Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[Legbiter]

I was more trying to highlight how they ran from the Huns like squirrels from a dog . It's often portrayed as the great defeat of the Romans. But like you said Rome was hollowed out and made some very dumb diplomatic moves (like Honorius killing the families of the settled goths). It wasn't some grand planned invasion. It was a disorganized fleeing that in the end turned out well for the Germanic people and not so well for the Roman ones.

Did it really turn out that well for those desperate hordes in the end? Hundreds of thousands were killed in combat or died of disease while burning down Gaul, they settled into cities to enjoy the good life and like all city-dwellers before the invention of antibiotics, they were stuck into a population cul-de-sac and left very few modern descendants.  

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Lots of germanics were part of the hunnish horde too, so running from and with at the same time.

Still like the book :'the roman empire and it's germanic peoples'. It quite old though, but not so old it could be considered an eye witness account

[Josquius]

That's true.
This is something that made me not quite take on board the nuttiness right away. He did speak a lot about the different groups intermixing, which to your garden variety nazi doesn't happen.

This is something a lot of people even away from the far right don't realise and it makes me sad. So many are set in their 19th century conceptions of nationhood and don't get that throughout most of human history.... This really didn't matter half as much. People by and large looked out for themselves. Kinship beyond immediate community was rare and especially notable on those occasions where it did happen (eg England)

I'm super into all that pre-historic culture and archaeology stuff, especially Nordic and Germanic. I'm much less interested in the just-so stories about why that makes certain flavours of white people extra special and grand narratives about the imperative destinies of specific nations.

Yes, though I do think I fly a lot closer to the sun on this.
I do think there's a lot that makes different groups "special" and I'm curious as to why they end up the way they do. How does the environment mould them or contacts with which other people or whatever it is.
Like the Germanics certainly had a big tradition of proto democracy. And unquestionably they did rise to be a very successful people.
I would love a dive into this stuff: why it happened, to what extent they did have an advantage over their neighbours vs blind luck.
Trouble is basically everyone into it starts at "I am part of the Germanic master race and we are the best so now to work backwards and show why!"

Outside of Europe another area that really interests me is early Japanese history. Their likely origins in Korea, the Japonic groups of southern Korea who got wiped out by the Koreans, etc...
But this topic is so amazingly tainted by absolute bollocks.
The Japanese in imperial times exaggerated and fabricated this stuff to show Korea was rightfully theirs.
Since then the Koreans have actively suppressed investigations into this topic in their effort to show the Japanese as a completely alien and unrelated people who never set foot in Korea until the sengoku jidai.

[HVC]

Lots of germanics were part of the hunnish horde too, so running from and with at the same time.

Still like the book :'the roman empire and it's germanic peoples' It quite old though, but not so old it could be considered an eye witness account

If I recall correctly the Germanic people in the horde were conquered people conscripted into the horde (although promise of booty probably made it relatively easy). Mostly Ostrogoths I think. also non Germanic people were in there, like Sarmatians . Mainly though they were asiatic people on ponies.

As for your point legbiter, it's hard to replace a peoples. The germanics either needed a lot larger population or have to have committed a lot more raping and pillaging. Which defeats the point of talking over a civilization if you eradicate their population and wealth. As a ruling class they did ok. A century of vandal rule in Africa, 3 centuries Visigoth rule in Iberia. A little later in the timeline but 2 century rule of the Lombard's in Italy. I'm more iffy on the history of Germanic peoples in Gaul.

[HVC]

Outside of Europe another area that really interests me is early Japanese history. Their likely origins in Korea, the Japonic groups of southern Korea who got wiped out by the Koreans, etc...
But this topic is so amazingly tainted by absolute bollocks.
The Japanese in imperial times exaggerated and fabricated this stuff to show Korea was rightfully theirs.
Since then the Koreans have actively suppressed investigations into this topic in their effort to show the Japanese as a completely alien and unrelated people who never set foot in Korea until the sengoku jidai.

