The inhabitants of the Barbarian World were agricultural peoples, as they had been for millennia. Agriculturalists often do relocate, but such relocation is largely at the level of individual households. Whole communities, particularly those who are enmeshed in a web of relationships with peer communities through trade, intermarriage and alliances, really do not pull up stakes collectively and resettle for the sake of moving. The barbarian peoples of western and northern Europe during the third, fourth and fifth centuries AD were not nomadic pastoralists, unlike the societies of the Eurasian steppes. It is indeed the case that some eastern populations made celebrated incursions into Europe, notably the Huns, but they are exceptions rather than the norm.
At the risk of offending scholars who are far more familiar with the written narratives, as an archaeologist, many migrations of the so-called Migration Period strike me both as attempts by literate ancient peoples to frame a narrative of changes they saw in their own society and as an academic construction formed through modern interpretations of textual sources. I realize that by taking this position I could be labelled a ‘migration denier’, but ‘migration sceptic’ might be more accurate. I do not deny that people moved around, but I suspect that these movements were not as collective, coherent and directed as the historical narratives assert. Disintegration of Roman authority, heightened awareness of cultural differences between the newcomers and Roman citizens, and congregation by immigrants in enclaves probably created an impression of movement on a larger scale and of greater coherence than actually occurred.
Rather than throwing the migration baby out with the bathwater,32 however, let us examine some of the evidence for barbarian population movements during the final centuries of Roman authority in the West, with a focus on the Goths, Huns and Anglo-Saxons. In doing so, I will highlight where archaeology has provided insights into the nature of these movements and their consequences.
Faces in the crowd: the Goths
The Goths are the archetypal barbarians, so much so that there will be a separate book in this series devoted to them.33 Their very name is scary and dark, so much so that it has been taken up by rebellious youth today (although there is no evidence that ancient Goths dressed only in black or used much eyeshadow). And they sacked Rome in AD 410, so they behaved like, well, barbarians. Let us, however, focus on the Goths before they emerged onto the pages of history, when they crossed the Imperial frontiers, rather than on their complex interactions with Roman authority.
Although they were mentioned by Tacitus and later by Ammianus Marcellinus, much of what we know about the early history of the Goths comes from an author named Jordanes. Jordanes was a sixth-century bureaucrat of the Eastern Roman Empire, who wrote Getica in the middle of the sixth century AD, drawing on a lost work by a Roman official named Cassiodorus who served in the court of Gothic king Theoderic at the turn of the fifth century AD. Cassiodorus is generally believed to have embellished, if not outright invented, his account of Gothic origins, and Jordanes, who had barbarian roots himself, repeated much of this already-dubious account.
As a result, even historians who normally would privilege written texts tend to discount much of Jordanes’ writing, which places the location of the origin of the Goths in the Baltic region. This would have been solidly within the Barbarian World of the first several centuries AD, well beyond the Roman Imperial frontiers. The lower Vistula drainage and surrounding areas seem to correspond to the area of Gothic origins if one swallows hard and takes Jordanes at face value. What does the archaeological record tell us was happening there during the first centuries AD?
Communities known to archaeologists as the Wielbark culture lived along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea during the first half of the first millennium AD, mainly along the lower Vistula. They are known mainly from cemeteries, which contain both cremation and skeletal burials outfitted with pottery and jewellery but no tools or weapons.34 One such cemetery is at Rogowo in north-central Poland, associated with a settlement that covers about 6 hectares (15 acres) and contains 151 cremations and 137 flexed skeletal burials, many with bronze ornaments. Stable isotope analyses suggest that millet was a component of the diet alongside other terrestrial foods.
