ICS stages / ages (official)
78-493: Blytt–Sernander stages/ages *Relative to year 2000 ( b2k ). The Subatlantic is the current climatic age of the Holocene epoch . It started about 2,500 years BP and is still ongoing. Its average temperatures are slightly lower than during the preceding Subboreal and Atlantic . During its course, the temperature underwent several oscillations, which had a strong influence on fauna and flora and thus indirectly on
156-587: A "Dark Age" that set Europe back a millennium. In contrast, German and English historians have tended to see Roman–Barbarian interaction as the replacement of a "tired, effete and decadent Mediterranean civilization" with a "more virile, martial, Nordic one". The scholar Guy Halsall has seen the barbarian movement as the result of the fall of the Roman Empire, not its cause. Archaeological discoveries have confirmed that Germanic and Slavic tribes were settled agriculturalists who were probably merely "drawn into
234-623: A "primeval urge" to push into the Mediterranean, the construction of the Great Wall of China causing a "domino effect" of tribes being forced westward, leading to the Huns falling upon the Goths who, in turn, pushed other Germanic tribes before them. In general, French and Italian scholars have tended to view this as a catastrophic event, the destruction of a civilization and the beginning of
312-556: A common identity and ancestry. This was the Romantic ideal that there once had been a single German, Celtic or Slavic people who originated from a common homeland and spoke a common tongue , helping to provide a conceptual framework for political movements of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism . From the 1960s, a reinterpretation of archaeological and historical evidence prompted scholars, such as Goffart and Todd, to propose new models for explaining
390-632: A mixed or an almost pure beech forest established itself. Anthropogenic influences (i. e. agricultural land uses, grazing and forestry) that date back to the Bronze Age started to become dominant. The actual youngest subatlantic (pollen zone X b) with its wet and temperate climate shows a distinct precipitation gradient with decreasing rainfall from west to east. Natural and indigenous forest communities were severely diminished and more and more replaced by artificially managed forest communities. In northwestern Germany mixed oak forests take up 40% amongst
468-551: A particularly large and unexpected crossing of the Rhine was made by a group of Vandals , Alans and Suebi . As central power broke down in the Western Roman Empire, the military became more important but was dominated by men of barbarian origin. There are contradictory opinions as to whether the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a result of an increase in migrations, or if both the breakdown of central power and
546-514: A progressive Romanisation of barbarian society, but also an undeniable barbarisation of the Roman world." For example, the Roman Empire played a vital role in building up barbarian groups along its frontier. Propped up with imperial support and gifts, the armies of allied barbarian chieftains served as buffers against other, hostile, barbarian groups. The disintegration of Roman economic power weakened groups that had come to depend on Roman gifts for
624-433: A result of such an accommodation and were absorbed into Latinhood. In contrast, in the east, Slavic tribes maintained a more "spartan and egalitarian" existence bound to the land "even in times when they took their part in plundering Roman provinces". Their organizational models were not Roman, and their leaders were not normally dependent on Roman gold for success. Thus they arguably had a greater effect on their region than
702-836: A short warming pulse around 1500, the Little Ice Age followed, lasting from c. 1550 until 1860. The Northern Hemisphere snow line descended by 100 to 200 meters. Human history during this time includes the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment , and also major rebellious events like the Thirty Years War and the French Revolution . The beginning of the Industrial Revolution also dates back to this period, while Southeast Asia experienced
780-486: A temporal framework for the archaeological cultures of Europe and America . Some have gone so far as to identify stages of technology in north Europe with specific periods; however, this approach is an oversimplification not generally accepted. There is no reason, for example, why the north Europeans should stop using bronze and start using iron abruptly at the lower boundary of the Subatlantic at 600 BC. In
858-622: A variety of methods, intending to further verify, and refine the Blytt–Sernander sequence. They find a general correspondence across Eurasia and North America . The fluctuations of climatic change are more complex than Blytt–Sernander periodizations can identify. For example, recent peat core samples at Roskilde Fjord and Lake Kornerup in Denmark identified 40 to 62 distinguishable layers of pollen , respectively. However, no universally accepted replacement model has been proposed. Today