Japans a little weird about the history of their own native people too. the Ainu are basically ignored and the Ryukyuans are glossed over. Call em Okinawans and pretend they're Japanese and that's pretty much handled. Long history of intermixing helps there.

[The Minsky Moment]

An exhaustive overview of the origins and migrations of the Germanic people over the last few thousand years. This pulls together all the recent research in genetics, archeology and linguistics. Pretty decent overview.

The Origins & Migrations of the Germanic peoples

I don't know what to make of an account that starts the origins of "Germanic people" thousands of years before any Germanic languages were spoken.

"Germania" was an organizing concept invented by the Romans to them help mentally structure and categorize the barbarian (i.e. non-Roman) world. They grouped together various scattered people that spoke similar sounding languages and called them Germani.  Tacticus imagined a common culture for them but like many such works it reflects the preoccupations of the intended Roman audience more than being some carefully researched ethnography.

In Late Antiquity if something arguably like a "Germanic identity" forms, it did so by virtue of interaction with the Romans, and adopting that worldview.  That can fairly be argued to be a Germanic identity of a kind.  But to equate that identity with high medieval culture in German-speaking lands, or either of those with 19th century German nationalism, is a mistake.

[Josquius]

Outside of Europe another area that really interests me is early Japanese history. Their likely origins in Korea, the Japonic groups of southern Korea who got wiped out by the Koreans, etc...
But this topic is so amazingly tainted by absolute bollocks.
The Japanese in imperial times exaggerated and fabricated this stuff to show Korea was rightfully theirs.
Since then the Koreans have actively suppressed investigations into this topic in their effort to show the Japanese as a completely alien and unrelated people who never set foot in Korea until the sengoku jidai.

Japans a little weird about the history of their own native people too. the Ainu are basically ignored and the Ryukyuans are glossed over. Call em Okinawans and pretend they're Japanese and that's pretty much handled. Long history of intermixing helps there.

I'm not sure there.
In terms of historic treatment absolutely.
The way they treat this heritage today...
I used to be close with a Okinawan girl and she was always pretty uptight about it, insisting she was just Japanese and not having much pride in her dialect.... But on the other hand you do see quite a few efforts to promote Okinawa based on it being foreign without going abroad, the language being so different, etc...
It's really complex.
With the ainu too I do think there's a slight softening in negative attitudes.

In terms of archaeology modern Japan seems pretty good with not letting politics get in the way of things. Quite the opposite of nationalist bs tainting facts in Japan academia has long had the reputation as being a bunch of communists.
With Okinawa and especially the ainu though as I understand it there's a huge issue in them not really having much in the way of their own written sources.

[HVC]

Don't know if Japan is getting better at it, truthfully. My source is my Japanese friend who's from southern Japan (japan proper, not the islands). Moved here 10 or so years ago. He's ethnically Chinese and moved to japan as a little kid. His sister was born there (but not having Japanese parents doesn't have Japanese citizenship). From what I was told the Japanese government just considers Okinawans Japanese who speak funny. It'll be like France conquering Andorra in the 1800s and saying they were always French because they speak a funny version of French since it's a Romance language. As I understand it while having a similar root Okinawan (Ryukyuan) is not mutually intelligible with Japanese (to a much higher degree than just dialect differences).

[Josquius]

Don't know if Japan is getting better at it, truthfully. My source is my Japanese friend who's from southern Japan (japan proper, not the islands). Moved here 10 or so years ago. He's ethnically Chinese and moved to japan as a little kid. His sister was born there (but not having Japanese parents doesn't have Japanese citizenship). From what I was told the Japanese government just considers Okinawans Japanese who speak funny. It'll be like France conquering Andorra in the 1800s and saying they were always French because they speak a funny version of French since it's a Romance language. As I understand it while having a similar root Okinawan (Ryukyuan) is not mutually intelligible with Japanese (to a much higher degree than just dialect differences).

Historically absolutely. Japan conquered Ryukyu and insisted they were just Japanese people who spoke dialect because they were uneducated.

But yes. It's clearly a different language.

