proto-germans/single grave culture
appearance: c. -3000
dispersal: c. -2000
ascendancy: globular amphora[1]
the earliest germans are actually found in denmark where they migrated northwards into scandinavia, southwards into the low countries and later on back into germany, which was actually occupied by balts.
now, the early german legends clearly verify the modern dispersal hypotheses, or more accurately vice versa. the legends speak of two peoples here, the aesir and the vanir. the vanir, who have likely erroneously given their name to finland (the modern finns being the result of a later migration into the area that germans apparently never recognized), were actually the name of the indigenous peoples of the trb culture that had displaced the original nordic inhabitants, who were mostly pushed east by the invading indo-europeans, the aesir. aesir can be seen to have a common root with eire (ireland) and arya (iran) and indicates a memory of a common culture that once spread across eurasia.
the legends speak of an invasion of the aesir into the lands of the vanir and the archaeological evidence puts the end of this invasion some time around -2000 or so. thus, this "clade" is really the indo-european invasion of north-western europe.
the indigenous inhabitants, the vanir, were obsessed with farming and fertility cults, which sounds remarkably familiar to the culture of the neolithic farming invasion.
descendancy: deutsche[2]
[1]: in search of the indo-europeans, jp mallory, 1989
[2]: the role of migration in the history of the eurasian steppe, andrew bell-fialkoff, 2000
[3]: heimskringla, snorri sturlson, c. 1200
page last updated august 17, 2004