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#1732771791823936-471: Is a German word, borrowed from German historiography, that refers to the early migrations of the Germanic peoples. In a broader sense it can mean the mass migration of whole tribes or ethnic groups. Rather than "invasion", German and Slavic scholars speak of "migration" (see German : Völkerwanderung , Czech : Stěhování národů , Swedish : folkvandring and Hungarian : népvándorlás ), aspiring to
1014-649: Is partly documented by Greek and Latin historians but is difficult to verify archaeologically. It puts Germanic peoples in control of most areas of what was then the Western Roman Empire . The Tervingi crossed the Danube into Roman territory in 376, in a migration fleeing the invading Huns . Some time later in Marcianopolis , the escort to their leader Fritigern was killed while meeting with Roman commander Lupicinus . The Tervingi rebelled, and
1092-476: The Völkerwanderung may illustrate such [a] course of events, but it misleads. Unfolded over long periods of time, the changes of position that took place were necessarily irregular ... (with) periods of emphatic discontinuity. For decades and possibly centuries, the tradition bearers idled, and the tradition itself hibernated. There was ample time for forgetfulness to do its work. Völkerwanderung
1170-704: The Baltic Sea , moving up the Vistula near the Carpathian Mountains . During Tacitus ' era they included lesser-known tribes such as the Tencteri , Cherusci , Hermunduri and Chatti ; however, a period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alemanni , Franks , Saxons , Frisians and Thuringians . The first wave of invasions, between AD 300 and 500,
1248-709: The Barbarian Invasions , was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman kingdoms . The term refers to the important role played by the migration, invasion, and settlement of various tribes, notably the Burgundians , Vandals , Goths , Alemanni , Alans , Huns , early Slavs , Pannonian Avars , Bulgars and Magyars within or into
1326-701: The Brittonic chieftains (whose centres of power retreated westward as a result). The Eastern Roman Empire attempted to maintain control of the Balkan provinces despite a thinly-spread imperial army relying mainly on local militias and an extensive effort to refortify the Danubian limes . The ambitious fortification efforts collapsed, worsening the impoverished conditions of the local populace and resulting in colonization by Slavic warriors and their families. Halsall and Noble have argued that such changes stemmed from
1404-880: The Crusades took place and the Byzantine Empire was eventually pushed back by the rise of the Ottoman Empire . The end of the Medieval Warm Period coincides with the early 14th century reaching a temperature minimum around 1350, and by the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages . Many settlements were abandoned and left deserted . As a consequence, the population in Central Europe drastically receded by as much as 50 percent. After
1482-732: The Mongols also had significant effects (especially in North Africa , the Iberian Peninsula , Anatolia and Central and Eastern Europe ). Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing the resident Celts west to the Rhine around 200 BC), moving into southern Germany up to
1560-671: The North Sea area, which had experienced a slight sea level fall and sea level stagnation during the subboreal, the renewed transgressive pulses of the Dunkerque transgression during the older subatlantic achieved the recent level. The wet and cool older subatlantic (pollen zone IX a) is characterized in central Europe by an oak forest intruded more and more by beech (mixed oak forests with lime and elm or mixed oak forests with ash and beech). Humid terrains were generally occupied by alder and ash. The mixed oak forests lasted until
1638-663: The Ostrogoths , led by Theodoric the Great , who settled in Italy. In Gaul , the Franks (a fusion of western Germanic tribes whose leaders had been aligned with Rome since the 3rd century) entered Roman lands gradually during the 5th century, and after consolidating power under Childeric and his son Clovis's decisive victory over Syagrius in 486, established themselves as rulers of northern Roman Gaul. Fending off challenges from
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#17327717918231716-481: The Post-Angkor Period . From 1860 onwards, the temperatures started to rise again and initiated the modern climatic optimum. This warming was severely amplified by anthropogenic influences (i.e. increasing industrialisation, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming ). The modern warming shows a distinct temperature rise from the 1970s onwards. According to NASA, this is not expected to change within
