Talk:Wielbark culture

old talk

Can someone provide a source for the alternate name "Willenberg Culture"? All I could turn up was Wikipedia mirrors. Rmhermen 22:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Try Googling "Willenberg Kultur". Space Cadet 01:40, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

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Rmherman, I am posting the additional information (removed) from Willenberg, Prussia Wielbark Culture here, because it is backed up by a German -language book, which you most-likely will not have access to in order to verify. Book is from 1991, Verlag Rautenberg by Karl Baumann Die Prussen, reference pages 74, 75 and map on page 81 posting the Prussians returning to their previous areas on both sides of the Vistula river by the year 600 AD and thereafter. The current Wikipedia depiction is fairly correct for 200 AD (Aesti in yellow). The Aesti and Prussians are by thousands of archaeological finds proven to be one and the same and have lived together with the Goths. There were no wars amongst them and the Aesti Prussians, who for more than a thousand years before the Goths came, used urn cremations, particularly face urns, started to use burials as well, most likely due to partial christianisations. Under Theoderic the Goth the Aesti-Prussi were part of the empire.

There are large amounts of finds (Funde), several thousand graves (Grab- Graeberfelder) from North-Eastern Germania (Freies Germanien) with coins from Roman times, trade with Greeks, Vikings, Arabs and later from Slavs and so on.

This text was removed from the Willenberg/ Wielbark Culture article:

The Aesti-Prussia, who had lived on both sides of the Vistula delta since at least 1000 BC were pushed more to the east, but returned to again live on both sides of the Vistula while many of the Goths gradually moved towards the Black Sea. In 997 AD Prussians were recordedly baptised in the vincinity of Oxhoeft/Gdingen (Okzywie-Gdynia) by Adalbert of Prague. MG 2/3/2006

Wielbark or Willenberg

Seeing that we have the usual dustup about the name of the article, let's do a quick check on Google Book Search.

• "Wielbark culture" 17 books
• "Willenberg culture" 1 book, which actually uses the expression Wielbark-Willenberg-culture

So, it seems that, looking at scholarly books provided by Google Book Search at least, the use of Wielbark culture is almost universal. The article must reflect that, as this is English Wikipedia.Balcer 03:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Please, stick to commonly accepted English language usage. There is a 17:1 ratio in favour of Wielbark Culture. Balcer 19:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

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Original Name of Wielbark Culture - Willenberg Kultur

Gräberfeld von Braunswalde Willenberg bei Marienburg At that location at Willenberg near Marienburg where more than 3000 graves found, one of many finds in Eastprussia, Germany, discoveries since 1880's. books from 1938 refer to Gotic Gepidic graves at Willenberg

transferring info here, because of removal by POV warriors Lysy and Space Cadet:

Before the Goths came to the area in the Vistula delta, the Prussians lived on both sides of the Vistula and when Goths moved south, Prussians took up on both sides of the Vistula again. When in 997 AD the recently established Polish dukedom sent their soldiers with Adalbert of Prague, the bishop baptised a number of Prussians in the settlement, which later became the city of Danzig, now Gdansk.

The Wielbark culture seems to have been a mixed society composed of both Goths and Gepids from Scandinavia as well as the previous inhabitants (mainly Vandals and Rugians). In the 3rd century, the Willenberg (Wielbark) community left their settlements and reached their new homeland, Oium, in Ukraine, where they would found a new empire.

It is also noteworthy, that the Aesti-Prussi did not use metal weapons, rather used clubs, because they were not permanently lethal and only when they began to be attacked by the newly created dukes of Poland or Masovia, did they start using metal weapons.

