Migration Period and Dark Ages in Europe

[Domen]

This thread is about Migration Period and Dark Ages in Europe.

Among those parts of Europe where major changes took place in that era, was Poland.

Recently, already since prior to 2012 (when construction of highways before Euro 2012 revealed many archaeological findings dating to Migration Period), there has been increased interest in this historical (or rather pre-recorded history in this part of Europe) period in Polish archaeology and historical sciences.

A major 5-years long research project "Migration Period between Odra and Vistula" started in mid-2012, I already mentioned it in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=525239

Here is the official website of this project (in English):

http://www.mpov.uw.edu.pl/en/

Home page

There is urgent need for a thorough new study of the cultural, social, ethnic, demographic and environmental transition observed in Central Europe during the Migration Period. A greatly improved recognition of these processes may be gained by taking a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach.

This is precisely the aim of our 5-year Project began in mid-2012 – to investigate in a comprehensive manner processes observed between the late 4th and early 7th century on the Odra and the Vistula. This region could be crucial for tracing the processes sweeping across Europe. From here the Germans – the Goths and the Vandals spilled out and played their part in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, setting up their first states over its ruins.

Research questions

The key questions:

1) What was the cause of the rapid depopulation in the region in 5th and 6th century? Did external political factors trigger processes which led to this major demographic transition? Or was it the drive to take over attractive regions of southern and western Europe?

2) How did these phenomena evolve over space and time? New source evidence from fieldwork, evidence from older investigations verified using the modern research apparatus, should help in refining the chronology, attribution to a specific culture-historical context, e.g. integrating this evidence with information in the written sources.

3) To what extent and for how long was the area uninhabited? Is our present understanding the result of an unsatisfactory status of research, imperfect recording of archaeological finds hidden in the topsoil? Did pockets of earlier population, carriers of the late antique tradition. survive and if so, in what areas? This last question may be elucidated best by palaeobotanical studies.

First questions has already been answered a few days ago - on 23.04.2014 - but this is only the beginning:

First conclusion of the archaeological research project "Migration Period in Vistula and Odra Basins", announced on 23.04.2014, say that "total disappearance of settlement in Vistula and Oder Basins did not take place":

http://archeowiesci.pl/2014/04/23/p...oswieconego-okresowi-wedrowek-ludow-w-polsce/

New evidence for this conclusion has been provided by archaeological sites discovered in many places during the construction of highways before Euro 2012, as well as more recently by new findings, mostly in Cuiavia.

The article from archaeonews (archeowiesci) linked above also says:

"A conference summarizing new conclusions reached so far will take place on 28 - 29 April."

==================================

http://archeowiesci.pl/2013/08/05/n...zagadki-konca-starozytnosci-nad-odra-i-wisla/

"- In mid-2012 we have started a 5-years long project, which will include a complex research on events taking place in the basins of Oder and Vistula between late 4th and early 7th centuries. This area is of key importance for analysis of demographic and historical processes in vast territories of Europe. Because it was this area from which the Goths and the Vandals had originated, and they played the basic role in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and in the creation of first statehoods on its ruins - explains prof. Aleksander Bursche".

News:

http://www.mpov.uw.edu.pl/en/news

=========================================

One of many other regions of Europe where dramatic changes took place during Migration Period and Dark Ages was Britain.

Among leading researchers of that period in British history is Bryan Ward-Perkins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Ward-Perkins

Here some links:

"Call this a recession? At least it isn’t the Dark Ages":

https://www.google.pl/search?q=Fina...e_rd=ctrl&ei=6GoOU7-CMc3d_AaLyIHQCw&gws_rd=cr

Some excerpts from this article:

Roman Britain had enjoyed an abundance of simple iron goods, documented by the many hob-nail boots and coffin-nails found in Roman cemeteries. These, like the coinage, disappeared early in the fifth century, as too did the industries that had produced abundant attractive and functional wheel-turned pottery. From the early fifth century, and for about 250 years, the potter’s wheel – that most basic tool, which enables thin-walled and smoothly finished vessels to be made in bulk – disappeared altogether from Britain. The only pots remaining were shaped by hand, and fired, not in kilns as in Roman times, but in open ‘clamps’ (a smart word for a pile of pots in a bonfire).

We do not know for certain what all this meant for population numbers in the countryside, because from the fifth to the eighth century people had so few goods that they are remarkably difficult to find in the archaeological record; but we do know its effect on urban populations. Roman Britain had a dense network of towns, ranging from larger settlements, like London and Cirencester, which also served an administrative function, to small commercial centres that had grown up along the roads and waterways. By 450 all of these had disappeared, or were well on the way to extinction. Canterbury, the only town in Britain that has established a good claim to continuous settlement from Roman times to the present, impresses us much more for the ephemeral nature of its fifth to seventh-century huts than for their truly urban character. Again it was only in the eighth century, with the (re)emergence of trading towns such as London and Saxon Southampton, that urban life returned to Britain.

