Danubian Celts and other analogues

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 13:19:58 +0200 (CEST)


Once more I find the term "Celts" narrowed to the strange minority of island Celts when there was half a continent of continental celts to watch. Hallstatt era Heuneburg or La Tene-era Manching are pretty good analogues for the Kerofinelan Heortlings, too. Plus of course Gaul.

These people managed to absorb both Roman invaders and Germanic invaders to form the Bavarians (though not the Suebes - later "Schwaben") in Roman Norica. Both they and the Suebe descended upper Rhine people provided the Saxon and Viking era with metal goods.

The inland Germanic tribes all came from around the Baltic and North Sea, and even after generations of inland migration (e.g. the Vandals, Langobards) returned to sea-based raiding (or trading) fairly naturally wherever the opportunity was found. On the other hand, former naval raiders like the Saxons which left Britain and settled in Thuringia left those careers behind without changing their culture much.

The western Slavs differed only little from the Vikings except for their native gods, fairly little of whom had been held down in writing (unlike the Iceland skaldic literature or the Welsh and Irish oral traditions which survived the advent of christianity). What little there might have been was burned by Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, along with a huge collection of non-naval inland Germanic traditions.

So, unlike textual evidence which we have only for the island cultures, for material culture we can draw on a much larger area of "hill barbarians".


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