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are known through the archaeological record and

through historical sources. The Scythians are also

included in this section even though they disappear

from the historical record at the very beginning of

the Migration period, c.

A.D. 375.

■

ANGLES, SAXONS, AND JUTES

In book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English

People (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum),

completed in

A.D. 731, the Northumbrian cleric

Bede reported that the Germanic settlers of Anglo-

Saxon England came from “three very powerful

Germanic tribes, the Saxons, the Angles and the

Jutes.” From the coastal region of northern Germa-

ny, now Lower Saxony, came the East Saxons,

South Saxons, and West Saxons. The East Angles,

Middle Angles, Mercians, Northumbrians, and

other Anglian peoples were descended from the

people of Angeln, probably in the eastern part of

Schleswig-Holstein. The Jutes, who settled Kent,

the Isle of Wight, and the area of the West Saxon

mainland facing Wight, came from the peninsula of

Jutland (in present-day Denmark).

Writing in the middle of the second century

A.D., the Roman geographer Ptolemy placed the

Saxons at the neck of the Cimbric peninsula, which

comprises Jutland in the north and Schleswig-

Holstein (present-day Germany) in the south.

Fourth- and ﬁfth-century historical sources do not

distinguish consistently between the Saxons and

Franks, however, by the eighth century these

groups had distinct political systems. From the mid-

sixth century, the Continental Saxons expanded

their territory until its incorporation into the Caro-

lingian empire after the wars of

A.D. 772–799.

In Lower Saxony longhouse settlements located

on man-made mounds in coastal marshes, such as

Feddersen Wierde (ﬁgs. 1 and 2) and Flögeln,

were in use until the ﬁfth century. A range of build-

ing types, including farmhouses, granaries, barns,

and outbuildings, were excavated at the Carolingian

settlement of Warendorf in Westphalia. In Lower

Saxony and extending toward the Rhine, a unique

native metalwork style, as demonstrated by support-

ing-arm and equal-arm brooches decorated with

chip-carved surfaces, incorporated Roman inﬂu-

ences. The sites at Westerwanna, Issendorf, and Lie-

benau, dating to the fourth and early ﬁfth centuries,

exemplify large Continental cremation cemeteries,

which originally appeared in the ﬁrst century. Inhu-

mation, which emerged in the fourth century, had

replaced cremation by the ninth century.

Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England have

produced ceramics identical to those found in the

Saxon homeland identiﬁed by Bede. Fifth-century

pottery vessels with “standing arch” designs or

bosses from eastern and southern England parallel

contemporary ceramics from the traditional home-

land of the Saxons. Indeed, the similarity between

face masks appearing on vessels from Wehden (Nie-

dersachsen) and Markshall (Norfolk) has led to the

suggestion that they were created by the same pot-

ter.

Procopius, a sixth-century Byzantine writer,

claimed that the Frisians, people living along the

coast of Lower Saxony, and Angles settled Britain.

In chapter 40 of his account Germania, written in

the late ﬁrst century

A.D., the Roman historian Taci-

tus cited the Anglii among the Germanic tribes.

From the fourth century, cruciform and small-long

brooches characterized a distinctive material culture

extending beyond the bounds of modern Angeln.

Cremation was the predominant burial practice dur-

ing the fourth and ﬁfth centuries. According to

book 2 of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, migration

across the channel had depopulated Angeln, a claim

that has found some archaeological support. Ar-

chaeological evidence indicates that by the sixth

century, the large Continental cremation cemeteries

were no longer in use, and settlement activity disap-

peared between the ﬁfth and eighth centuries. A few

sixth- and seventh-century hoards, stray ﬁnds, and

burials, however, argue against Bede’s claim of total

abandonment. Signiﬁcant language replacement in-

dicates repopulation in Angeln after the eighth cen-

tury.

