Getae and Dacians? Are they the same? Or is this unknowable?

[Mitra]

Correct. The Roxolani had to be the first of the mixed Caucasian-Asiatic to reach the western steppes, then going through Iron Gate Pass onto the Hungarian Plain to admix with the Iazyges. Thus we find newer graves-- tumuli-- and the introduction of the longer sword to Europe. Simply because the Roxolani appeared prior to the Alans does not mean they were other than Alanic. They were just the lead-group of the migrating culture. Even their name is Alanic. I believe the Taifali followed behind the Roxolani, but they were cleaved from the migration by the approach (from the northwest) of the Goths, and that the Tailfali were squeezed between the Tyrfingi Goths and Greutungi Goths. They formed an association, probably as part of the "kunja," with the Tyrfingi that lasted for at least 8 generations until 378.

Of note to these RAT forums, both the Iazyges and Taifali were formed into Roman cavalry units; and both were sent into Britain, the first around 177, the second around 396.

The Sarmatian cultures are certainly interesting, even with all the controversy of their origin. They gave us great inventiveness-- the "quick-draw dagger," the concept of "jousting," the steppe horse-dance (still seen in Austria's haut ecole), and the knight in shining armor. Not a bad legacy, eh?

The -alani in Roxolani derive from the "Arya" a superethnonime used by many iranian peuple also the Medes and the Persians. The lambdacisme of -ry in -l is common in many iranian languages, so Roxolan will be translated as Lighty Arians not Lighty Alans. The same choice of name Alans probably indicate a ethnogenesis from many different tribes, choicing to indicates the new formation a onorific and super-tribe name The Aryans. The Roxolani appears in the european steppes more than a century before the name Alans appears in the sources, in the middle sarmatian period, so also if we imagine a common basis in the origin, at the time of arrive of alans in european steppes the two group are culturally different like the Iaziges respect the Alans.

The Roxolans migrated in Ungarian plains only late, probably under the gothic pressures, before they lived in souther carpatian area, Anyway in IV century the Iaziges and Roxolan name disappers from the source substuted by Limigantes and Argaragantes, probably in the first IV century start a change in the tribal structures, after the coming of Roxolans in Ungary.