External links

• Map showing Willenberg between Marienburg and Braunswalde
• Maps etc., of Mare Germanicum, Eastern Magna Germania around Vistula River

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Image of a stone in Sweden

A Scandinavian stela

Sö328, Tynäs

I had removed the image shown here as a small thumb. User:Berig reintroduced it, with exactly the same non-informative caption, and a patronizing edit summary. Almost daily I am passing within sight of a very similar Scandinavian stone. The captian is ambiguous and does not tell the reader anything. First of all: where is this "bautasten"? The upload page on commons only says that it comes from Swedish wikipedia, so most probably, it is a Swedish stone. Then it has no bearing on Wielbark at all. /Pieter Kuiper 19:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You could begin with informing yourself about the presence of Scandinavian burial traditions in the Wielbark culture. It would spare the rest of us a lot of time.--Berig 16:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I conclude that User:Berig is equally clueless to the coordinates of this stone as I am. /Pieter Kuiper 16:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong conclusion, Pieter Kuiper.--Berig 17:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this User:Berig's private phallic symbol that he is not at liberty to discuss, or what? Pieter Kuiper 17:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am at full liberty to inform you of its location if you want to see the "phallic symbol" it, or even touch it, but I won't do that until you have shown that you have some basic knowledge of this culture and its burial traditions. It is unacceptable that you delete pictures of monuments from burial traditions that you have no prior knowledge of.--Berig 17:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Found it :) /Pieter Kuiper 19:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't parse the following:

• "The report of the original excavation was rediscovered in 2004." (Mis-shelved at the library?)
• "...variations of cobble cladding." (What is being clad? What kind of variation?)
• "names given by Pliny and Tacitus appear to be identical to *Gutaniz" (Isn't the reconstruction based in part on Latin Gutones? Circular.)
• "the three ships of Goths arriving at the Vistula" (Refering to a deleted quote? No three ships have been mentioned at this point.)
• "The latest tendency is to doubt... and it has been established that... it appears... this theory...etc. (These locutions always need <ref></ref> citations so the reader knows who's "doubting" and who's "establishing")
• "recorded by Jordanes as well as H. Schedel, see link" (The link is gone.)

This degraded text bears the scars of contention. I can't fix it. --Wetman 01:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

According to Jordanes I think we need a references for this bloke, a date beside his name and pages woulg also be good. I cant help ypu with the upper sections. Enlil Ninlil 05:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Jordanes was 6th century, I can put in a link to the relevant section. But this is a terrible article. It is crowded with unsourced maps. It is recounting a lot of "history", but it is not very informative of the archeology. It would be interesting to know when this "original excavation" took place - period 1939-1945? /Pieter Kuiper 06:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

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Map

I have quite a detailed map, derived form an orgininal work, tha maps of which show single sites of the early an later phases of the culture.

Oksywie and early Wielbark cultures = red
spreading Wielbark culture = salmon-pink,
WIelbark superseding Jastorf culture = lilac,
Wielbark superseding Przeworsk culture = orange.
Jastorf culture: early = dark blue & lilac / late = dark & light blue.
Przeworsk culture: early = yellow & orange / late = onls yellow.

--Ulamm (talk) 14:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you briefly indicate on the file comments section which works you based this map on? Knepflerle (talk) 14:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that there are many problems with this article on the Wielbark culture:

This sentence: "There was a clear separation between the Przeworsk culture and the Wielbark culture, and there appear to have been no detectable contacts" contradicts the findings of Volker Bierbrauer, an archaeologist and foremost expert on the Wielbark culture. Bierbrauer detected numerous influences.

Then skipping some minor inaccuracies the article states: "The latest tendency is to doubt the equation between the Wielbark Culture and the Goths, and it has been established that the Wielbark culture did not appear solely through immigration from Scandinavia." This is not the 'latest tendency', but the result of some 50 years of archaeological research. The Wielbark culture evolved out of the Oksyvie(Oxthöffter) culture, which in turn is authochton. As Bierbrauer shows the Wielbark culture emerged without any migration from outside.

Further the article states "The settlements consisted both of the original inhabitants and of groups of Scandinavians. It is likely that the Goths were the ruling tribe in the area as Jordanes noted that the Goths subjected local inhabitants to their authority".

These speculations refer to the 1st century AD and the only historical source refering to the Gutones of this time states clearly that these Gutones were subject to the kingdom of the Markomanni. Thus, this part is clearly wrong. Also, modern scholarship has shown that Jordanes cannot be used to enlighten us about events that took place in the first century BC or AD.