Design motifs on ceramics from the Continen-

tal Anglian cremation cemeteries appear on vessels

found in southern and eastern England. Pots with

horizontal grooves or corrugations around the

neck, vertical grooves or bosses ringing the shoul-

der, and a wider, shallower proﬁle than those from

the Elbe-Weser region are found both on the

Continent at Hammoor (Germany) and So

⁄

rup

ANGLES, SAXONS, AND JUTES

ANCIENT EUROPE

381

Fig. 1. Site plan of the settlement at Feddersen Wierde. NIEDERSÄCHSISCHES INSTITUT FÜR HISTORISCHE KÜSTENFORSCHUNG. REPRODUCED BY

PERMISSION

382

ANCIENT EUROPE

Fig. 2. The Roman Iron Age site of Feddersen Wierde. NIEDERSÄCHSISCHES INSTITUT FÜR HISTORISCHE KÜSTENFORSCHUNG. REPRODUCED BY

PERMISSION

(Denmark) and in England at Caistor-by-Norwich

(Norfolk). Cross-headed small-long brooches with

spatulate feet and cruciform brooches provide a

connection between Angeln and England. More-

over, similarities in the range of artifacts and their

proportional occurrence noted between the large

cemeteries at Spong Hill (Norfolk) and Bordesholm

and Süderbrarup in Schleswig-Holstein have been

explained tentatively as the result of migration from

the Continent.

Eastern Kent and western Jutland are similarly

linked through ceramic and metalwork types. Un-

like the areas of England traditionally ascribed to

the Angles and Saxons, however, Jutish Kent lacks

early burials representative of the earliest settlers.

Indeed, burials dating to the ﬁfth and sixth century

in Jutland generally are unfurnished. Consequently,

little evidence exists for the direct import into Kent

of Jutish types of ceramics, bracteates (thin metal

plates), and cruciform brooches.

The artifactual diversity of the contact-period

Anglo-Saxon cemeteries nonetheless indicates that

the Germanic migrants were not culturally homoge-

neous. Although ﬁfth-century archaeological paral-

lels between England and the Continent are evident

in ceramics and metalwork, it is from the late ﬁfth

and sixth centuries in England that ethnic redeﬁni-

tion, manifested by women’s dress styles, approxi-

mated the Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish groupings de-

scribed by Bede. Anglian women’s primary garment

was a tunic dress (peplos) secured at both shoulders

by small, generally similar brooches. Although the

classic peplos was sleeveless, the presence of wrist

clasps indicates that, in England, Anglian women

wore either a long-sleeved version of this dress or a

sleeved underdress beneath the sleeveless variant. A

third, often larger brooch at the neck, shoulder, or

chest either fastened the undergarment to the tunic

or closed a heavier outer cloak. In early Anglo-

Saxon England, annular, small-long, and cruciform

brooches traditionally are associated with women

living in the area attributed by Bede to the Angles.

In the Saxon area of England, women’s Ger-

manic-type costume incorporated supporting-arm

brooches, equal-arm brooches, and saucer brooches

similar to those of their Continental homelands, as

well as disk brooches. In Kent and the Isle of Wight,

the regions traditionally connected with Jutish set-

tlement, women followed a distinctive Continental-

inﬂuenced dress style that featured a centrally clos-

ing garment secured by inlaid brooches. The con-

ANGLES, SAXONS, AND JUTES

ANCIENT EUROPE

383

tinuation of these Continental associations into the

sixth century is indicated by the importation into

Kent of brooches decorated with a southern Scandi-

navian art style and bracteate pendants. In the late

sixth and seventh centuries, access to the wealth of

the Frankish kingdom enabled elite women in Kent

and the Isle of Wight to adopt other Continental

fashions, such as crystal ball amulets and gold-braid

headbands (vittae).

Today, it is recognized that Bede was describ-

ing not the political landscape of the Anglo-Saxon

migration, as he claimed, but that of his own time.

The Germanic origin myths that legitimized these

cultural identities were remembered and exploited

into the eighth century.