The communities of the Wielbark culture were at the northern end of the amber route. A key link in this route was a trackway that stretches nearly 1,200 metres (4,000 ft) across wetlands at Święty Gaj near the mouth of the Vistula river.35 Built from oak logs, the Święty Gaj trackway was maintained for over three centuries, from the end of the first century BC to the early third century AD, and during this time it was widened from about 1.5 to 4 metres (5 to 13 ft) to accommodate increasing traffic to and from the amber-rich coastline of the eastern Baltic. Pieces of raw amber among the timbers clearly indicate the commodity being transported. If Roman merchants were involved, then Wielbark communities had some inkling about the things and practices of the distant Empire.
The evidence from Rogowo, Święty Gaj and other sites indicates that the Wielbark culture was a local development and that its communities did not arrive fully formed from elsewhere. Towards the end of the second century AD and perhaps again a century later, some members of Wielbark communities moved towards the southeast, eventually winding up north of the Black Sea in Ukraine. Archaeologists have associated pottery of the Cherniakhov culture with the Wielbark ceramic tradition. Przemysław Urbańczyk suggests that these were opportunistic social elites and their supporters, rather than entire communities.36 Most of the inhabitants of the Wielbark region evidently stayed at home rather than face an uncertain future, since their cemeteries remained in use for several more centuries.
So, are the Wielbark and Cherniakhov societies early Goths migrating south from the Baltic before turning west to cause havoc in the Roman Empire? Historians are divided on this matter. Michael Kulikowski appears to take the position that because Jordanes’ account is so suspect, any interpretation of the archaeological record that supports it is spurious.37 Walter Goffart considers Getica to be a work of almost-fiction meant to serve an ideological purpose in the sixth century rather than to document actual events as historical fact.38 Peter Heather seems inclined to give Jordanes the benefit of the doubt, while acknowledging the failings in his account, and believes the archaeological trail does lead back to the Baltic coast.39
Cemetery at Odry, northern Poland, dating to the second century AD, with circles of standing stones.
In the end, we simply do not know where Goths really came from, and even if we did, what form their migration took. It certainly does not seem to follow the traditional ‘freight train’ characterization. Instead, incremental relocations by elites and their retainers over many generations resulted in local peoples becoming entrained in a Gothic society. Eventually, like the other barbarian groups that enter history, the Goths became a loose confederation of tribal polities. By the time they show up within the Roman boundaries in the fourth century AD, they have become archaeologically invisible. This is not surprising, because as we have seen multiple times, the Imperial frontier was porous, and people identified as Goths had long since adopted a Roman lifestyle. Although the Goths fought the Romans on multiple occasions, the Romans also recruited them into their army.
In AD 376, many Goths sought refuge from the Huns along the southern Imperial frontier and were allowed to cross into the Empire. The Eastern Roman emperor Valens welcomed them at first but things soon turned sour, and in AD 378 an army of Goths routed the Roman army at Adrianople (modern Edirne in European Turkey) and killed Valens. This is considered the greatest defeat ever suffered by a Roman army. A fragile peace was made in AD 382, but from that point onward the Goths were loose cannons in the Roman World, always capable of organizing themselves and making trouble. The best example of this was Alaric, a leader of a group of Gothic auxiliary troops, who became dissatisfied, made demands, and was not paid for his services to both the Eastern and the Western Roman rulers. To show his dissatisfaction, he took his army into Italy and
sacked Rome in August of AD 410.
By this point, Rome was no longer able to pick winners and losers and control the situation, and the Goths were neither its friends nor its enemies in any consistent way. During the fifth century AD, some Goths moved west to southern France and Spain, at which point they are called Visigoths, while Ostrogoths remained in southeastern Europe. Even the Goths had divided loyalties. Many Ostrogoths fought for Attila, while Visigoths fought against him. Some took up Christianity, which further divided them. Over time, any remaining identity these groups had as Goths faded, and they became assimilated into the societies that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Huns: the notable exception
Allied propaganda during the First World War referred to Germans as ‘Huns’. This is really a peculiar choice of barbaric epithet, for the Huns of the Barbarian World were anything but German. They represent a truly intrusive element during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, for they were steppe nomads from the interior of Asia. Metal cauldrons found in Hungary match those depicted in rock carvings on the Altai plateau between the steppes of Kazakhstan and the plains of Mongolia.40 Their unexpected arrival in central Europe triggered a cascade of events that further disrupted barbarian societies along the Roman frontiers as well as imposing a high price on the Empire itself.
