About the "Barbarian Invasions"

[Arjos]

I've learned that from the fourth century several migrating peoples poured into the roman world, but I've always wondered which part of the population migrated...
I mean beside eastern europe that was continually settled by nomads, what happened in northern europe?
For example Jutland was flooded so Angles, Jutes and Saxos were forced to migrate, but people from that area for centuries to come kept on migrating...
The Geats could always repopulate the area, or the actual number of people involved in the migration was little?
Even later on the Vikings appeared, were they planted in the soil like Sparti? XD

[athanaric]

Progress in agricultural technology generates a higher population growth. Advances in medical technology... hell I could go on. Just jook at what's happening in Africa today. Also, it appears that the climate back then changed sometimes, for example when the Vikings set foot on Greenland the local climate appeared to have been much milder than during the twentieth century. Milder climate is good for population growth, while harsher climate may force a gradual migration to a more habitable region.

[Arjos]

Milder climate is good for population growth, while harsher climate may force a gradual migration to a more habitable region.

I absolutely agree with you, but why migrate then?
Seems like life had better standards there...

[moonburn]

arjos for the same reason the greeks established emporiums all over the mediterranean their city´s where becoming crowded internal wars invasions

on the 4th century the barbaroi from the east where being hardpressed by the huns people like the goths the vandals and so forth but thats pretty well documented don´t know why you don´t research more

as for the amounts you must remember that those people where accostumed to certain lifestyles wich didn´t allowe for high amount of people (i mean high amounts as over half a million) if they grew too large in population they would eventually break apart and make 2 new tribes of the old single tribe so migrations would never be more then 300.000 for the most parts some like the frankish expansion or the suebi setling just meant that these new people coming would just be a very small percentage adding to the overall population making 5-10% of the new population but they would take the top of the pyramid

[Arjos]

I thought it was clear I wasn't referring to eastern Europe...
I know that those migrating tribes would've become the dominant minority, but taking your example the growth in their homeland generated 2 new tribes, that's seems a lot of people...
So it's strange that given the fact that they were developing advanced agriculture, they didn't make the further step toward a more complex and organized society...
What I can't understand is that usually these migrations were explained by natural calamities, invasions, or famine; but seeing how tribe after tribe "sought fortune" elsewhere, conditions at home must've been so appalling...

[Ludens]

Firstly, living standards are not solely determined by food production. If there are more people, but factors other than food availability do not change, living standards will actually drop. More food and people also require better distribution and more effective governance, or else social upheaval will follow. Unfortunately, population size usually does keep pace with food production (modern China and the West are notable anomalies), so lasting improvements in the latter often spelled trouble.

Secondly, in most Classical cultures (including Hellenic culture), young men were expected to prove themselves, but at the same they were to submit totally to their father. Migration/colonization and raiding formed a welcome escape from parental domination; especially for sons who were not their father's favourite and couldn't expect to inherit much wealth.

Related to this is the fact both the western Barbarians and the Greeks and Romans identified themselves as free men. They were members of a tribe or city, but they were not slaves to it. They could chose their own destiny. And because of this they wouldn't be enthusiastic about developing "a more complex and organized society". This sounds fine on paper, but in practice it means more government interference, more bureaucrats to carry out that interference, and more taxes to pay those bureaucrats.

In any case, it's not like the Viking Ting came together and realized that increased food-production was causing trouble, but developing "a more complex and organized society" sounded like too much trouble, so let's go raiding instead. We are talking about long-term developments that are difficult to discern in the here and now. Finally, social reform rarely occurs without serious upheaval first.

[Brennus]

The Migrations of the fourth and fifth century were more likely the result of internal Roman politics rather than overpopulation or internal developments amongst the Germanic peoples. As Ludens stated amongst many European cultures of this period (Hellenes, Sarmatians, Celts, Germans, Iberians, Romans etc) there existed a culture of young men proving themselves by martial acts. The military and political situation of the late Western Empire would have promoted raiding activity, in much the same way that the European Empires were shown to be weak in WWII, thus prompting increasingly vocal nationalist groups within the colonies (Indian National Congress, Viet Minh, Mau Mau etc) so too any single defeat of the Roman Rhine and Danube legions by a Germanic tribe would have prompted other tribes to test the frontier defences.

Based on the reforms of the late Western army, which emphasized small, mobile combat groups designed to intercept raiders I would suggest that the continental migrations were small in scale but comprising a large proportion of elite members. If the Germanic migrations had been large scale affairs then one would expect to see it reflected in the archaeological culture and language, however in Gaul, Iberia and Italy the local vulgarised forms of latin persisted with only limited Germanic inclusions and the settlement pattern and archaeological culture likewise did not become wholesale Germanic. The Saxon invasions are more difficult as the archaeological culture of Britain was severely altered, Latin died out and Celtic became restricted to the Atlantic coast.

[Arjos]

Thank you for the answers ^^
So they weren't huge movements, I didn't know any figure on how big were the germanic and roman populations...
It was hard to understand how this happened, because usually it's explained with internal issues related to poor conditions, but in the end this followed the raiding mentality...