See also Anglo-Saxon England (vol. 2, part 7); Spong

Hill (vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Colgrave, Bertram, and R. A. B. Mynors, trans. and eds.

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Ox-

ford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Hills, Catherine. “Did the People of Spong Hill Come from

Schleswig-Holstein?” Studien zur Sachsenforschung 13

(1998): 145–154.

Hines, John. “Culture Groups and Ethnic Groups in North-

ern Germany in and around the Migration Period.”

Studien zur Sachsenforschung 13 (1999): 219–232.

Pohl, Walter. “Ethnic Names and Identities in the British

Isles: A Comparative Perspective.” In The Anglo-Saxons

from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An

Ethnographic Perspective. Edited by J. Hines, pp. 7–40.

Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 1997.

Pohl, Walter, and Helmut Reimutz, eds. Strategies of Dis-

tinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–

800. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 1988.

Welch, Martin. English Heritage Book of Anglo-Saxon En-

gland. London: B.T. Batsford/English Heritage, 1992.

Wood, Ian. “Before and after the Migration to Britain.” In

The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the

Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. Edited by

J. Hines, pp. 41–54. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press,

1997.

ENEVIEVE FISHER

■

BAIUVARII

The Baiuvarii represent the most recent Germanic

tribe of the Migration period that played an impor-

tant part in the development of present-day Germa-

ny. The ﬁrst historical record comes from Roman

authors of the early sixth century

A.D.: Jordanes

mentions the tribe in his history of the Goths (551),

perhaps reﬂecting an earlier reference (520) in Cas-

siodorus. Later the tribe is mentioned by the Gallic

Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus (565). The main

settlement area of the Baiuvarii included parts of the

old Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum, a ter-

ritory whose modern appellation, Bavaria, derives

from their name. The name “Baiuvarii” probably

means “men from the land of Baia,” or Bohemia,

the old Boiohaemum of the ancient geographers.

Identifying the date when these Baiuvarii arrived

and the inhabitants they encountered in the Roman

territories of Raetia and Noricum was long a subject

of constant debate; however, developments in ar-

chaeological research in the late twentieth century

have yielded new insights, and the understanding of

the ethnogenesis of the Baiuvarii has changed radi-

cally over the years.

By the 1960s a majority of researchers had ob-

served a distinct gap between late antiquity and the

Early Middle Ages. They assumed that the Alpine

foothills remained largely unoccupied after the Ro-

mans withdrew in 400 until the Baiuvarii, as a fully

developed tribe, migrated from Bohemia into the

area in the early sixth century. Indeed, for a long

time, the archaeological sources remained almost

completely silent regarding the ﬁfth century. Since

the 1960s, however, archaeological ﬁnds have con-

ﬁrmed the account of the Latin scholar Eugippius,

who records in his sixth-century Vita Sancti

Severini that in Raetia, too, Roman rule and border

defense ended only around 476 as a direct result of

the end of the Western Roman Empire.

Baiuvarian cemeteries have now been discov-

ered that were used as early as the second half of the

ﬁfth century and remained in use around 700; ex-

amples include the graveyards at Barbing–Irlmauth

(Regensburg), Klettham–Altenerding (Erding),

Bittenbrunn (in the Neuburg–Schrobenhausen dis-

trict), Straubing–Bajuwarenstrasse (near Regens-

burg), and Munich Aubing. Two cases, namely the

late Roman forts at Neuburg and Straubing and the

early Baiuvarian cemeteries of Bittenbrunn and

Straubing–Bajuwarenstrasse, reveal a direct connec-

tion between the Germanic allies, who abandoned

the forts around 476 and the core of the new settlers

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

384

ANCIENT EUROPE

who founded the oldest Baiuvarian farming villages.

These early cemeteries have one thing in com-

mon—the grave goods do not indicate a uniform

“early Baiuvarian” culture that would also show

close links to Bohemia. The burial offerings rather

contain a wide variety of antique objects of Roman,

Bohemian, Ostrogothic, Alemannic, and Langobar-

dic origin that strongly suggest that Baiuvarian eth-

nogenesis is polyethnic in character.

