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The Tribal Groups of Ancient Germania Clickable terms are red on the yellow background |
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The tribes and
races of ancient Germania (from P. Bělíček: The
Analytic Survey of European Anthropology, Prague 2018, Map 16, p. 75) |
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Germanic genealogies have to be revisited
from the archaeological point of view. Germanic ancestors came to western
Europe from the east with three Microlithic cultures. The northern stream was
represented by Maglemosians (c. 9000-6000 BC) and the central Hercynian stream was conducted
by the Beuronians or Tardenoisians (7450-7000 BP). The southern Danubian stream was of earlier origin, its
first pioneers were Magdalenians (17,000 BP), who specialised as reindeer hunters. Their territories were
later occupied by two affiliated groups of microlithic flake tool
assemblages, at first the Azilians (14,000-10,000
BP) and then the Sauveterrians (8500-6500
BC). What united these filial cultures and
waves of migrations into one group was a similar composition of tribal
phratries. Their migration tracks seemed to multiply the basic five of
ethnonyms alluding to the phratries of Cimbrians, Teutons, Turanids, Germans
and Casites (Table 17). Such paradigm of ethnonymic associations was roughly
applicable also to microlithic sites in
Map 15. Cimbrian settlements after Maglemosian, Beuronian and
Sauveterrian colonisations The Taxonomic Disambiguation of the Germanic Peoples
The major crux in Germanic philology is the ethnic identity of
Germans, who are classified as one of Indo-European families but exhibit many
heterogeneous cultural traits. According to Tacit’s genealogies, Germans
descended from Tuisto, his son Mannus and three grandsons Irmin, Istvo and Ingvo: “the God Tuisto sprang from the earth, … he and his son
Mannus were the founders of the race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons,
whose names are borne respectively by the Ingæuones next to the
ocean, the Herminones in the middle of the country, and the Istæuones in the rest of it.”1 Modern philology prefers to spell Ingæuones as
Ingaevones and Istæuones as
Istvaeones. Jacob Grimm2 anticipated modern interpretations by
identifying the Ingaevones with the Saxons, the Istvaeones with
the Franks, and the Herminones with the Thuringians.3 His conclusions were further
developed by Friedrich Maurer4, who identified Germanic
tribes with Herminonen and divided
them into subfamilies of Teutonen, Istväonen, Ingväonen and Illevionen.
Tacit was aware that
contemporary Germanic populations included heterogeneous ethnic enclaves that
defended their own claims to Tuisto’s heirdom: “Others, with true
mythological license, give the deity several more sons, from whom are derived
more tribal names, such as Marsians, Gambrivians, Suabians, and Vandals; and
these names are both genuine and ancient.”5 They reflected the state of many
disconnected chieftaincies competing for hegemony in the Fallacies
of royal genealogies. Another account of Germanic genealogies was given
by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia. In his view the Herminones and Hermunduri descended
from the same line of descent as Mannus. Their stock encompassed also
the tribes of Chatti, Cherusci, and Suebi.7 Jacob Grim derived the origin of Istvaeones from a hero Ask featuring in Norse mythology. He
mentioned passages from Historia Brittonum by Nennius, where a certain Escio
was counted as an ancestor of the Istvaeones. In our view such genealogies
evolved from royal catalogues of ruling dynasties that were composed as an
assemblage of several incoherent pantheons. Their purpose was to subordinate
the deities of subjugated ethnicities to the supreme god of the reigning
clan. This deception was construed by adopting them as step-sons into the
family of their earliest ancestor celebrated as the supreme divinity. In
ancient Germanic genealogies have to
be revisited from the archaeological point of view. Germanic ancestors came
to western Europe from the east with three Microlithic cultures. The northern
stream was represented by Maglemosians (c.
9000-6000 BC) and the central Hercynian stream was conducted by the
Beuronians or Tardenoisians (7450-7000
BP). The southern Danubian stream was of earlier origin, its first pioneers
were Magdalenians (17,000 BP), who specialised as reindeer hunters. Their territories were
later occupied by two affiliated groups of microlithic flake tool
assemblages, at first the Azilians (14,000-10,000 BP) and then the Sauveterrians (8500-6500 BC). What united these filial cultures and waves of
migrations into one group was a similar composition of tribal phratries.
Their migration tracks seemed to multiply the basic five of ethnonyms
alluding to the phratries of Cimbrians, Teutons, Turanids, Germans and
Casites (Table 17). Such paradigm of ethnonymic associations was roughly
applicable also to microlithic sites in The Ethnic Substrates of Germanic Dialectology
The German linguist Friedrich Maurer took Tacit’s legend about Tuisto
and combined it with Pliny’s reports about Mannus and [H]illeviones.1 Their synthesis resulted in a
widely-accepted classification of Germanic languages and dialects.2 It counted with the mythic tripartition splitting Germanic nations into Istvaeonic and Ingvaeonic and Irminonic
tribes but included also a less reliably evidenced branch of Illeviones. His Irminones encompassed the Elbe Germanic group
headed by Thuringians, Bavarians and Alamanni. The core of Ingvaeones was formed by the North Sea Germanic people, who consisted of
Frisians, Angles and Saxons. The subgroup of Istvaeones provided a
convenient label for the Weser-Rhine Germanic branch uniting chiefly Franks
and Chatti (Graph 1). His considerations built a passable bridge between
ancient Latin historiography and modern Germanic philology inclusive of
dialectology.
Graph 1.
