Germanic Peoples

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Germanic tribes (750BC-1AD)


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Key Terms[edit | edit source]

  • Germania[1]-Roman term for the geographical area in north-central Europe inhabited mainly by Germanic peoples.

Key Facts[edit | edit source]

  • Proto-Germanic Peoples are believed to have emerged during the Nordic Bronze Age, which developed out of the Battle Axe culture in south Scandinavia.
  • By 750 BC, Germanic peoples had spread from the Netherlands to what is now Poland.
  • Five Distinct groups of peoples:
    • North Germanic: Southern Scandinavia.
    • North Sea Germanic: Regions along North Sea and what is now the Jutland Penninsula.
    • Rhine-Wesser Germanic: Along the middle of the Rhine and Wesser rivers.
    • Elbe Germanic: Along the Elbe River.
    • Eastern Germanic: Near the middle of the Oder and Vistula Rivers.
  • A group of these Germanic people called the Basternae were the first to come into contact with the Romans. They lived east of the Carpathian mountains by the Black Sea.
  • Germanic Peoples eventually made their way into the Crumbling Western Roman Empire during the 5th Century.
    • Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards made it into Italy.
    • Vandals, Burgundians, Franks, and Visigoths made into Gaul(modern day France and Benelux)
    • Vandals and Visigoths also pushed into modern-day Spain(then called Hispania).
    • The Alamanni establish some presence in the Alps and Middle Rhine.
    • In Denmark, the Jutes merged with the Danes.
    • The Geats and Gutes merged with the Swedes in what is now Sweden.
    • The Angles merged with the Saxons to create the Anglo-Saxons(now called the English) in modern-day England.
  • Odoacer was the commander of the Germanic Mercenaries in Italy, deposed of the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 AD.
Europe after Odoacer



Quiz on Germanic Peoples

References[edit | edit source]

  1. "History of Germany". Wikipedia. 2018-09-14. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Germany&oldid=859517434.