The eponymic core of this process is evident in

the archaeologically deﬁned Friedenhain-Prestovice

group, which goes back to the Teutons in southern

Bohemia. In the ﬁfth century

A.D. this group mi-

grated by way of the valley between Cham and

Fürth through the Bavarian Forest and into the

eastern Bavarian approaches to the Roman limes be-

tween Neuburg and Passau. They soon provided

the majority of the Roman frontier troops, a situa-

tion that lasted until the end of Roman rule around

the middle of the ﬁfth century. Historically, this

group is to be identiﬁed as the “Baiuvarii,” the

“men from Bohemia,” who lent their name to this

polyethnic tribal structure and represented the nu-

cleus of Bavarian ethnogenesis.

Only in the late sixth century do the grave

goods begin to suggest a uniform Baiuvarian ceme-

tery culture, which because of strong Frankish-

Lombard inﬂuence cannot be distinguished in all

respects from neighboring tribes, such as the Ale-

manni. A difference in the settlement of the land is

evident between the north and the south. In the

Danube area settlement was continuous from the

time of the Romans; in contrast, the Alpine foothills

to the south were resettled somewhat later, except

for the Roman settlement region around Salzburg.

From the meager historical sources and the in-

sights offered by archaeological research as of the

early 2000s, the following model emerges for the

Bavarian tribal genesis: when Roman rule came to

an end on the Danube around the middle of the

ﬁfth century, a polyethnic tribe comprising Roman

and immigrant Germanic groups (including Ale-

manni, Ostrogoths, Langobards, and Thuringians)

formed at the turn of the ﬁfth to the sixth century

A.D. around Germanic allies who had migrated into

the area from Bohemia (the “Baiuvarii”). Particular-

ly important is the fact that the massive and there-

fore practically indestructible fortress of Regens-

burg remained in the possession of the allies of

Bohemian origin. Based on written records starting

in the Early Middle Ages, this was the royal capital

of the early medieval stem duchy of the Agilolﬁng

dynasty.

This Baiuvarian ethnogenesis should not be

imagined in a power vacuum or seen as a conscious

decision of those involved. It is more likely to have

occurred as a result of external inﬂuences, namely

through the intervention of the Ostrogoths. Under

their king Theoderic, the Ostrogoths had con-

quered Italy from Eastern Rome in 493. The terri-

tory they acquired included Raetia up to the Dan-

ube, an area that formed part of the diocese of Italy.

Ostrogothic rule over the region between the Alps

and the Danube ended only in 536. In that year, the

Ostrogothic king, Witigis, who was forced to de-

fend Italy against the troops of the Eastern Roman

emperor, Justinian, ceded the region north of the

Alps to the Franks under their king Theudebert

from the Merovingian dynasty. The tribe of the Bai-

uvarii between the Lech, the Danube, the Enns, and

the Alps continued to enjoy substantial indepen-

dence under the rule of the Agilolﬁngian dukes,

who had many connections with the Langobard

dynasty. In the sixth and seventh centuries, settle-

ment expanded rapidly and in northern Bavaria

eventually spread across the Danube towards the

north. In addition to archaeological ﬁnds, historical

place-names increasingly testify to these settlement

processes in the seventh century. Toward the end of

its independence, the stem duchy of Bavaria includ-

ed the region up to the Enns River and the Bavarian

Forest in the east but failed to reach the Main River

in the north. The western boundary was formed by

a line extending from the Rednitz and Lech Rivers

to the upper Inn Valley. In the region of the Alps,

the southern area included the upper Etsch Valley

and the upper Pustertal Valley.

Regensburg is mentioned as the capital (me-

tropolis) of the stem duchy of Bavaria for the ﬁrst

time in 770. Many ducal palaces and large ducal es-

tates are known to have existed in the eighth centu-

ry. The earliest known diocesan towns are Eichstätt,

Regensburg, Freising, Passau, Salzburg, and Säben.