1794-499: The 21st century. Ice core analyses from Greenland and Antarctica show a very similar evolution in greenhouse gases . After a temporary minimum during the preceding subboreal and atlantic the concentrations of carbon monoxide , nitrous oxide and methane slowly started to rise during the Subatlantic. Since 1800 onwards this rise has dramatically accelerated paralleling roughly the concomitant temperature rise. For example,
1872-626: The 6th century. They were later followed by the Bavarians and the Franks, who conquered and ruled most of the Italian peninsula. The Bulgars, originally a nomadic group probably from Central Asia , occupied the Pontic steppe north of Caucasus from the 2nd century. Later, pushed by the Khazars , the majority of them migrated west and dominated Byzantine territories along the lower Danube in
1950-653: The 7th century. From that time the demographic picture of the Balkans changed permanently, becoming predominantly Slavic-speaking, while pockets of native people survived in the mountains of the Balkans. Croats settled in modern Croatia and Western Bosnia, bringing with them the Serbs who settled in Rascia, an area around Montenegro - South-West Serbia. By the mid seventh century, Serb tribes were invading northern Albania. By
2028-628: The Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of what would later become France and Germany. The initial Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain occurred during the 5th century, when Roman control of Britain had come to an end. The Burgundians settled in northwestern Italy, Switzerland and Eastern France in the 5th century. Between AD 500 and 700, Slavic tribes settled more areas of central Europe and pushed farther into southern and eastern Europe, gradually making
2106-463: The Blytt–Sernander sequence has been substantiated by a wide variety of scientific dating methods, mainly radiocarbon dates obtained from peat. Earlier radiocarbon dates were often left uncalibrated; that is, they were derived by assuming a constant concentration of atmospheric radiocarbon. The atmospheric radiocarbon concentration has varied over time and thus radiocarbon dates need to be calibrated . The Blytt–Sernander classification has been used as
2184-861: The Bulgars. During the Khazar–Arab Wars , the Khazars stopped the Arab expansion into Europe across the Caucasus (7th and 8th centuries). At the same time, the so-called Moors (consisting of Arabs and Berbers ) invaded Europe via Gibraltar ( conquering Hispania from the Visigothic Kingdom in 711), before being halted by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in Gaul. These campaigns led to broadly demarcated frontiers between Christendom and Islam for
2262-555: The CO 2 -concentration increased from 280 ppm to a recent value of nearly 400 ppm , methane from 700 to 1800 ppb and N 2 O from 265 to 320 ppb. A comparable rise had already taken place at the changeover to the Holocene, but this process then took nearly 5,000 years. This sudden release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by human society represents an unprecedented experiment with unpredictable consequences for Earth's climate. Within
2340-1273: The Goths (including the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths ), the Vandals, the Anglo-Saxons , the Lombards, the Suebi, the Frisii , the Jutes , the Burgundians , the Alemanni, the Sciri and the Franks; they were later pushed westward by the Huns, the Avars, the Slavs and the Bulgars. Later invasions, such as the Vikings , the Normans , the Varangians , the Hungarians , the Arabs , the Turks , and
2418-522: The Goths, the Franks or the Saxons had on theirs. Based on the belief that particular types of artifacts, elements of personal adornment generally found in a funerary context, are thought to indicate the ethnicity of the person buried, the "Culture-History" school of archaeology assumed that archaeological cultures represent the Urheimat (homeland) of tribal polities named in historical sources. As
Subatlantic - Misplaced Pages Continue
2496-594: The Northeastern United States. In the Southeastern United States, increasing wildfires, insect outbreaks and tree diseases are causing widespread tree die-off. Blytt%E2%80%93Sernander system The Blytt–Sernander classification, or sequence, is a series of North European climatic periods or phases based on the study of Danish peat bogs by Axel Blytt (1876) and Rutger Sernander (1908). The classification
2574-667: The Roman Empire in both its western and its eastern portions. In particular, economic fragmentation removed many of the political, cultural and economic forces that had held the empire together. The rural population in Roman provinces became distanced from the metropolis, and there was little to differentiate them from other peasants across the Roman frontier. In addition, Rome increasingly used foreign mercenaries to defend itself. That "barbarisation" parallelled changes within Barbaricum . To this end, noted linguist Dennis Howard Green wrote, "the first centuries of our era witness not merely