Resisted by China, the Huns headed west, crossing the Volga into Ukraine around AD 370. During the following decade, they overran or uprooted barbarian groups between the Don and the Dnieper. By the end of the third century, they had penetrated into the Carpathian Basin, threatening Roman Danubian provinces and sending shock waves through the southern tier of the Barbarian World in central Europe. Refugees flooded through the Imperial frontiers seeking refuge. By AD 425, Huns had moved the seat of their ‘nomadic empire’ to the Hungarian Plain and made themselves at home in the heart of Europe.
The character of the Huns’ nomadic empire is debated by scholars. About 150 archaeological sites are known from the Carpathian Basin with distinctive Hunnic artefacts. The principal historical accounts are those of Priscus, a Greek emissary to the Huns in the middle of the fifth century AD and our friend Jordanes in the sixth century AD. One thing is clear: the nomadic character of the Hun way of life was completely novel to the sedentary Romans and their barbarian neighbours. Some scholars believe that the European Huns abandoned their nomadic life for a sedentary existence, living off tribute extorted from their neighbours. Others argue that the Huns continued to be mobile predators whose mounted archery skills terrified the peoples with whom they came into contact during the first half of the fifth century AD.41
The Hun empire reached its zenith under Attila, who ruled between AD 444 and 453 from multiple timber palaces rather than a single permanent capital. In AD 445, Attila made a foray across the Alps and down into Italy before turning back and then planned and abandoned a siege of Constantinople in the following years. In AD 451, Attila turned west and struck across the Rhine into the heart of Gaul. It is amazing how far he got before a force consisting of Romans and Visigoths confronted him outside Châlons. Mutual slaughter ensued. Although the victory of the Roman–Visigoth coalition was by no means decisive, Attila withdrew to the Carpathian Basin, where he died two years later. Political infighting and revolts by subjugated peoples ended the Huns’ unity, and after a defeat in Pannonia in AD 455, they retreated back to Ukraine and to the steppes beyond.
The Huns’ incursion into central Europe is illuminating in that it shows what real barbarian predation on the decaying Roman Empire could look like. Most other barbarian movements, in my view, were less predatory and more parasitic: ‘inside jobs’ in which migrant streams were drawn to enclaves of brethren who had been in Roman service. Sometimes these groups formed war bands to expand their power and territorial appropriation at the expense of Roman authority. Huns, on the other hand, were highly organized, coherent and motivated, but not inclined to capture and hold territory when opposed by equal forces. They filled a geopolitical vacuum that emerged in the Carpathian Basin between the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire, while most barbarian movements (in my view) filled local vacuums in areas of Roman authority and military control.
The Huns, however, triggered non-economic movements of people who feared for their lives. As such, they dislodged people who otherwise might not have been inclined to move. The pressure and instability pushed the Visigoths westward at the end of the fourth century AD and provoked groups from southern Germany to seek refuge within the Roman frontiers.
