Description

Abstract (English)

The aim of this map is to record and localise the tribes of the region described as "Germania" by ancient authors up to the Second Century. Toward this goal, ancient authors such as primarily Tacitus, Ptolemy and Pliny were used, with original greek and latin texts translated using AI, and crossreferenced with the original texts to ensure validity. Sites from the various archaeologcial cultures of the roman iron age in Germania were mapped to determine settlement voids and settlement clusters for tribe localisation and territory estimation. 

Methods

The Positions of Tribes were cross-referenced from the authors that mention them, if a position was given, onto the geographically corresponding or nearest possible cluster of archaeological sites.

Many times, authors do not give a position at all. In those cases, i simply had to guess. Sometimes there are some bits of information that inform the guess, but other times when there is not it is with zero confidence. These are marked on the map in red.

Explainations for the placements of each tribe are given in the text. In the cases where a tribe is said to be in different places by different authors, they are recorded twice on the map for each Author, unless one location is too unlikely to not be a Scribal Error.

The archaeological territories of Eggers phase B2 of the Roman Iron Age were used. Phase B2-C1a was not used as during this phase, large changes occur in eastern europe such as the Wielbark migration into Przeworsk territory that is not yet described as being Gothic by the authors used.

Ancient authors cited:

Tacitus: Germania, written around 98ad:
Tacitus is one of the most thorough, however his list is not as exhaustive as Ptolemies. The fact that he never mentions certain tribes that Ptolemy does lends th thought that those tribes were sub-tribes or less important ones than the ones he does mention.

Ptolemy: Geography, written around 150ad:
Ptolemy gives by far the most Exhaustive listing of Germanic Tribes, however it also has alot of confusing, contradictory, and seemingly erroneous information, which will be adresses further down.

Strabo: Geography, written in 17ad:
Strabos Work is one of the earliest sources used, and he interestingly lists some additional tribes that both authors do not.

Pliny the Elder: Natural History, written around 77ad:
Pliny does not go very in-depth about describing Germania, but instead is more exhaustive about Left-rhenish Germans and the Germanic Tribes east of the Vistula.

Others: Caesar, Augustus, Florus, Velleius, Dio Cassius, and Various Inscriptions are also used for mentioning certain tribes.

Methods (English)

Archaeological groups mapped and used for localization:

The "Nordsee-Küstennahe", "Elbgermanische", and "Rheinwesergermanische" Groups (Fig. 2), the Przeworsk Culture (Fig. 3), the Oksywie Culture (Fig. 4), the Poienești-Lucașeuca Culture (Fig. 5), as for Scandinavia, it has been archaeologically ommitted, partly due to the scarcity of mention by authors but also the nature of Scandinavian archaeological research, in which cultures are rarely delineated and things are primarily divided by Phases. Obviously, Scandinavia is host to Germanic tribes in this time, but is outside this maps scope for the most part.

Methods (English)

Standard Maptism Methodology:

1. Data sources: Varies greatly, but usually we aim to use up-to-date sources from international but also
national research from the country/region that is being mapped. For this, extensive translation and
communication with scholars abroad is vital. Sometimes, no up-to-date research exists on a given topic, so
old research will have to be used, cross-referenced with modern research from other fields to check its
validity where it may apply. Nevertheless, older research is still foundational to all of the modern work, and
must be read and analyzed in conjunction with modern scholarship.
2. GIS methodology: Maps are produced in QGIS. Sitemaps from multiple archaeological publications and
books are Georeferenced into QGIS and plotted manually site-for-site, compiling all of them into a
comprehensive "Master Map" showing all of the data from all available publications in one place.
Problematics with this are that not all sitemaps are uniform. Some display only the single icons per site,
some display number of finds from certain sites, some do not distinguish at all. Some give names for the
sites, and some dont. Due to this, to standardize cataloguing, and due to the extreme volume of data needed
to be manually plotted, site names have been ommitted.
3. Cartographic approach: After the Data has been compiled and prepared, it is visually stylised to make the
knowledge understandable, accessible, and beautiful while retaining the high information-density and
academic usability that is required for topics this complex. Of note is sampling bias, which our Maps
sometimes show uncomfortably clearly: When one region or country has more archaeological excavation
done in it than others. This can reflect in certain parts of the Map being denser while others are less so while
corresponding exactly to natural boundaries, such as, for example, the Site-Density visibly dropping south of
the German-Danish border
4. Citation & licensing: Maptism maps are produced for use. Every map in the Maptism map archive is
published under [CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Free for academic
papers, dissertations, conference presentations, museum exhibits, teaching materials, and other noncommercial contexts, with attribution. Commercial reproductions (textbooks for sale, paid documentaries,
revenue-generating exhibits) require a separate license, handled through the [commissions
page](https://maptism.org/commissions/).