Many monasteries and cloisters, including Mond-

see, Mattsee, Chiemsee, and Benediktbeuern, date

back to the Agilolﬁngians. Under Charlemagne a

split occurred with the last Agilolﬁng, Tassilo III,

BAIUVARII

ANCIENT EUROPE

385

who was deposed in 788. After that, Frankish ofﬁce-

holders ruled in Bavaria.

See also Ostrogoths (vol. 2, part 7); Southern Germany

(vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Czysz, Wolfgang, Karlheinz Dietz, Thomas Fischer, and

Hans-Jörg Kellner, eds. Die Römer in Bayern. Stutt-

gart, Germany: Theiss, 1995.

Dannheimer, Hermann, and Heinz Dopsch, eds. Die Baju-

waren: Von Severin bis Tassilo 488–788. Munich and

Salzburg: Amt der Salzburger Landesregierung, 1988.

Dietz, Karlheinz, and Thomas Fischer. Die Römer in Re-

gensburg. Regensburg, Germany: Pustet, 1996.

Fischer, Thomas. Das bajuwarische Reihengräberfeld von

Staubing: Studien zur Frühgeschecte im bayerischen Do-

naraum. Kallmuenz, Germany: Michael Lassleben,

1993.

———. Noricum. Mainz, Germany: Zabern, 1992.

Friesinger, H., and F. Daim, eds. Typen der Ethnogenese

unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bayern. Vienna:

Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaf-

ten, 1990.

Geisler, Hans. “Das frühbairische Gräberfeld Straubing-

Bajuwarenstraße.” Internationale Archäologie 30

(1998): 339–342.

Menghin, Wilfried. Frühgeschichte Bayerns: Römer und Ger-

manen, Baiern und Schwaben, Franken und Slawen.

Stuttgart, Germany: Theiss, 1990.

Reindel, Kurt. “Grundlegung: Das Zeitalter der Agilolﬁnger

(bis 788).” In Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte.

Vol. 1. Edited by Max Spindler. Munich: Beck, 1981.

Werner, Joachim. “Die Herkunft der Bajuwaren und der ‘ös-

tlich-merowingische’ Reihengräberkreis.” In Aus Ba-

yerns Frühzeit: Friedrich Wagner zum 75. Geburtstag.

Edited by Joachim Werner, pp. 229–250. Munich:

Commission for Bavarian National History, Beck,

1962.

Wolfram, Herwig, and Andreas Schwarcz, eds. “Die Bayern

und ihre Nachbarn: Berichte des Symposions der Kom-

mission für Frühmittelalterforschung 25–28 Oktober

1982.” Denkschrift der Österreichischen Adademie der

Wissenschaften 179–180 (1985).

HOMAS FISCHER

(TRANSLATED BY GINA BRODERICK)

■

DÁL RIATA

One of the peoples of early medieval Scotland, the

Dál Riata (or Dalriada) were Gaelic speakers whose

territorial base was in Argyll on the West Highland

coast. They have provided some of the earliest in-

digenous historical sources for Scotland, and they

participated in the development of the multicultural

Insular art style. Their kings are credited with the

creation of the greater kingdom of “Scot-land” dur-

ing the mid-ninth century

A.D.

The Dál Riata originated in northern Ireland.

Their origin legends claim that Fergus Mór came to

Argyll c.