It is impossible to say with any confidence when Britain finally returned to levels of economic complexity comparable to those of the highest point of Roman times, but it might be as late as around the year 1000 or 1100. If so, the post-Roman recession lasted for 600-700 years.

Perhaps to some extent climate changes contributed to that crisis:

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercEUROPE.html

1,400 y.a. {536-538 A.D.} wet cold event of reduced tree growth and famine across western Europe and possibly elsewhere

When it comes to Anglo-Saxon invaders, they probably did not exterminate the locals:

Located off the northwestern coast of the European mainland, Britain and Ireland were among the last regions of Europe to be colonized by modern humans after the last glacial maximum. Further, the geographical location of Britain, and in particular of Ireland, is such that the impact of historical migration has been minimal.

Some more links:

https://www.google.pl/search?q=Brya...hannel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=iodEU6u9IsGb_wa06oCQBw

Article "Piece of the Puzzle: Britain loses the potter’s wheel":

http://www.smallanddeliciouslife.com/britain-loses-the-potters-wheel/

Excerpts from the book by Ward-Perkins:

http://books.google.pl/books?id=dPi...e&q=Bryan Ward-Perkins potter's wheel&f=false

Interview with Ward-Perkins:

http://blog.oup.com/2005/12/the_fall_of_rom2/

Article "Archaeology sheds light on the Dark Ages":

http://diyscholar.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/archaeology-sheds-light-on-the-dark-ages/

Reviews of that book by Ward-Perkins:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/specialization-trap.html

https://merovingianworld.wordpress....ward-perkins-on-east-and-west/comment-page-1/

It may be initially hard to believe but post-Roman Britain in fact sank to a level of economic complexity well below that of the pre-Roman Iron Age.

 

[Domen]

Cave at Kostkowice, Poland, which was inhabited by people during Migration Period:

Some scholars suppose, that people fled to that cave and settled there taking refuge from the Hunnic Invasion:

Also other caves were settled by humans during that period, for example the cave at Kroczyce:

http://www.mpov.uw.edu.pl/en/news

 

[Domen]

Y-DNA haplogroups of males with several particular surnames in Britain:

If we know what is the place of origin of a family (surname), we can establish which DNA migrated from which region:

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/surnames.shtml

(...) often a surname is so unusual that many of its male carriers find themselves also sharing the same Y-DNA haplogroup. Although in 1881 60 per cent of the British population carried one of the most common 1,000 surnames, 30,000 surnames were borne by just 10 percent.6 Turi King and Mark Jobling recruited 1,678 men bearing 40 British surnames in a range from rare to common, and compared their results with a control group randomly chosen. Closely related men were excluded. The results were illuminating. As you can see in the chart from their paper, certain surnames, such as Werrett and Titchmarsh, are almost fixed for a single haplogroup, in this case R1b1 (P25). Since that is a very common haplogroup in Britain, it may be more impressive that 95% of the Herricks tested fell into haplogroup I, while 87% of the Attenboroughs were E1b1b1 and 79% of the Swindlehursts were R1a. By contrast the commonest name - Smith - produced a mixture of haplogroups very similar to the random control group. In other words they reflect the pattern of haplogroups in the British population as a whole. (...)

Common surnames are so mixed that they usually reflect the genetic landscape of entire society, but there are some specific, rare surnames too:

Just look at these sharp Y-DNA contrasts between male members of, for example, Attenborough, Herrick, Swindlehurst and Werrett families.

We can trace migrations of people and migrations of haplogroups if we are able to interpret the origin of these surnames correctly.

But on the other hand, during Dark Ages surnames did not yet exist. So this can be useful only to interpret later migrations.

 

[dutchfire]

uhm, what?

 

[Tahuti]

Thread summary:

Cave at Kostkowice, Poland, which was inhabited by people during Migration Period

 

[Domen]

You forgot about Britain. And the rest of Europe.

 

[Domen]

Excerpt from Old English poem "Widsith" ("Traveller"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widsith

"Wulfhere sohte ic ond Wyrmhere; ful oft þær wig ne alæg,
þonne Hræda here heardum sweordum
ymb Wistlawudu wergan sceoldon
ealdne eþelstol ætlan leodum."

Translation:

"I visited Wulfhere and Wyrmhere; there battle often raged
when the Gothic army in the Vistula woods,
with their sharp swords had to defend
their ancestral seat against Attila's host."

Ancestral seat of the Goths = Vistula woods (Wistlawudu).

But host should rather be translated as people or men.

Leodum / leode / liudi / ljudi / ludy / ludzie / leute = people / men:

Leodum is dative of leode: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leodum

Old English leode (people): http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leode#Old_English

http://en.bab.la/dictionary/polish-english/ludzie

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Leute

Against Attila's men / people (Huns).

 

[TheLastOne36]

Thread summary:

Forgetting this thread so soon?