2652-575: The Roman West and Byzantium gradually converted the non-Islamic newcomers and integrated them into Christendom. Analysis of barbarian identity and how it was created and expressed during the Barbarian Invasions has elicited discussion among scholars. Herwig Wolfram , a historian of the Goths, in discussing the equation of migratio gentium with Völkerwanderung , observes that Michael Schmidt [ de ] introduced
2730-405: The Roman provinces of Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and later by Julius Caesar . It is this western group which was described by the Roman historian Tacitus (AD 56–117) and Julius Caesar (100–44 BC). A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia, between 600 and 300 BC, to the opposite coast of
2808-654: The Visigoths, a group derived either from the Tervingi or from a fusion of mainly Gothic groups, eventually invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 410 before settling in Gaul. Around 460, they founded the Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia. They were followed into Roman territory first by a confederation of Herulian , Rugian , and Scirian warriors under Odoacer , that deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476, and later by
2886-429: The breakdown in Roman political control, which exposed the weakness of local Roman rule. Instead of large-scale migrations, there were military takeovers by small groups of warriors and their families, who usually numbered only in the tens of thousands. The process involved active, conscious decision-making by Roman provincial populations. The collapse of centralized control severely weakened the sense of Roman identity in
2964-498: The construction of barbarian identity. They maintained that no sense of shared identity was perceived by the Germani ; a similar theory having been proposed for Celtic and Slavic groups. A theory states that the primordialist mode of thinking was encouraged by a prima facie interpretation of Graeco-Roman sources, which grouped together many tribes under such labels as Germanoi , Keltoi or Sclavenoi , thus encouraging their perception as distinct peoples. Modernists argue that
3042-407: The eastern half of Europe predominantly Slavic-speaking. Additionally, Turkic tribes such as the Avars and - later - Ugric-speaking Magyars became involved in this second wave. In AD 567, the Avars and the Lombards destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom . The Lombards, a Germanic people, settled in Italy with their Herulian, Suebian, Gepid, Thuringian, Bulgar, Sarmatian and Saxon allies in
3120-535: The equation in his 1778 history of the Germans. Wolfram observed that the significance of gens as a biological community was shifting, even during the early Middle Ages and that "to complicate matters, we have no way of devising a terminology that is not derived from the concept of nationhood created during the French Revolution ". The "primordialistic" paradigm prevailed during the 19th century. Scholars, such as German linguist Johann Gottfried Herder , viewed tribes as coherent biological (racial) entities, using
3198-427: The establishment of drier and cooler conditions might have forced the Huns to move west thus in turn triggering the migrations of the Germanic tribes . At about the same time the Byzantine Empire reached its first acme and Christianity established itself in Europe as the leading monotheistic religion . After this relatively short cool interlude the climate ameliorated again and reached between 800 and 1200 almost
Subatlantic - Misplaced Pages Continue
3276-409: The evolution of human civilizations. With intensifying industrialisation , human society started to stress the natural climatic cycles with increased greenhouse gas emissions . The term subatlantic was first introduced in 1889 by Rutger Sernander to differentiate it from Axel Blytt 's atlantic . It follows upon the previous subboreal . According to Franz Firbas (1949) and Litt et al. (2001)
3354-446: The idea of "imagined communities"; the barbarian polities in late antiquity were social constructs rather than unchanging lines of blood kinship. The process of forming tribal units was called " ethnogenesis ", a term coined by Soviet scholar Yulian Bromley . The Austrian school (led by Reinhard Wenskus ) popularized this idea, which influenced medievalists such as Herwig Wolfram, Walter Pohl and Patrick J. Geary . It argues that
3432-437: The idea of a dynamic and "wandering Indo-Germanic people". In contrast, the standard terms in French and Italian historiography translate to "barbarian invasions", or even "barbaric invasions" ( French : Invasions barbares , Italian : Invasioni barbariche ). Historians have postulated several explanations for the appearance of "barbarians" on the Roman frontier: climate change, weather and crops, population pressure ,