Friedrich Maurer’s subcategorisation
of Germanic language families Maurer’s
contributions influenced Germanic dialectology but suffered from classical
preconceptions of Germanic historical grammar. His elucidation
of Germanic languages consisted of one-sided misinterpretations of Germanic
myths grafted on a sound rational partitioning of dialectal groupings. The
second prominent founder of Germanic dialectology appeared in Ferdinand Wrede1, who elaborated the Irminonic theory
of Elbe Germanic dialects to perfection. Their followers added several
substantial refinements.2 They
realised that the Ingaeonic covered the block of Goths, Jutes and Frisians
inclusive of Dutch, Jutlandic and Low German. The Istvaeonic subfamily was
dubbed as Weser-Rhein-Germanisch and its domain covered the Franconian
family with West Central German dialects. Illeviones were posed as a
hypothetical group covering Silesians and Oder-Vistula subfamily. Fruitful
results were brought especially by the popular theory of Ingvaeonisms in
Germanic dialects. It developed theoretical considerations on the Ingvaeonic
origin of Anglo-Saxons.3 The fallacy of prehistoric
nations. Maurer’s errors require a digression to contrasts between the ancient
and modern concept of a tribe. Modern authors suffer from an irresistible inclination to conceive
prehistoric tribes as large united compact nations coextensive with the
present-day republics. They are liable to discard all indications of inner
ethnic plurality and deny all long-range links between continental tribes. In
opposition to their biased views, the ancients acknowledged the surviving
state of diversity and saw genetic consanguinity between remote related
cognates. Their geographers did not mind linking different Eurasian factions
of Scythians, Sarmatians, Kimmerians, Pelasgians or Hyperboreans. They
confirmed immense geographical diversity and scattered distribution of ethnic
groups. The ancient world did not see any compact nations and homogeneous
countries without a rich internal stratification of castes, classes, enclaves
and minorities. In their eyes ancients Jutlandic and Subalpine Cimbri
were related to the Kimmerioi4
on the |
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Archaeological Roots of
Germanic Minorities
Turanids. Mesolithic cultures with microlith implements
drifted from
Table
20. The
varieties of European Turcoids, Cimbrids, Germanics and Punoids
The Germanic newcomers were Epi-Maglemosian ‘bog-people’, who
inherited the Y-DNA haplogroup R1a-M420. They went fishing in boats and used
canoes as coffins for burials of their dead. Their Madgalenian relatives in
Table 21. The
comparative ethnonymy of Turanids and Turcoid tribes Cimbroid cultures exhibited features
characteristic of peoples producing Epi-Magdalenian, Epi-Azilian and
Epi-Tardenoisian microlithic tools. Their descendants are usually mentioned
in historical annals as Celtiberians, Eburones, Eburovices,
Etruscans, Irish Iverni or Hiberni. Their life-style differed a
lot from Punids, who were renowned as maritime fishermen and pirates. They lived in
cliff-dwellings that were hewn in coastal crags and accessed through vertical
shafts. One of their branches was formed by Phoenicians who specialised in
seafaring. The ancients believed that they came to the Prehistoric Germanic tribes
were associated with Gotho-Frisian Nordids only by contact vicinity and
integrated into European phenotypes as Mediterranids or Subnordids. More
influential impact was perceptible in the constitution of Romance, Italic,
Slavonic and Baltic languages families. They descended from Gravettian and
Lusatian colonisations that took their course as peaceful infiltrations. They
inoculated the Gothonic core of Indo-European and differentiated from its
standard by importing nasal vowels, satem shifts, palatal stops and
affricates. Traditional doctrines classify them as brachycephalous Subnordids
and describe their tongues as genuine Indo-European languages. Their
structural import consisted in numerous innovative additions such as
masculine o-stems and feminine a-stems. They contrasted with
the inflective morphology of Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, who
distinguished only animate and inanimate gender and recognised only neutral i-stems
with nominative s-plurals. Extract from Pavel
Bělíček: The
Analytic Survey of European Anthropology, Prague 2018, pp. 145-86. |
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1 Tacit, Germ. 2.
2 Jacob Grimm: Deutsche Mythologie Göttingen, 1835.
3 William Stubbs: Constitutional History
of England, I, 1880, p. 38.
4 Friedrich Maurer: Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien
zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprach-geschichte, Stammes- und
Volkskunde.
5 Tacit, Germ. 2.
6 Plinius,
Naturalis historia
37, 35; Ptolemaeus 2, 11, 9.
7 Plinius,
Naturalis historia 4, 100.
1 Plinius, Naturalis historia
I, 1.
2 Friedrich Maurer: Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien
zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprach-geschichte, Stammes- und
Volkskunde. Bern: A. Francke, 1952, pp. 175-178.
1 Ferdinand Wrede: Ingwäonisch und
Westgermanisch. Zeitschrift für deutsche Mundarten, 1924: 270-283; V. M.
Zhirmunski: Deutsche Mundartkunde. Berlin 1962.
2 Carol Henriksen – Johan van der Auwera:
1. The Germanic Languages. In: Johan van der Auwera, ed. The
Germanic Languages. London, New York: Routledge, 1994, 2013, pp. 1-18.
p. 9.
3 Ferdinand Wrede: Ingwäonisch und
Westgermanisch. Zeitschrift für deutsche Mundarten, 1924: 270-283; T.
Frings: Grundlegung einer Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Halle 1957.;
V.
M. Zhirmunski: Deutsche Mundartkunde. Berlin 1962, p. 50-51.
4 Strabo, Geography 7.2.2; Diodorus
Siculus, Bibl.5.32.4; Plutarch, Vit.Mar. 11.11.