The advent of the Saxons
In eastern England, collapse of Roman authority brought migrants from Germania Magna during the early fifth century AD. These were the Anglo-Saxons, whose arrival is portrayed by chroniclers like Gildas and Bede as a momentous event, the ‘Adventus Saxonum’, and archaeologically is seen in the appearance of Germanic artefacts and characteristic cemeteries by the middle of the fifth century.42 The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons is one of the better-documented migrations of this period, but there is still considerable scholarly debate about its character. The chroniclers portray it as a massive invasion that replaced the local population. Scholars have recently questioned this replacement hypothesis and argued that smaller Anglo-Saxon groups migrated to England as part of the overall turmoil of the time, with native Romano-British communities continuing largely unaffected, or that changes were the result of in situ developments with a minimal outside contribution.43
West Stow on the river Lark in eastern England was a typical Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied between the early fifth and the mid-seventh centuries AD.44 Excavations at West Stow revealed semi-subterranean houses, a very Continental house type, clustered around several small timbered structures known as halls. The population of West Stow consisted of three or four families at any one time. Animal bones from the earliest Anglo-Saxon houses at West Stow indicate that alongside cattle, sheep and goats, there was a dramatic upswing in the use of pigs, which might be a signal of a colonizing population interested in high meat production.45 As time went on, the proportion of pigs settled back down. Aside from the temporary spike in pigs, however, subsistence practices at West Stow do not indicate marked changes from Romano-British practices. Either the Anglo-Saxon arrival had little impact on native communities or the immigrants adopted the local system of animal husbandry.
Strontium isotope ratios of nineteen individuals from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Berinsfield in Oxfordshire have been analysed.46 Most were born locally, consumed food grown on local soils and drank local water. Four, however, may have grown up elsewhere. One male, buried with a Roman belt fitting, has strontium ratios that do not fit those found in England and are a closer match to ones in southwest Germany. Another has non-local ratios that might be found in interior Germany, but could also be from northeastern England. Two others have strontium ratios that are not local but which fall within the values for other parts of southern Britain. The data from Berinsfield do not seem consistent with massive population replacement by Anglo-Saxon invaders and point either towards small-group migration and intermingling with indigenous communities or native adoption of Anglo-Saxon cultural expression.
The bees in the tomb
Out of Germania Magna came the Franks, whose name derives from that of a throwing axe, the francisca, now preserved in the name of the country of France. They first attracted Roman attention in the third century AD as an alliance of tribes between the Rhine and the Weser, and during the fourth century AD they crossed the Roman frontiers to cause havoc before settling in northern Belgium and taking up Roman ways. After that, they were very loyal to Rome and teamed up with the Romans and Visigoths to defeat the Huns in AD 451.
The first Frank to step into history was Childeric, their ruler in the third quarter of the fifth century AD. At first, he was one of several Frankish kings in the wake of the decline of Roman authority. Childeric died in AD 481 or 482 and was buried at Tournai, in Belgium along the border with France.47 His grave was dis
covered in 1653 and despite clumsy excavation, revealed an elaborate burial clearly intended to substantiate the power of his heir, Clovis. A gold signet ring in a Roman style with an inscription, CHILDERICI REGIS, identified the body as Childeric. Multiple horse burials, at least thirty, were found nearby, suggesting an even more exotic mortuary practice, echoing that seen in Scythian tombs on the steppes.
Of special significance are the carefully chosen coins in Childeric’s tomb, which represent five centuries of coinage intended to demonstrate dynastic legitimacy recognized by both the vestiges of Roman authority and competing barbarian kings.48 The coin collection, fortunately recorded in detail before being stolen in the nineteenth century, included 89 gold solidi minted by highly regarded emperors. Other gold objects included 300 little bees with cloisonné infilling that adorned Childeric’s cloak. Seeking to wrap himself in ancient royal history, Napoleon Bonaparte also had his coronation robe ornamented with gold bees.
The Frankish royal dynasty that emerged with Childeric is known as the Merovingians. Although their story lies outside the scope of this book, the Franks and their Merovingian rulers illustrate the convergence of Germanic barbarian and Gallo-Roman cultural elements amid competition for authority in the post-Roman era. Fifth-century AD Frankish burials, such as those at the cemetery at Saint-Aubin-des-Champs in Normandy, contain grave goods that include ceramic vessels, glass vessels and metal ornaments and weapons,49 reflecting the broad territorial integration under their rulers. In recent centuries, the Merovingian dynasty, as interpreted by generations of historians and archaeologists, has been a foundation of French national identity.
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