Then we have "The present view is that the direct settlements of Goths (recorded by Jordanes as well as H. Schedel, see link) at the Mare Germanicum, today Poland, are those characterised by barrow cemeteries by which there are raised stone circles and solitary stelae (Scandinavian burial customs with a concentration in Gotland and Götaland)."

This sentence is completely wrong. We cannot identify any Goths in the Wielbark culture. For all we know, nobody or everybody of the Wielbark culture called himself a Goths. Thus, it is impossible to attribute specific burial practices within Wielbark to Goths. What is more this is certainly not "the present view ...".

Finally, the worst bit of the article comes at the end "The Wielbark culture seems to have been a mixed society composed of both Goths and Gepids from Scandinavia as well as the previous inhabitants (mainly Vandals, Venedi and Rugians[5][6], the Ulmerugi of Jordanes). In the 3rd century, the Wielbark community left their settlements and reached their new homeland, Oium, in the Ukraine, where they would found a new empire."

About everything in these sentences is wrong or problematic. We have no knowledge of any Goths ever living in Scandinavia. We are talking about the East Germanic Goths, right, not North Germanic Gutar and Götar! Please note that the numerous derivation from Guti etc. simply mean man. We have especially no knowledge of any Gepids ever living in Scandinavia. We also don't know if the Wielbark culture represented an ethnically mixed society. There were different practices at different times, but we know nothing about the ethnic processes behind this. Most importantly, we don't know whether anybody living in the Wielbark culture identified himself as Goth. This is a circular conclusion that is based on a source that was written in the 6th century. Using the contemporary sources of the 1st and 2nd centuries the conclusion would be that people like the Lemovii lived at the lower Vistula, while the Gutones (also called Butones) lived further south inlands as dependents of the Marcomanni.

Overall, this article is about an archaeological culture, the Wielbark/Willenberg culture, but it places far too much emphasis on (unreliable) historical sources speculations about the Goths. Importantly, it makes no reference to the main archaeological work on the Wielbark culture, by Volker Bierbrauer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfaltin (talk • contribs) 13:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The penultimate map in the article is also highly misleading. It suggests that the Wielbark culture either came from Sweden and Gotland or is associated with these areas. In fact, it is not. The Wielbark culture or its predessor the Okcywie culture never existed in Sweden or anywhere else in Scandinavia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.134.254.25 (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed this as well and have removed that map (as well as another, completely irrelevant, map) and replaced it with the simpler one which just shows the areas covered by various cultures.VolunteerMarek 05:31, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

"also known as"

I really don't think this is known as "Willenberg-culture" in English. I can only find one reference to such a name on Google books: [1] and no references in a general google search, except for Wikipedia mirrors of one sort of another. Removing accordingly.radek (talk) 02:53, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

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Useful source?

Currently we are using things like genetics articles for archaeological authorities. This article looks like a good recent summary from an archaeological point of view. https://www.academia.edu/36853596/ Unlike the genetics articles it also cites older authorities so we can understand for ourselves a bit how the differences might be in the field.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:01, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Another review https://www.academia.edu/40560901/ --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Collecting citations:--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Cieśliński, Adam (2016), "The society of Wielbark culture, AD 1‒300", in Rzeszotarska-Nowakiewicz (ed.), The Past Societies. Polish lands from the first evidence of human presence to the Early Middle Ages. 500BC‒500AD, vol. 4, Warszawa, pp. 217‒255{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Andrzejowski, Jacek (2019), "The Gothic migration through Eastern Poland – archaeological evidences", in Cieśliński; Kontny (eds.), Interacting Barbarians. Contacts, Exchange and Migrations in the First Millennium AD, Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung, vol. 9, Warszawa-Braunschweig, pp. 227–239{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

For further investigation. We use the historian Heather and I have his book, however he does not seem to match what the archaeologists say in some cases. He defines all pre 1AD "Germanic" burial cultures as normally cremation burials, and Wielbark defined by biritualism (cremation and inhumation) but the archaeologists say this was something that La Tène cultures had long before and these were influential in pre Roman Poland. Przeworsk seems to have had biritualism like Wielbark before 1AD, and Przeworsk areas which became Wielbark did not always switch away from a cremation preference. etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)