A.D. 500. In A.D. 575, at the Convention

of Druim Cett, the king of the Scottish Dál Riata

surrendered his rights to military service on land

from the Irish Dál Riata but retained the rights to

their tribute and ship service. Despite this historical

evidence, there is debate about exactly how many

Dál Riata came to Argyll and under what circum-

stances. They did speak a Goidelic, or Q-Celtic, lan-

guage, the ancestor of modern Scots Gaelic, where-

as their neighbors the Picts and Britons spoke

Brittonic, or P-Celtic, languages related more close-

ly to modern Welsh, which might argue for signiﬁ-

cant population movement. There is no archaeolog-

ical evidence, however, to support the theory of a

large-scale migration. The archaeological record in

Argyll shows considerable continuity with the earli-

er Iron Age. Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind

that there is evidence from early in prehistory for

close contact between Argyll and northern Ireland,

which are, after all, separated by a mere 19 kilome-

ters (12 miles) of water. In the early twenty-ﬁrst

century most scholars support the idea of a move by

the ruling dynasty of the Dál Riata, perhaps under

pressure from the powerful Uí Neíll, or Ulaid, from

their Irish homeland to an area with which they had

close connections, perhaps including marriage alli-

ances—very much as some late medieval MacDon-

alds became the MacDonnels of Antrim.

The Scottish Dál Riata had three, later four,

major cenéla, or kindreds: Cenél nGabráin, Cenél

Loairn, Cenél nOengusa, and Cenél Comgaill, the

last of which split from Cenél nGabráin by the

eighth century

A.D. The names of these groups,

some description of their territories, and a census of

their military forces are found in the Senchus fer

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

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ANCIENT EUROPE

Key sites and kindred territories of early Dál Riata. ADAPTED FROM LANE AND CAMPBELL 2000.

nAlban (History of the men of Scotland), a tenth-

century document substantially based on a seventh-

century original. The Senchus is part king list and

royal genealogy, part naval muster: the basic unit of

military service was the ship, with two seven-

benched ships due from every twenty houses. In the

rugged landscape of Argyll, travel by water was easi-

er than by land until well into the twentieth century,

and so it is natural that the Dál Riata, with lands in

both Ireland and Scotland, should see their navy as

more important than their army. The military histo-

ry of Dál Riata, by land and sea, is found in the en-

tries of various Irish annals, such as the Annals of

Tigernach; however, it is widely believed that many

DÁL RIATA

ANCIENT EUROPE

387

of these detailed Scottish entries initially came from

an annal compiled at the monastery of Iona in Ar-

gyll.

Iona, the birthplace of the Columban tradition

of Christianity, no doubt was responsible for ﬁrst

putting so much of Dalriadic history onto parch-

ment. The monastery was founded by Columba

(

A.D. 521–597) of the northern Uí Neíll, who left

Ireland (perhaps expediently) in

A.D. 563 and asso-

ciated himself with the politically dominant Cenél

nGabráin, consecrating Aedán mac Gabráin (r.

A.D.

574–608) king of the Dál Riata at Iona. After Co-

lumba, Iona’s most famous abbot was Adomnán

(abbot

A.D. 679–704), who wrote the Life of St. Co-

lumba about a century after the saint’s death.

Iona was a center not only of learning but also

of art, with a wide network of international connec-

tions that fostered the development of what is

known as Insular, or Hiberno-Saxon, art. Although

it is commonly called “Celtic,” this interlace-rich

style is actually a fusion of artistic elements from

Celtic, Germanic, and Mediterranean sources. The

relative importance of the different elements and

the date and location where this hybrid style ﬁrst ap-

peared are hotly debated, but numerous scholars

believe that the Book of Durrow and the Book of

Kells, important early Insular manuscripts, may have

been produced at Iona during the seventh and

eighth centuries

A.D. The importance of the Dál

Riata in the development of Insular art is supported

further by the large number of seventh-century

brooch molds and other craft-working materials ex-

cavated at the site of Dunadd, the capital of Dal-

riadic Argyll. In the early medieval period the royal-

ty and nobility of different kingdoms interacted not

only in the battles recorded in the annals but also

through marriage and other forms of alliance. For

instance, Oswald (king of Anglian Northumbria, r.

A.D. 634–642) was in exile in Dál Riata earlier in the

seventh century and became a Christian while there,

and it is from precisely such cross-cultural contacts

that the Insular style may have been born.