3510-405: The identity of the newcomers. In Gaul , the collapse of imperial rule resulted in anarchy: the Franks and Alemanni were pulled into the ensuing "power vacuum", resulting in conflict. In Hispania, local aristocrats maintained independent rule for some time, raising their own armies against the Vandals . Meanwhile, the Roman withdrawal from lowland England resulted in conflict between Saxons and
3588-418: The increase – they augmented from 5 to 30% and clearly document an expanding agriculture during the younger subatlantic. In northern Germany ( Ostholstein ) the vegetational evolution was very similar. Remarkable here is the rapid rise of non-tree pollen from 30 to more than 80% (including an increase in cereals from 2 to over 20%) during the younger subatlantic. Amongst the tree pollen the mixed oak forest
3666-408: The increased importance of non-Romans created additional internal factors. Migrations, and the use of non-Romans in the military, were known in the periods before and after, and the Eastern Roman Empire adapted and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, although it involved the establishment of competing barbarian kingdoms,
3744-415: The maintenance of their own power. The arrival of the Huns helped prompt many groups to invade the provinces for economic reasons. The nature of the barbarian takeover of former Roman provinces varied from region to region. For example, in Aquitaine , the provincial administration was largely self-reliant. Halsall has argued that local rulers simply "handed over" military rule to the Ostrogoths , acquiring
3822-505: The middle of the 19th century by forced industrialisation and the concomitant pollution of the environment. This trend has reached alarming proportions since 1975. According to the Living Planet Index vertebrates have so far suffered a loss of 40% of their species. Freshwater taxa have even been more severely affected – they have lost up to 50%, mainly due to biotope loss and water pollution. According to NASA, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised in
3900-411: The middle subatlantic (pollen zone IX b), which also had a wet but somewhat milder climate. Interspersed within the middle subatlantic are peaks in the occurrence of European beech and European hornbeam (mixed oak forests with beech or mixed oak forests with elm, hornbeam and beech). During the younger subatlantic (pollen zone X a), whose wet and temperate climate resembled already today's conditions,
3978-417: The middle subatlantic about 1,300 years ago another rather weak sea level rise took place. Yet the salinity kept falling and therefore new freshwater species were able to immigrate. During the younger and youngest subatlantic about 400 years ago the Limnea Sea was replaced by the Mya Sea as distinguished by the immigration of the clam Mya arenaria which eventually gave way to the recent Baltic Sea . In
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#17327717918234056-416: The next millennium. The following centuries saw the Muslims successful in conquering most of Sicily from the Christians by 902. The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from around AD 895 and the subsequent Hungarian invasions of Europe and the Viking expansion from the late 8th century conventionally mark the last large migration movements of the period. Christian missionaries from Ireland,
4134-430: The ninth century, the central Balkans (corresponding to modern Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia) and the area of southern and central Albania became invaded and settled by Bulgars. During the early Byzantine–Arab Wars , Arab armies attempted to invade southeast Europe via Asia Minor during the late 7th and early 8th centuries but were defeated at the siege of Constantinople (717–718) by the joint forces of Byzantium and
4212-554: The onset of the subatlantic has been pushed back to 1200 BC. According to Franz Firbas, the changeover from the subboreal (pollen zone VIII) to the older subatlantic (pollen zone IX) is characterized by the recession of hazel and lime and the simultaneous spreading of hornbeam due to anthropogenic influences. This recession was not synchronous. It occurred in the western reaches of the Lower Oder valley between 930 and 830 BC, whereas in southwestern Poland this event had taken place already between 1170 and 1160 BC. The beginning of
4290-410: The period 1880 to 2000. In the last twenty years alone satellite measurements document a rise of 50 millimeters which corresponds to a sixfold increase on the pre-industrial rate and a new rise of 2.5 millimeters per year. Today's sea level was already reached during the oldest subatlantic by the third Litorina transgression . The sea level rise had amounted to 1 meter, since then it oscillated around
4368-423: The period is widely regarded as the invasion of Europe by the Huns from Asia in about 375 and the ending with the conquest of Italy by the Lombards in 568, but a more loosely set period is from as early as 300 to as late as 800. For example, in the 4th century a very large group of Goths was settled as foederati within the Roman Balkans , and the Franks were settled south of the Rhine in Roman Gaul . In 406
