Germanic Peoples

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Key Terms

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

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