Where did Germanic peoples come from

 

 

Old ideas are probably wrong

In the 1970's I was told, that there was a war in Central Asia around 6.000 BC. The losing tribe fell apart and fled west and south. The people that went west became the Germanic people and perhaps also the Celtic people. The people that went south became the Zoroastrians in Persia. Later some of these Zoroastrians crossed the Himalaya's and became the Brahmans. The Zoroastrians wrote the A-Vesta, the Brahmans wrote the Rig Veda and the Germanic people produced the Edda's. The Scandinavian languages lost the 'V' or 'W' in front of many words. So Edda could come from Vedda. There are significant similarities in the mythology behind these writings. Edda means wit

There is no physical evidence for the theory above. It is just an interpretation of similarities in old languages and mythology.

 

DNA research provides a new tool

David Reich et al. developed a method to obtain useful DNA from bones of 5.000 years old. And with computers he compared the many DNA samples to create a map of the migrations of the ancestors of Germanic peoples and other peoples. According to the results at this moment (2022), the Germanic peoples come from a culture known as the Yamnaya. And this is dated around 3.300 BC. If you want to know more about this, follow the links above.

 

No racism

Citation from wikipedia: Clive Cookson, in the Financial Times, writes that one of the first and most surprising impacts of genomics is in human prehistory, and Reich is the first leading practitioner to write a popular book about this. Cookson calls the book a marvelous synthesis of the field: the technology for purifying and decoding DNA from old bones; what the findings tell us about the origins and movements of people on every inhabited continent; and the ethical and political implications of the research.

This is not really new to me. Many years ago scientists came to the conclusion, that all out-of-Africa people probably descended from one tribe, that left Africa about 65,000 years ago. That means that Caucasians, Aboriginals, Inuit, Native Americans, Papuans, Maori and other peoples are closely related and share the same DNA. The genes of Jews and Germans are almost identical.

Pseudo-science has been used to promote racist agendas and genocide. It would be great to use genetic science to alleviate racism.

 

Horse people

According to linguists, the ancestors of the old Germanic people had a lot of words about horses and not much words about agriculture. So they believe, that these people had horses and did not much about agriculture. When we read old Germanic myths, we see that horses were important to them. Even on Iceland. As an example of the importance of grass (for the horses) see verse 3 of the Völuspá below. But how many horses were there on Iceland? Most likely a good fishing boat was much more useful to old Icelandic people. But it is hard to write a heroic song about a man on a small boat who catches a fish. Fishing only becomes interesting, when Thor catches the Midgard serpent.

 

Völuspá 3

In the Völuspá we read:

 

At the beginning of the old cycle

the place were Ymir lived

there was no sand or sea

and no cool waves.

Jörð was not created

nor the sky above

empty space was mighty and young

and there was no grass.

The last line gives evidence, that this story is ancient. The old Germanic peoples probably came from tribal people that lived on horseback in Central Asia. No grass means no horses. See: Where did Germanic peoples come from.

I interpret 'ginnunga' as 'ginn ungr' which translates to mighty, great and young. 'Ginnunga' translates to deception, joking. Then the translation of the 7th line would be:

empty space was deceptive

 

The old Germanic peoples lived in tribes. Tribes were composed of families or sippes. How did these people live? We have not much information about how they lived. Perhaps they made a shack around a large tree, with the tree as the center of their shack. There are stories about such a building style. But not much solid information.

In historic times the Germanic peoples had become villagers. Their lifestyle was different from the horse peoples that lived in tribes.

If we want to know how the old Germanic peoples really lived, it might be interesting to look at the Algonquin tribes of east America around the time that the first European colonists arrived. North-west Europe around 0 AD is somewhat similar to the forests were the Algonquin tribes lived.

In the book "Shawnese Traditions" of C. C. Trowbridge there is a tale from Black Hoof: The Tshilikauthee's, at present one of the divisions of the nation, lived on the opposite side of the sea. ... Its force was further augmented by the addition of the Thauweekeelau's, who came across the sea, but in what manner, they do not now recollect. (Page 61 - 62.) The Shawnee (or Shauwonoa) were divided in five divisions. There are stories, that two of these divisions came from across the sea. When I read stories about the life of the Shauwonoa leader Tecumseh, I found similarities with old Germanic traditions. Perhaps it is possible to get hard data on this subject with DNA comparison.

Further reading: Edda means wit