Caucaland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Caucaland is a region mentioned by Roman historian Ammianus
Marcellinus as Caucalandenses locus, a place where the Goths located on the left bank of
theDanube withdrew after the coming of the Huns. It is identified by some modern historians
as Valea Strâmbă River (Mureş),[1] and by Florin Constantiniu in Vranceaand Buzău Mountains.
[2]

According to British philologist and lexicographer Henry Bradley, Caucaland is derived from
Hauhaland, the Gothic form of the English word 'Highland' (German 'Hochland'), and probably
denotes the mountain region of Transylvania.[3]

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Madgearu, Alexandru (2008). Istoria Militară a Daciei Post Romane
275-376. Cetatea de Scaun. ISBN 978-973-8966-70-3, p. 82.
2. Jump up^ Constantiniu, Florin (2011). O istorie sinceră a poporului român [A
sincere history of the Romanian people] (4th ed.). Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic
Gold. p. 52.
3. Jump up^ Bradley, Henry (1888). The story of the Goths, from the earliest times
to the end of the Gothic dominion in Spain. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 55.
Etymology[edit]

Götaland, south Sweden, with the island of Gotland in the east, a possible origin of the Goths;
the southernmost and westernmost parts, Scania, Halland, Blekingeand Bohuslän, were
originally not a part of Götaland, but were Dano-Norwegian territory until 1658.

Further information: Gaut

In the Gothic language they were called the Gut-þiuda, most commonly translated as "Gothic people",
but only attested as dat. sg. Gut-þiudai,[3] or Gutans Inferred from gen. pl.(?) gutani in the Pietroassa
inscription.[4] In Old Norse they were known as the Gutar or Gotar, in Latin as the Gothi, and in Greek as
the Γότθοι, Gótthoi.
The Goths have been referred to by many names, perhaps at least in part because they comprised many
separate ethnic groups, but also because in early accounts of Indo-European and later Germanic
migrations in the Migration Period in general it was common practice to use various names to refer to
the same group. The Goths believed (as most modern scholars do) [5] that the various names all derived
from a single prehistoric ethnonym that referred originally to a uniform culture that flourished around
the middle of the first millennium BC, i.e. the original Goths.
Origins[edit]
The Roman empire, under Hadrianshowing the location of the GothonesEast Germanic group,
then inhabiting the east bank of the Visula (Vistula) river, (present Poland)

The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after thePenguin Atlas of World
History1988):

Settlements before 750 BC

New settlements by 500 BC

New settlements by 250 BC

New settlements by AD 1

The exact origin of the ancient Goths remains unknown. Evidence of them before they interacted with
the Romans is limited.[6] The traditional account of the Goths' early history depends on
the Ostrogoth Jordanes' Getica written c. 551 CE. Jordanes states that the earliest migrating Goths sailed
from what is now Sweden to what is now Poland, and replaced inhabitants there, forming the Wielbark
culture.[citation needed] Modern academics have generally abandoned this theory. Today, the Wielbark culture
is thought to have developed from earlier cultures in the same area. [7] Archaeological finds show close
contacts between southern Sweden and the Baltic coastal area on the continent, and further towards
the south-east, evidenced by pottery, house types and graves. Rather than a massive migration,
similarities in the material cultures may be products of long-term regular contacts. However, the
archaeological record could indicate that while his work is thought to be unreliable, [8] Jordanes' story was
based on an oral tradition with some basis in fact. [7]

The expansion of the Germanic tribes AD 1;

red: Oksywie culture,
then early Wielbark culture
blue: Jastorf culture (light: expansion, purple: repressed)
yellow: Przeworsk culture(orange: repressed)
pink, orange, purple: expansion of Wielbark culture (2nd century AD)

Sometime around the 1st century AD, Germanic peoples may have migrated from Scandinavia
to Gothiscandza, in present-day Poland. Early archaeological evidence in the traditional Swedish province
of Östergötland suggests a general depopulation during this period. [9] However, there is no
archaeological evidence for a substantial emigration from Scandinavia [10] and they may have originated in
continental Europe.[11]
 Götaland

the island of Gotland

Wielbark culture in the early 3rd century

Chernyakhov culture, in the early 4th century

Roman Empire

Gothic invasions in the 3rd century

Upon their arrival on the Pontic Steppe, the Germanic tribes adopted the ways of the Eurasian nomads.
The first Greek references to the Goths call them Scythians, since this area along the Black Sea
historically had been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. The application of that designation
to the Goths appears to be not ethnological but rather geographical and cultural - Greeks regarded both
the ethnic Scythians and the Goths as barbarians. [12]
The earliest known material culture associated with the Goths on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea is
the Wielbark culture, centered on the modern region of Pomerania in northern Poland. This culture
replaced the local Oxhöft or Oksywie culture in the 1st century AD, when a Scandinavian settlement
developed in a buffer zone between the Oksywie culture and the Przeworsk culture.[13]
The culture of this area was influenced by southern Scandinavian culture beginning as early as the
late Nordic Bronze Age and early Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 1300 – c. 300 BC). In fact, the Scandinavian
influence on Pomerania and today's northern Poland from c. 1300 BC (period III) and onwards was so
considerable that some[who?] see the culture of the region as part of the Nordic Bronze Age culture. [14] In
Eastern Europe the Goths formed part of the Chernyakhov culture of the 2nd to 5th centuries AD.