Celts and Germans of the first century BC-second century AD: an old question, a modern synthesis

Abstract

The Greeks considered the barbarians of Central and Northern Europe to be Celts in the west, and Scythians in the east. Poseidonius was the first known authority to mention the Germanoi which he described as Celtic tribes of the Middle and Lower Rhineland, although he did not regard the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones as Germanoi.Caesar manipulated Poseidonius' term Germanoi to create a new deceptive concept of an ethnic divide between the tractable Galli west of the Rhine and the warlike, feral Germani east of the Rhine. Caesar's first encounter with these tribes was through Ariovistus, King of the Germani and his tribal confederacy. Caesar later equated the Germani with the Teutonic Suebi, which became his archetypal Germani. Caesar did this for his own political ends.Many detailed scholarly studies have been undertaken in the isolation of one discipline on the origins of the tribes of Germania. By combining the three disciplines of History, Linguistics and Archaeology, a clearer and more complete picture will emerge. The assimilation of the complicated and often ambiguous nature of the three disciplines will be undertaken.Following Ariovistus' settlement in Gaul, and Caesar's Gallic campaigns, a major Teutonic advance on Central Europe from Scandinavia and northern and eastern Germania occurred. This contributed to the fall of the oppida and Celtic tribal structure between the Main, Lippe, Weser, and also south of the Main. It resulted in the ethnogenesis of the Celtic and immigrant Teutonic tribes in Germania, e.g. the Chatti. These produced hybrid archaeological material cultures, mixed linguistic groupings, and increasing assimilation to Teutonic language and culture. An assessment of tribal, personal, place, river, forest, mountain, town, and fort names, demonstrates the ethnic and linguistic groupings of the tribes east and west of the Rhine. This is also true of military and religious inscriptions, e.g. the Matronae. The material cultures found in regions east of the Rhine, assumed to be populated by Teutonic tribes, are sometimes found to be solely La Tene.The Augustan advance on Germania prompted increased militarization and consolidation of tribal confederations with a shift from native Rhenish confederations, e.g. the Sugambri, Usipetes and Tencteri, to an increasing focus on the Teutonic confederations of the north and east, e.g. Cherusci and Suebi. This was combined with a second wave of Teutonic migration from Scandinavia and northern Germania into central Germania. Augustan and post-Augustan re-settlement of Germani in Gaul, the ensuing tribal flux, reformulation, and the interaction ofthe immigrant Germani and native Galli, resulted in ethnogenesis and the creation of new tribal units, e.g. Batavi, Cugerni, Tungri, Texuandri.tribal units, e.g. Batavi, Cugerni, Tungri, Texuandri. The rediscovery of Tacitus' Germania in the fifteenth century reawakened an interest in the Germani amongst the German speaking peoples. The growth of German Nationalism culminated in the Unification of Germany in 1870. Later, the Fascists of the Third Reich formed an Imperial Association for German Prehistory (Reichsbundfur deutsche Vorgeschichte), which denied any suggestion of the Teutonic origins of the German people being mixed with those of the cultures of neighbouring non-Teutonic speaking peoples. This enforced the idea that the indigenous people of modern Germany were all of Teutonic origin.When taken as a whole, the Historical, Linguistic and Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the picture which emerges is of Celtic tribes east of the Rhine which had been subsumed and assimilated by the increasingly dominant peoples of Teutonic culture. There is no doubt that many of the tribes of Germania, who by the Augustan era had adopted Teutonic language and Northern German-Scandindvidn archaeological culture, had Celtic origins. Between the time of Caesar in the mid-first century BC, and the end of the first century AD, a great movement of Teutonic tribes entered the already densely populated regions of Celtic central Gefmania and northern and eastern Gaul. They altered the ethnic, linguistic and cultural nature of the area and produced a hybrid population.