I do think things are changing. But it's very much in a cruise ship turning sort of way. They still insist it's a dialect but are slowly softening on dialect promotion and education.
My Japanese HS went on their big school  trip to okinawa and I clearly remember everyone speaking about the okinawan language rather than dialect, so sample of one but... This school at least is teaching different to the government line.

I'm doubtful for okinawans future with the change being so slow and the attitudes of the okinawans themselves being so tainted. But who knows. Stranger things have happened.

[viper37]

I'm more iffy on the history of Germanic peoples in Gaul.

Franks... Francia... France... ?

[HVC]

I'm more iffy on the history of Germanic peoples in Gaul.

Franks... Francia... France... ?

I know the franks but less familiar with the timeline of the transition. There were other tribes too, like the Visigoths for a while and the Alans and suebi. Being on the border the migration patterns were more complicated and I just don't know enough about it

[jimmy olsen]

Outside of Europe another area that really interests me is early Japanese history. Their likely origins in Korea, the Japonic groups of southern Korea who got wiped out by the Koreans, etc...

But this topic is so amazingly tainted by absolute bollocks.
The Japanese in imperial times exaggerated and fabricated this stuff to show Korea was rightfully theirs.

Since then the Koreans have actively suppressed investigations into this topic in their effort to show the Japanese as a completely alien and unrelated people who never set foot in Korea until the sengoku jidai.

Visit their museums and the late Neolithic / bronze age stuff looks identical.

[Legbiter]

I don't know what to make of an account that starts the origins of "Germanic people" thousands of years before any Germanic languages were spoken.

The same way we do when approaching the Yamnaya? This is like an enormous puzzle of which the last 10 years have transformed our understanding of every human step on this Earth. There is no hiding, we know literally everything in terms of what male our ancestors did in terms of fucking.   
 

"Germania" was an organizing concept invented by the Romans to them help mentally structure and categorize the barbarian (i.e. non-Roman) world. They grouped together various scattered people that spoke similar sounding languages and called them Germani.  Tacticus imagined a common culture for them but like many such works it reflects the preoccupations of the intended Roman audience more than being some carefully researched ethnography.

The Romans had extremely sophisticated concepts and vocabulary when dealing with hostiles on literally every front. WTF..  You know this. They knew whether they were dealing with rain-drenched Germans or Africans   

In Late Antiquity if something arguably like a "Germanic identity" forms, it did so by virtue of interaction with the Romans, and adopting that worldview.  That can fairly be argued to be a Germanic identity of a kind.  But to equate that identity with high medieval culture in German-speaking lands, or either of those with 19th century German nationalism, is a mistake.

I...don't know what to think. You drink a lot more or you never touch the stuff again. Because you are my friend and I love you unironically.

We agree to disagree?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I'm more iffy on the history of Germanic peoples in Gaul.

Franks... Francia... France... ?

I know the franks but less familiar with the timeline of the transition. There were other tribes too, like the Visigoths for a while and the Alans and suebi. Being on the border the migration patterns were more complicated and I just don't know enough about it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia

saves me the effort of typing it all and inadvertently writing down mistakes.
tldr:
3rd and 4th centuries: arrival in Toxandria
4th century: expansion southwards as romans fall back
5th century: further expansion and competition with other Germanic tribes
6th century: clovis and consolidation of Gaul into Francia
7th century: division
8th century: rule of the stewards, muslim invasion and Charles Martel saving Western Europe (and giving him the prestige to establish his dynasty). Rise of the Karolingians and their empire. Charlemagne.
9th and 10th centuries is dividing, uniting, dividing... With the Capets in the second half of the 10th century West Francia becomes (Medieval) France.

[Sheilbh]

So I follow a Substack on African history (which is great). Recently did an email on the Bantu expansion - which, given the German chat, seems relevant to some people's interests here (but, sadly, mostly not me):
https://open.substack.com/pub/isaacsamuel/p/on-the-history-of-the-bantu-expansion?r=7j9if&utm_medium=ios