4446-439: The politics of an empire already falling apart for quite a few other causes". Goffart argues that the process of settlement was connected to hospitalitas , the Roman practice of quartering soldiers among the civilian population. The Romans, by granting land and the right to levy taxes to allied (Germanic) armies, hoped to reduce the financial burdens of the empire. The Crisis of the Third Century caused significant changes within
4524-422: The provinces, which may explain why the provinces then underwent dramatic cultural changes even though few barbarians settled in them. Ultimately, the Germanic groups in the Western Roman Empire were accommodated without "dispossessing or overturning indigenous society", and they maintained a structured and hierarchical (but attenuated) form of Roman administration. Ironically, they lost their unique identity as
4602-428: The same context the release of juvenile water tied up in fossil fuels like coal , lignite , gas and petrol is generally overlooked. During the 2,500 year duration of the subatlantic global sea level kept on rising by about 1 meter. This corresponds to a rather low rate of 0.4 millimeters per year. Yet at the end of the 19th century a drastic change can be witnessed with a rate increase to 1.8 mm per year in
4680-500: The sharp boundary horizons, or Grenzhorizonte , in German peat, which matched Blytt's classification. Sernander defined the subboreal and subatlantic periods, as well as the late glacial periods. Other scientists have since added other information. The classification was devised before the development of more accurate dating methods, such as C-14 dating and oxygen isotope ratio cycles . Geologists working in different regions are studying sea levels, peat bogs, and ice core samples by
4758-451: The stimulus for forming tribal polities was perpetuated by a small nucleus of people, known as the Traditionskern ("kernel of tradition"), who were a military or aristocratic elite. This core group formed a standard for larger units, gathering adherents by employing amalgamative metaphors such as kinship and aboriginal commonality and claiming that they perpetuated an ancient, divinely-sanctioned lineage. The common, track-filled map of
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#17327717918234836-447: The subatlantic are generally somewhat cooler (by up to 1.0 °C) than during the preceding subboreal, the yearly average temperatures reduced by 0.7 °C. At the same time the winter precipitations augmented by up to 50%. Overall the climate during the subatlantic therefore tends to cooler and wetter conditions. The lower limit of the glaciers in Scandinavia descended during the subatlantic by 100 to 200 meters. The beginning of
4914-455: The subatlantic consists of the pollen zones IX and X. This corresponds in the scheme of Fritz Theodor Overbeck to the pollen zones XI and XII. In climate stratigraphy, the subatlantic is usually subdivided into an older subatlantic and a younger subatlantic . The older subatlantic corresponds to pollen zone IX (or XI in an alternate nomenclature made of more zones) characterized in central and northern Europe by beech or oak -beech forests,
4992-431: The subatlantic opened at the middle of the first millennium BC with the so-called Roman Warm Period which lasted to the beginning of the 4th century. This corresponds broadly to classical antiquity . The optimum is marked by a temperature spike centered around 2,500 BP. As a consequence in Europe the winter temperatures were raised by 0.6 °C during this period, yet on average were still by 0.3 °C lower than during
5070-401: The subboreal. Ice cores from Greenland also demonstrate a distinct temperature rise after the younger subboreal. The cooling that followed coincides with the Migration Period . It was not very pronounced and of short duration – an average temperature drop of 0.2 °C and a winter temperature drop of 0.4 °C center around 350 AD (or 1,600 years BP). This climatic deterioration with
5148-425: The term to refer to discrete ethnic groups. He also believed that the Volk were an organic whole, with a core identity and spirit evident in art, literature and language. These characteristics were seen as intrinsic, unaffected by external influences, even conquest. Language, in particular, was seen as the most important expression of ethnicity. They argued that groups sharing the same (or similar) language possessed
5226-410: The territories of the Roman Empire and Europe as a whole. The period is traditionally taken to have begun in AD 375 (possibly as early as 300) and ended in 568. Various factors contributed to this phenomenon of migration and invasion, and their role and significance are still widely discussed. Historians differ as to the dates for the beginning and ending of the Migration Period. The beginning of
