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

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Razvan,

Well, i agree that is a lot of confusions regarding Got/Goths and Get/Getians. So, for the first, let stick to what is know for sure (which is not always too enlightning either). We have Goths having germanic names for some of their kings we know, and have a writing (just few examples exist) considered germanic.

I disagree.

What Gothic kings have no Germanic names? And have you found ANY Dacian name among the Goths?
I maintain (with the mainstream experts) that the Goths spoke a Germanic language (without any Dacian words) and were not influenced by Dacian language.

Just a few examples of Gothic writing? Are you trying to make fun here? It’s in fact the only eastern Germanic language that has come down to us with a fair amount of written examples.
And.. nothing Dacian in there. So maybe the Dacians were a Germanic people instead? If not, it’s impossible to maintain a scientific argument that the Dacians had a major impact on the formation of the Gothic group.
There is nothing Dacian in there!

And we have the archeology of Cherneakov/Santana de Mures culture, who is considered the culture of the classic Goths, but who is in fact mostly a mix of different local cultures, with Daco-Getians one playing the leading role as some scholars i mentioned before said (and i dont use romanians scholars, to not look as i am biased or so, even if a part of that culture is on Romania teritory). As well, they say that is not any 100% sure thing that cultures from west or northwest of the area are related with this culture, so from archeological point of view, is very hard to prouve any migration of Goths as an all from Scandinavia, but more likely they are formed in that area, from diferent peoples, so yes, Dacians palyed a major role in their formation.

Razvan, we agree that the Santana de Mures/Cherneakov culture was a mix. True enough.
We disagree that the Dacians played the major role in that culture. This I cannot find in books of the non-Rumanian scholars which you have cited. In fact it is artefacts from the Wielbark culture that dominate in the Santana de Mures/Cherneakov culture. And the Wielbark culture originated in the Prussian/Polish area, and is considered to have been the area where the ‘proto-Goths’ originated.
So yes, Dacian elements were present in the Santana de Mures/Cherneakov culture.
But no, the did NOT play a major role in the formation of the Goths.

Give it up Razvan. There are no scientific arguments that support your ‘Dacia Rules!’ theory.

(yes, Lundius might write more fantasy, agree, but he inspire from previous works).

We agree that he wrote fantasy. What previous works inspired him? Can we even prove what these works looked like, how original they were, and what Lundius did with it?
No we can’t, and therefore he is useless as a source. No scholar will touch ‘sources’ like that.

Then we have the ancient chronicars The ones i mentioned pretty much write Gets instead of Gots when they mentioned what we know later as Goths, and what i want to point is that those peoples had a "getic" appearence (enforced by what we know from archeology), and thats why they call them like that.

Which ancient source writes ‘Gets’? Never read that word.
What in the name of heaven is a “getic appearance”? And how would some 6th-c. writer know about the appearance of a group living c. 500BC? What are you talking about?
How do you mean, ‘enforced by archaeology’? What archaeologist has made any connections between 5th c. BC and 1st c. AD or even 3rd c. AD groups on the basis of appearance?

I am glad to hear from you anyway that if any of ancient writers related the Goths (the classic ones we know starting with III century AD) with germanic peoples, since i never heard about that. Not even Jordanes.

Once more you misread Jordanes. Of course Jordanes knew that the Goths were a Germanic group, he belonged to that group remember? And when Jordanes, on the basis of happily misunderstanding names (how could he not, there was no history as we know it today), misidentifies the Goths with 800 year-older groups whom he did know nothing about, apart from their names, how would he have known anything about Dacian or Scythian culture? Nothing.

And if ancient sources never literally said ‘Goths are Germans’, that’s because they did not make distinctions like we make today. To them they were all barbarians.

About Jordanes saying that Goths fight against Darius, well, Goths as we know no, but Gets/Dacians yes, fight against Darius the First as Herodotus said, and the Masagetae against Cyrus. And this Getae formed a major part of Goths.

Oh come on Razvan!
We know who fought Darius and Cyrus, and we indeed know it was not the group we know as Goths.
So why not admit that Jordanes was mistaken? Please drop that idea that it was all one big happy Geta-Daca-Goto group which existed a thousand years?
And NO, the Getae did NOT form a major part of the Goths. There is NO evidence for anything like that, I wil say it again and again and again and again. There’s only that mistake with the names.

If Fritigern the Goth was really Vortigern the Briton, does that then mean that the Anglo-Saxons were invited into Britain by a Dacian?
Of course not. Fritigern was a Goth, and his Gothic name only resembles the Brythonic name of Vortigern – different people, different meanings. Yet some people will only see the resemblance and insist on making far-flung but untenable conclusions.
As you are doing here.

Jordanes is not the first who mix Goths with Getae(Dacians), and this mix might come indeed from the fact that a germanic tribe arrive in the area, during several generations, and mix with local peoples, dacians and sarmatians.

Yes, the Goths arrived and mixed with other groups, or rather, a Germanic group arrived and out of the mix came the Goths.
No, that was not why Jordanes made that mistake. He really thought that the Getae of writers before him were the same as the Goths, and hence identified all those groups known to him as ‘his’ Goths, which of course they were not.

So, Dacians being the superior culture in the area, they become very visible in that mix

No, Dacians were NO LONGER the superior culture in that area (not after the Romans exterminated most of them, and scattered the remainder.
No, Dacians did NOT become very visible in the mix, in fact I challenge you to find even one trace of them in names of Goths or, Gothic language.

, so their history is take by this peoples called now Gots and integrated in their own one, as well with germanic culture who was still keep by some of their leaders who finnaly will migrate from that area.

No, Dacian history was NEVER integrated into their own history. Find me ONE ancient author who has integrated Dacian history (and by that I mean more than naming one or two kings) into Gothic history.

Razvan, as I see it you build your whole house of cards on a misidentification of names, something which was done long before you, in fact. Getae in your opinion ‘are’ Dacians, whereas experts are not so sure that they can be compared 100%.
Next, you find the mistake made by a number of chroniclers and ancient historians between Getae and Goths.
You then make the comparison Getae are Dacians, Goth are Getae, Goths are Dacians.

But no proof can be found. It's ahouse of cards, nothing more.