User talk:OlofE~enwiki/Goths

Notes regarding the origin of the Goths as concerns Scandinavia

There is support, and I believe very little controversy, about at least one stage of the history - that of a shared identity in two areas during a period of time predating and during the gothic migration southeast. The period lasts from about 0-200 and starts with at least two areas - the Vistula basin on the Baltic coast and at least the three main archaeologically rich regions in Östergötland (Norrköping, Roxen, Skänninge, approx.) where, between the two, there is a apparently very rich exchange of trade and a some shared social context. Linguistic similarities seem to easily allow that (in fact it's the one branch that suggests closer origins than the other - but you know that better than I do). Such a shared history would also serve as the loosest coupling that satisfies a myth of origins in Scandinavia - Jordanes may not equal proof, but if more than one independent account supports the same theory, that makes it stronger. Historic account (in the form of Jordanes), archaeology and linguistics all allow or support this frame in time and space where there is a shared identity across the Baltic.

Whether this shared identity was one of percieved kinship or of a proper unity, we cannot know. The two halves are already far enough apart that archaeological evidence of links between the two stand out as dissimilar in the material. They share properties, but they are not the same.

If one is to claim further that the people later known as Goths had also at one time emigrated from the Scandinavian peninsula - that's much harder to do, and for that I don't think there is neither consensus nor evidence. Linguistic similarity allows it (I don't know if "suggests" is appropriate), Jordanes can be interpreted to mean it (allowing him - IMO - greater significance than reasonable) but I think it's proper to call this a suggestion rather than an established truth. There is also lots of room for a less accurate account on Jordanes' behalf; the distance in time and space from Jordanes to the time/place in question is enormous. Unfortunately, archaeology offers nothing here. Some evidence in Poland seems to suggest the opposite, that that same culture had been in the Vistula region for quite some time.