The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
Some interesting studies and finds in recent years have enabled a potential new reinterpretation, still to some degree a hypothesis of course, of these people in particular and the origins of the Germanic peoples in general. I noted that part of this was mentioned on a decent (Swedish language) youtube channel called Format Historia, and so I was inspired to write something semi-coherent about it.
One of the most notable of these studies is ”Steppe ancestry in western Eurasia and the spread of the Germanic languages.” Can be read here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 3.584607v1
The conclusions that are drawn, simplified a bit, is essentially that based on DNA analysis that the Germanic culture and language as noted in the historic record can be traced to migration waves from the Mälardal area of modern eastern Sweden (where Stockholm and Uppsala is located), down to southern Scandinavia, essentially centered around Jylland in current day Denmark where it ”cooked” into what we might consider Germanicness and started to spread down on the European continent, and upwards through southern Sweden. This poorly drawn map (by me) attempts to illustrate this:
But if we move forward in time circa one millenium from when this initial migration from eastern Sweden into Denmark occurred (which was about 500 BC) to around 400-500 AD the DNA evidence tell us something interesting and clarify things earlier suspected due to circumstantial evidence. A migration by Germanic people took place from the area of northernmost Germany and Denmark. They migrated in three directions, and one of these three groups should be well known to you Anglo-Saxons, since they were in fact the Anglo-Saxons. That we knew since long ago, but what wasn’t entirely clear before was that the same people did three more or less simultaneous migrations in three directions.
The second group from this people is what came to be known as the Lombards, also quite well known historically from their exploits on the continent, but it wasn’t clear before that they and the Anglo-Saxons seems to have been the same ”tribe” that split up.
The third migration went back to the Mälardal area where at least part of their ancestors came from a millenia earlier. It appears that they took over business their and established themselves the new (well, or old as well depending on how you view it) ruling elite in Uppsala and surroundings. For context it appears that Uppsala had been in a bit of a slump and declined some in power in the preceeding centuries, making a power grab by the more potent cousins from the south feasible. It would also appear likely that the legendary Ynglinga royal dynasty in Uppsala likely stem from this migration, but it’s hard to say that with absolute certainty. Now I did use the ”Svea” name in the title to denote this third group, but unlike the other two groups it is unclear if this is a accurate denominator in this case. It seems perhaps a bit more likely that the migrating ruling elite’s own designation related to ”Yngling” and that ”Svea” was an older term used by the people there in the destination area (including part of their ancestry) and that it continued to be used after the arrival of the new Ynglinga ruling class, which blended with the locals. It seems to also, possibly, imply that there was a living recollection and recognition at this time of the origins of the Germanic peoples in the Mälardal area of Sweden since as far as we can tell at present cultural acclimatization of both the movers and pre-existing population was pretty seamless.
This second poorly drawn map attempts to illustrate that bit:
In addition with this we could for instance have a very clear answer as to why the Sutton Ho finds, the helmet in particular, and the finds at Vendel and Valsgärde near Uppsala are so very similar to one another. If the respective people that made them had recently split up from one another, and maintained contact since, that would certainly explain it. In a video on the above mentioned youtube channel it is also noted that they just found what could be the stamp for one of the plates on the Sutton Ho helmet in Denmark. That could imply that the helmet was made there, further explaining the similarities and cultural connections.
Now as mentioned above, I don’t think that we can draw absolute conclusions in all details from this, but I think that it is fair to say that this portrayal of the Germanic origins and the later migration in three directions by one of the Germanic tribes would have to be considered the leading hypothesis at this point in time.
The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
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Re: The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
A take on the origins of the Svea and Geat peoples of Sweden
Historically we can see two large groupings of peoples, tribes if you will, in primarily the southern half of current day Sweden. The first parts of the names Sweden and Sverige (the country’s name in Swedish) originates with the Svea, but the Geats also left their name in several provinces and geographical areas of modern Sweden. The two peoples, their origins, and their relation with one another have been the subject of a lot of speculation, debate, and often less friendly arguments among interedted parties over the last few centuries. The factual evidence used to be pretty sparse, which has served as an enabler for the debate to be pretty divergent and difficult to settle in any meaningful way.
However, the Format Historia youtube channel I mentioned in the original post in this thread has pointed out an interesting coincidence, and based on this has proposed an — on the surface — pretty reasonable hypothesis that seems like it might make sense.