Politically and militarily the Dál Riata were one

of the major powers of North Britain, although

there was a period in the mid–seventh century when

they may have been under Northumbrian overlord-

ship. Their relations with the Picts, their neighbors

to the east, are highly debatable, particularly during

the late eighth century and early ninth century:

some scholars believe that the Picts were the over-

lords of the Dál Riata, whereas others think that a

Dalriadic dynasty ruled the Picts. This is the period

when the Dál Riata were coming under attack from

the sea: the ﬁrst recorded Viking raid in Scotland hit

Iona in

A.D. 794. As the Norse gained control of the

island fringe of Argyll and the Pictish north, the Dál

Riata and Picts amalgamated into a single kingdom,

whose ﬁrst recognized king was Cinead mac Ailpín

(more familiarly known as Kenneth mac Alpin, r.

A.D. 843–858) of the Dál Riata. Although it is un-

clear whether this was the result of conquest or as-

similation, by the mid-tenth century texts spoke of

the destruction of the Picts, and the name of the

kingdom itself, Alba, was Gaelic.

See also Dark Age/Early Medieval Scotland (vol. 2, part

7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bannerman, John. Studies in the History of Dalriada. Edin-

burgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1974.

Campbell, Ewan. Saints and Sea-kings: The First Kingdom of

the Scots. Edinburgh: Canongate Books–Historic Scot-

land, 1999.

Foster, Sally M. Picts, Gaels, and Scots: Early Historic Scot-

land. London: B. T. Batsford–Historic Scotland, 1996.

Lane, Alan, and Ewan Campbell. Dunadd: An Early Dal-

riadic Capital. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000.

LIZABETH A. RAGAN

■

GOTHS BETWEEN THE BALTIC

AND BLACK SEAS

In the middle of the sixth century A.D. the monk

Jordanes recorded in his Getica the detailed history

of the Goths. The story describes their crossing the

Baltic Sea under the lead of King Berig, a period of

time spent on its southern coast, and their later de-

parture (during King Filimer’s reign) to the Black

Sea, where the Gothic kingdoms subsequently were

destroyed by the Huns c.

A.D. 375. The Roman his-

torian Tacitus (in Germania) conﬁrmed the pres-

ence of the Goths in the north, and the astronomer

and geographer Ptolemy (in Geographica) located

them by the lower Vistula River in the late ﬁrst and

the second centuries

A.D. Archaeologists supported

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

388

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these written accounts by ascribing to the early

Goths the so-called Wielbark culture in Poland (ear-

lier known as the Gotho-Gepidic culture), with its

speciﬁc cemeteries and characteristic artifacts. The

Cherniakhov culture, identiﬁed between the Dan-

ube and Dnieper Rivers, came to represent later

Gothic settlement.

This clear picture has come into question

thanks to critical analyses of the historical evidence

and precise chronological dating of archaeological

ﬁnds. Historians have questioned the reliability of

Jordanes and concluded that the alleged Scandina-

Extent of the Wielbark culture (shaded region) during the third century A.D. and second half of the

fourth century A.D.

vian origin of the Goths probably was just a literary

motif—a topos introduced in the tribal tradition to

give people a feeling of ancient heroic unity. More-

over, an earlier chronology of typical “Gothic” ﬁnds

in northern Poland, rather than in Sweden, put in

doubt the sudden arrival of the Goths in the middle

of the ﬁrst century

A.D. Thus, there are no historical

or archaeological data to sustain the Scandinavian

origin of the Goths as sudden mass invaders of the

lower Vistula area.

It should be accepted, then, that Gothic ethno-

genesis took place not in Scandinavia but south of

GOTHS BETWEEN THE BALTIC AND BLACK SEAS

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389

the Baltic in the context of the advantageous cir-

cumstances of trade contacts with the Roman Em-

pire. Control over the lucrative amber export was

both a source of income and a reason for ﬁerce com-

petition among local elite groups, and symbolic ex-

pression of group identity played an important role

in the formation of the Gothic sense of identity. It

was a transformation of local populations of the

older Oksywie culture into a new entity that became

archaeologically visible as the Wielbark culture

around the middle of the ﬁrst century

A.D. Various

elements, including Roman traditions, were used to

form a speciﬁc material culture distinctively differ-

ent from traditions that prevailed in the Germanic

Barbaricum: rich female adornments and handmade

pottery and characteristic burial rituals (stelae, pave-

ments and rings of stones—mostly in the early

Roman period, the coexistence of cremation and in-

humation burials, and poor male graves with no

weapons or iron).

