12-06-2023, 12:12 PM
(12-06-2023, 10:01 AM)Orentil Wrote: Interesting video. While the events of 576/568 in Southern Central Europe with the defeat of the Gepids and the migration of the Langobards to Italy are well known thanks to historic sources, I think the impact for Northern Central Europe is underestimated. I would link the end of the last bigger Germanic settlements between Elbe and Vistula (e.g. Elbe Havel region, Kuyavia), normally described as "middle of the 6th century" directly with the events in the south. I assume that they were abandoned under the pressure of incursions of Avars/Slavs after 568 also in this region, leading to a real settlement gap.
To be more precise, the incursions into the Elbe-Vistula region started already 6 years before the events in Pannonia, according to Paulus Diaconus (II c. 10), who mentioned that Sigibert I. (king of the Franks) defeated the Avars in 562 at the river Elbe, "in Turingia … iuxta Albem fluvium, but was defeated in 567 "in locis ubi et prius", i.e. again at the river Elbe.
This might have been the final end for settlements of "Restgermanen" east of the Elbe leading to an approx. 100 years settlement gap.