5304-488: The total tree pollen during the older subatlantic and are therefore dominant. Afterwards their count starts fluctuating and they are definitely receding during the younger subatlantic. The percentage of elms and limes as members of the mixed oak forests yet stayed constant. Alders receded from 30 to 10%. Pine trees were also receding but peaked during the youngest subatlantic due to forestry. Hazel (15%), birch (5%) and willow (<1%) roughly kept their numbers. Significant
5382-454: The uniqueness perceived by specific groups was based on common political and economic interests rather than biological or racial distinctions. Indeed, on this basis, some schools of thought in recent scholarship urge that the concept of Germanic peoples be jettisoned altogether. The role of language in constructing and maintaining group identity can be ephemeral since large-scale language shifts occur commonly in history. Modernists propose
5460-462: The values of the Roman Warm Period (used temperature proxies are sediments in the North Atlantic). This warming happened during the High Middle Ages wherefore this event is known as Medieval Global Warming or the Medieval Warm Period . This warmer climate peaked around 850 AD and 1050 AD, and raised the tree line in Scandinavia and in Russia by 100 to 140 meters; it enabled the Vikings to settle in Iceland and Greenland . During this period
5538-551: The warm Atlantic period, Denmark was occupied by Mesolithic cultures, rather than Neolithic , notwithstanding the climatic evidence. Moreover, the technology stages vary widely globally. The Pleistocene phases and approximate calibrated dates (see above) are: The Holocene phases are: Some marker plant genera or species studied in peat are More sphagnum appears in wet periods. Dry periods feature more tree stumps, of birch and pine. Migration Period The Migration Period (circa 300 to 600 AD), also known as
5616-419: The younger subatlantic at 1250 AD coincides with the medieval population increase and distinguishes itself by an increase in pine and in indicator plants for human settlements. In Silesia this event can be dated between 1050 and 1270 AD. If one equates the onset of the younger subatlantic with the first maximum of beech occurrence it shifts back to Carolingian times around 700 AD. The summer temperatures of
5694-471: The younger subatlantic to pollen zone X (or XII in the alternate nomenclature made of more zones). In eastern Germany , Dietrich Franke subdivides the subatlantic into four stages (from young to old): The beginning of the subatlantic is usually defined as 2,400 calendar years BP or 450 BC , but this lower limit is not rigid. Some authors prefer to define the start of the subatlantic as 2,500 radiocarbon years, which represents roughly 625 BC. Occasionally,
5772-528: The zero mark. The transgression established during the postlitorine phase the Limnea Sea , which is characterized by lower salinity compared with the preceding Littorina Sea due to an isostatic shallowing of the Danish sea straits ( Great Belt , Little Belt and Öresund ). As a consequence the sea snail Littorina littorea was gradually replaced by the freshwater snail Limnaea ovata . During
5850-416: Was able to keep its share of 30%. Alders were also retreating from 40 to 25%. Let alone small fluctuations birch, beech and hornbeam overall conserved their share (hornbeam showed a distinct peak at the beginning younger subatlantic). Pine trees were also augmenting during the youngest subatlantic. Several distinct events could be recognized (from young to old): Faunal diversity has severely suffered since
5928-572: Was incorporated into a sequence of pollen zones later defined by Lennart von Post , one of the founders of palynology . Layers of peat were first noticed by Heinrich Dau in 1829. A prize was offered by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters to anyone who could explain them. Blytt hypothesized that the darker layers were deposited in drier times and lighter in moister times, applying his terms Atlantic (warm, moist) and Boreal (cool, dry). In 1926 C. A. Weber noticed
6006-404: Was the spreading of beech (from 5 to 45%) and hornbeam (from 1 to 15%). According to H. M. Müller the spreading of beech was caused by an increase in humidity since 550 BC and later favoured by a decrease in human settlements during the migrations. Herbs like cornflower , atriplex , sorrel and plantago also show a pronounced rise from 15 to 65% amongst the total pollen. Cereals were also on
6084-490: Was to some extent managed by the Eastern emperors. The migrants comprised war bands or tribes of 10,000 to 20,000 people. Immigration was common throughout the time of the Roman Empire, but over the course of 100 years, the migrants numbered not more than 750,000 in total, compared to an average 40 million population of the Roman Empire at that time. The first migrations of peoples were made by Germanic tribes such as
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