Jordanes’s description suggests that the early

Goths did not differ from other “barbarian” peo-

ples. Like, for example, Langobards, Herulians, or

Vandals, they were an opportunistic agglomeration

uniﬁed by the successes of their military leaders,

who legitimized their domination by creating myths

of the heroic common past. Some archaeologists

also suggest a polyethnic composition of the Wiel-

bark culture. Migration of a political-military center

did not mean migration of all inhabitants of a terri-

tory controlled by a chief-king. Archaeology does

not support Jordanes’s report of the well-organized

resettlement of the Baltic Goths to the Black Sea in

the ﬁrst half of the third century

A.D. It is thought

that it was instead a gradual inﬁltration that began

in the late second century

A.D., while a substantial

part of the population stayed in the north.

After some time there emerged a new elite that

also decided to migrate to the south in search of

better opportunities. They are identiﬁed by Jor-

danes as the Gepids, which meant “Late Comers.”

Researchers cannot discern any “Gothic” or

“Gepidic” ﬁnds in Poland, which means that at the

level of the material culture, symbolism, these two

ethnic groups did not yet differ there. Thus, the eth-

nicity of the Gepids must have formed as a result of

the decision taken by the second generation of

Wielbark leaders to resettle in the late third century

and found their new homeland around the Black

Sea. That dramatic decision was taken during a de-

terioration of the climate in Europe and the eco-

nomic crisis of the Roman Empire during the period

A.D. 235–284. Elites that called themselves “Goths”

and “Gepids” decided to leave their Baltic home-

land in search of better circumstances to sustain

their power status. The warlike mobilization of the

migrating population had the effect of uniting peo-

ple around their leaders, who took responsibility for

the prosperity of their followers. Success in subordi-

nating fertile lands lying close to the rich Roman

markets reinforced these leaders’ power and led to

the formation of ruling dynasties.

The region of the lower Vistula still was not

emptied, however; indeed, some of the Wielbark

cemeteries were used until the fourth century or

even into the early ﬁfth century

A.D. Continuity has

been established by the technological tradition in

pottery making that may be traced from the Wiel-

bark culture to the West Baltic culture that expand-

ed toward the lower Vistula at the end of the ﬁfth

century. Some studies even suggest that elements of

the Wielbark tradition survived until the sixth cen-

tury.

Thus, the alleged quick resettlement of the Bal-

tic Goths toward the Black Sea as a result of an orga-

nized migration led by King Filimer in

A.D. 150

must be considered a myth. Instead, archaeologists

suggest a slow southern expansion of cultural pat-

terns promoted by Wielbark-Gothic elites. Contacts

between the Baltic and Black Sea zones never broke

down, however, which resulted in the formation of

a huge area inhabited by populations with cultural

similarities—biritual cemeteries, male graves with

no weapons, and female jewelry.

It seems that the later history of the Goths, who

escaped to the west pushed by invading Huns,

should be changed or at least supplemented. Ger-

man archaeologist Eduard S

turms already had sug-

gested in 1950 that some of the Black Sea Goths re-

turned to the north to join those “Goths” who had

never left the Baltic zone. There are no written

sources to support this claim, but inﬂow of Byzan-

tine golden coins (dated to

A.D. 455–518) to the

region of the lower Vistula may indicate such a

remigration in the circumstance of the sudden dis-

integration of the Hun “empire” after

A.D. 455.

Thus, modern archaeological knowledge un-

dermines the long-held traditional view of the

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

390

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