And who have made the connection?

Sarmatian tribes have been settled there like in other parts of modern day France, if you want to accept it or not, and note: i did not say bretons were not pure aryan celts, i just said Sarmatians were settled in Bretagne, ok...?

 One thing do you think there is a remote possibility that europeans (not all the celts and germanic, god only knows how they differ) are endemic to Europe rather than they came from somewhere else. THey've migrated there like 30,000 years ago and they evolved with the climatic condition.

The Crimean Goths were remants of Ermanarich's Ostrogothic realm that was based in the Russian Steppe and fell to the Huns in the 370s.  They remained as a distinct entity at least until the 16th century, when an ambassador from Constantinople visited the area and notice the locals speaking a Germanic language.  No idea what happened to them after this though...

Linguistically, the Goths (both Ostrogoths and the Visigoths) were a part of the now extinct East-Germanic language family, along with perhaps the Rugians and the Gepids.

All in all, the entire story of the V�lkerwanderung is quite interesting, lasting from 376 to 568.

Well at least the goths were famous for their cavalry, and they had Alan auxiliaries at the battle of Adrianople 378 

eastern Goths also lived in the Ukraien for some time, i'll never figure out how they could a) defeat teh Sarmatians already living there (if they did, amybe they were co-exisitign peacefully there) and b) survived there without adopting nomadic lifestyle (or maybe they did?)

That's exactly what I wanted to say. Developmet of the particular languages took place much later. I was always suprised that German languages are relatively close to Slavonic ones, however these last were "more conservative".

The linguistic researchers point out the central role of the Armenian language in the I-E languages family.

Originally posted by Polish-UkrainianCanadian I meant the Germanic tribes i am sure they came from Indo-European land in Central Asia.

 Apart from the fact, that there is no Indo-European land, yes, the Germanic languages cam from the alleged Indo-European homeland in northern Caucasus mts. We cannot say "the Germanics come from the Kurgans", because this is false. The Kurgans were a culture between 6000-3000BCE, and even though it is now verified, that proto-Indo-European was spoken in that culture, the result was made independently, because language and culture cannot be mixed.