Here is a screenshot from the video in question: While it is a little bit fuzzy it shows two overlaid map images. The colored areas are from a Swedish TV documentary (which had a lot of dubious elements to it), but in this particular case it shows the areas where we can see that power centers developed during the bronze age. The lines make up the second of the two images, and it shows the areas where the so-called potted ware culture (gropkeramiska kulturen) was active before that time. Through DNA studies this culture has now been identified as arriving from the east in the area across from the Baltic Sea, current Baltic states and western Russia. Their ancestry was predominantly what is referred to as Scandinavian Hunter Gatherer (SHG) which in turn resulted from a mixing between the Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG) and Eastern Hunter Gatherer (EHG) groups. Importantly it appears that they also retained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, especially focused on the sea.
As a side note, there is something a bit unclear here that I didn’t perceive adressed, because previously this mixing has been believed to have occured on the Scandinavian peninsula, hence the name. So either the same mixing occured on the other side of the Baltic Sea as well, and some of those later made the trip west, or the mixing was exclusively in Scandinavia, they spread East, and then descendants came back West again. Not in itself that important for the subject of this post, but something I’d like to see adressed by someone more qualified than me in the future.
But back to the main story. In the inland areas between the habitation areas of the SHGs were people of the so-called battleaxe culture, which were early farmers. They were at one point in the SHG areas as well, but were seemingly displaced from there by the SHG arrival. Traditionally they have been seen as the precursor culture to the later bronze age culture in Sweden and were believed to have assimilated the SHGs fully into their own culture due to their larger population numbers, and then later spawning the Germanic culture. In a way this may be accurate, but the proposed hypothesis suggests a more complex development.
One aspect here is of course the interesting coincidence that the SHG areas are the ones that later emerge as power centers. The Format Historia suggests that this can be explained as follows: It is clear that there was a very strong connection between the Scandinavian bronze age culture and the Mycenean culture in the mediterranean, the bronze item designs etc. are nearly identical between the two. Likely resulting from extensive trade connections running up and down the central European rivers, wherein in particular amber was carried south en masse and traded for other wares. This stands out in Europe, we don’t see other examples far away from the Mediterranean. As the channel points out it would certainly make a lot of sense if, out of the two cultures present in the Swedish a bit further back than that, it would have been the boat faring hunter-gatherers that established the river trade connection, and not the inland farming based culture.
Now, one also very interesting aspect is that while we see exchanges of wares and seeming cultural exchanges between the potted ware/SHG and battleaxe cultures, likely indicating local trade as would be expected, we also see something more unexpected. What appears to be a full millennium between the SHG arrival until there was any genetic mixing between them and their neighbors. In other words, any carnal relations seems to have been strictly avoided for a very long time, the reason for that naturally being unknown. But then we can say that we most likely had two different neighboring cultures established for a very long time period. Like I said above, traditionally the farmers were believed to have essentially taken over and assimilated the hunter-gatherers fully, replacing their culture. However, when you note the map coincidence, as well as the reasoning that the SHG naval inclined culture would have been much better suited to establishing the trade routes, it seems more likely that it was more of a equal merging of cultures, and the elements stemming from the SHG part was the ones that enabled the build up of wealth and the main concentrations of power on the Scandinavian peninsula going forward.
So what does this have to do with the Svea and Geat (Göta) peoples/tribes as we know them much later? You may have guessed already, but the hypothesis that the Format Historia channel proposes is that the Svea people stem from the segment of potted ware/SHG people located on the current Swedish east cost (Uppsala/Stockholm area etc.), and that the Geat people stem from the inland farming battleaxe culture. Later on, as mentioned above, there was genetic mixing and gradual cultural mixing, but still with a retention of distinct ”tribal” identities until long into the historic period, and not with one culture replacing the other entirely. The video doesn’t go into it, but I gather from the other areas where potted ware/SHG people resided that if the same reasoning is applied there they could have played equivalent roles in establishing the later Danish and Norwegian cultures. This would in a way make the Geats stand out in the later Scandinavian period, since they would then have had a diverging cultural origin from the other main population groups present there. An interesting thought.
Is it plausible? I would say so, not to say that this absolutely have to be the answer, but it is to be honest the most reasonable hypothesis on the (confusing) topic that I’ve come across so far.
As an additional side note we are then also left with a question as to what languages they spoke. Again traditionally the belief has been that it was the inland farmers, battleaxe people, that were indo-european speakers and in line with the total assimilation idea that it was their language that was carried on and then evolved into Germanic. It would have had to be a total cultural assimilation with regards to the language in that case, as we can’t find any traces of residual influence of a non-indo-european language in the later language or in placenames. The other possibility would be that both populations actually spoke indo-european languages, and that instead of the wiping out of one language entirely, the two indo-european varieties merge (could be that one of the two was a lot more dominant of course), resulting in (proto-)Germanic. This is certainly a possibility, as there has been some linguists who have cautiously suggested that there are some peculiar aspects in the language that possibly suggests that it could be the result of a hybridization between two different indo-european flavors.
So in relation to the original post of the thread, here we’ve backed up in time and possibly established, or at least suggested, the prior origins of what was later to become the Germanic culture.
Historically we can see two large groupings of peoples, tribes if you will, in primarily the southern half of current day Sweden. The first parts of the names Sweden and Sverige (the country’s name in Swedish) originates with the Svea, but the Geats also left their name in several provinces and geographical areas of modern Sweden. The two peoples, their origins, and their relation with one another have been the subject of a lot of speculation, debate, and often less friendly arguments among interedted parties over the last few centuries. The factual evidence used to be pretty sparse, which has served as an enabler for the debate to be pretty divergent and difficult to settle in any meaningful way.
However, the Format Historia youtube channel I mentioned in the original post in this thread has pointed out an interesting coincidence, and based on this has proposed an — on the surface — pretty reasonable hypothesis that seems like it might make sense.
Here is a screenshot from the video in question: While it is a little bit fuzzy it shows two overlaid map images. The colored areas are from a Swedish TV documentary (which had a lot of dubious elements to it), but in this particular case it shows the areas where we can see that power centers developed during the bronze age. The lines make up the second of the two images, and it shows the areas where the so-called potted ware culture (gropkeramiska kulturen) was active before that time. Through DNA studies this culture has now been identified as arriving from the east in the area across from the Baltic Sea, current Baltic states and western Russia. Their ancestry was predominantly what is referred to as Scandinavian Hunter Gatherer (SHG) which in turn resulted from a mixing between the Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG) and Eastern Hunter Gatherer (EHG) groups. Importantly it appears that they also retained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, especially focused on the sea.
As a side note, there is something a bit unclear here that I didn’t perceive adressed, because previously this mixing has been believed to have occured on the Scandinavian peninsula, hence the name. So either the same mixing occured on the other side of the Baltic Sea as well, and some of those later made the trip west, or the mixing was exclusively in Scandinavia, they spread East, and then descendants came back West again. Not in itself that important for the subject of this post, but something I’d like to see adressed by someone more qualified than me in the future.
But back to the main story. In the inland areas between the habitation areas of the SHGs were people of the so-called battleaxe culture, which were early farmers. They were at one point in the SHG areas as well, but were seemingly displaced from there by the SHG arrival. Traditionally they have been seen as the precursor culture to the later bronze age culture in Sweden and were believed to have assimilated the SHGs fully into their own culture due to their larger population numbers, and then later spawning the Germanic culture. In a way this may be accurate, but the proposed hypothesis suggests a more complex development.
One aspect here is of course the interesting coincidence that the SHG areas are the ones that later emerge as power centers. The Format Historia suggests that this can be explained as follows: It is clear that there was a very strong connection between the Scandinavian bronze age culture and the Mycenean culture in the mediterranean, the bronze item designs etc. are nearly identical between the two. Likely resulting from extensive trade connections running up and down the central European rivers, wherein in particular amber was carried south en masse and traded for other wares. This stands out in Europe, we don’t see other examples far away from the Mediterranean. As the channel points out it would certainly make a lot of sense if, out of the two cultures present in the Swedish a bit further back than that, it would have been the boat faring hunter-gatherers that established the river trade connection, and not the inland farming based culture.
Now, one also very interesting aspect is that while we see exchanges of wares and seeming cultural exchanges between the potted ware/SHG and battleaxe cultures, likely indicating local trade as would be expected, we also see something more unexpected. What appears to be a full millennium between the SHG arrival until there was any genetic mixing between them and their neighbors. In other words, any carnal relations seems to have been strictly avoided for a very long time, the reason for that naturally being unknown. But then we can say that we most likely had two different neighboring cultures established for a very long time period. Like I said above, traditionally the farmers were believed to have essentially taken over and assimilated the hunter-gatherers fully, replacing their culture. However, when you note the map coincidence, as well as the reasoning that the SHG naval inclined culture would have been much better suited to establishing the trade routes, it seems more likely that it was more of a equal merging of cultures, and the elements stemming from the SHG part was the ones that enabled the build up of wealth and the main concentrations of power on the Scandinavian peninsula going forward.
So what does this have to do with the Svea and Geat (Göta) peoples/tribes as we know them much later? You may have guessed already, but the hypothesis that the Format Historia channel proposes is that the Svea people stem from the segment of potted ware/SHG people located on the current Swedish east cost (Uppsala/Stockholm area etc.), and that the Geat people stem from the inland farming battleaxe culture. Later on, as mentioned above, there was genetic mixing and gradual cultural mixing, but still with a retention of distinct ”tribal” identities until long into the historic period, and not with one culture replacing the other entirely. The video doesn’t go into it, but I gather from the other areas where potted ware/SHG people resided that if the same reasoning is applied there they could have played equivalent roles in establishing the later Danish and Norwegian cultures. This would in a way make the Geats stand out in the later Scandinavian period, since they would then have had a diverging cultural origin from the other main population groups present there. An interesting thought.
Is it plausible? I would say so, not to say that this absolutely have to be the answer, but it is to be honest the most reasonable hypothesis on the (confusing) topic that I’ve come across so far.
As an additional side note we are then also left with a question as to what languages they spoke. Again traditionally the belief has been that it was the inland farmers, battleaxe people, that were indo-european speakers and in line with the total assimilation idea that it was their language that was carried on and then evolved into Germanic. It would have had to be a total cultural assimilation with regards to the language in that case, as we can’t find any traces of residual influence of a non-indo-european language in the later language or in placenames. The other possibility would be that both populations actually spoke indo-european languages, and that instead of the wiping out of one language entirely, the two indo-european varieties merge (could be that one of the two was a lot more dominant of course), resulting in (proto-)Germanic. This is certainly a possibility, as there has been some linguists who have cautiously suggested that there are some peculiar aspects in the language that possibly suggests that it could be the result of a hybridization between two different indo-european flavors.
So in relation to the original post of the thread, here we’ve backed up in time and possibly established, or at least suggested, the prior origins of what was later to become the Germanic culture.
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Re: The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
I'll throw an alternative here.
Hoc leader of Hocingas.
Supposedly seized control at Uppsala.
A key religious site.
His sons Danish in both Anglo-Saxon and Danish sources.
Crucially related to the legendary takeover of Juteland and the tragedy of Hamlet (Ānlaf a.k.a Olaf).
However this legend along with that of the fight at Finns Burgh, killing Fin Folcwalding is clearly a scrambled depiction of the conflicts caused by repopulating the Frisian Coast after 400AD. Which Dutch evidence shows is primarily Anglo-Saxon and Jute with some southern Norwegian.
The common legendary character between Langobards (Lombards) and Danes is Sceaf 'scylding' who's origin is highly mythological, though quite possibly a saved sacrifice to the God of the sea...And again may hint at that agricultural collapse along the Frisian coast.
Hoc leader of Hocingas.
Supposedly seized control at Uppsala.
A key religious site.
His sons Danish in both Anglo-Saxon and Danish sources.
Crucially related to the legendary takeover of Juteland and the tragedy of Hamlet (Ānlaf a.k.a Olaf).
However this legend along with that of the fight at Finns Burgh, killing Fin Folcwalding is clearly a scrambled depiction of the conflicts caused by repopulating the Frisian Coast after 400AD. Which Dutch evidence shows is primarily Anglo-Saxon and Jute with some southern Norwegian.
The common legendary character between Langobards (Lombards) and Danes is Sceaf 'scylding' who's origin is highly mythological, though quite possibly a saved sacrifice to the God of the sea...And again may hint at that agricultural collapse along the Frisian coast.
Re: The Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the Svear
An interesting option. I will try to remember to research this at some later point so that I can make a more insightful comment. I’m afraid that I am slowly descending into madness over having to deal with a painter my parents hired, who is acting like a demonlord from hell (and I’m not exagerrating). So I will have to do the research later.Zen9 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 10:28 pm I'll throw an alternative here.
Hoc leader of Hocingas.
Supposedly seized control at Uppsala.
A key religious site.
His sons Danish in both Anglo-Saxon and Danish sources.
Crucially related to the legendary takeover of Juteland and the tragedy of Hamlet (Ānlaf a.k.a Olaf).
However this legend along with that of the fight at Finns Burgh, killing Fin Folcwalding is clearly a scrambled depiction of the conflicts caused by repopulating the Frisian Coast after 400AD. Which Dutch evidence shows is primarily Anglo-Saxon and Jute with some southern Norwegian.
The common legendary character between Langobards (Lombards) and Danes is Sceaf 'scylding' who's origin is highly mythological, though quite possibly a saved sacrifice to the God of the sea...And again may hint at that agricultural collapse along the Frisian coast.