Getai being Sarmation?

[Wolfman]

Every source I've read says Thracian. This is the first time i've read something that says they were other than Thracian.

[-Praetor-]

Perhaps he got confused, (or you misunderstood) the part of the Dacian wars, on which some sarmatians fought side to side with the getai (dacian), but that`s some 100 years after the end date of EB...

[edyzmedieval]

Sarmatians? What the ebing news in the world is that contraption?

Getai are of Thraikian origin. There were two types. Northern Danube Thracians, the Getai, and the southern Thracians, the proper Thracians. Sarmatians are a people from the steppes of modern Russia, and never had a single impact on the Getai world. Except in the Roman wars, where Decebal ( the Dacian king ) allied with Sarmatian warlords and they supplied him with powerful Sarmatian cavalry.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, isn't there some connection there, even if it's a later one? I always thought there was something there that I wasn't knowledgeable about.

[paullus]

Derek Williams probably confused the Skythian influence on the Getai with Sarmatian influence. For a non-specialist, the Skythians and Sarmatians probably seem synonymous.

The Getai were a Thraikian people I suppose, though those sorts of distinctions are rather fuzzy. Skythians infiltrated the area pretty frequently at various points in the mid-centuries of the first millenium BC, and bestowed upon the Getic people some elements of their material culture at least, and perhaps other practices as well. The influence was largely among the elite, thus the main Skythian influence is seen in the construction of elite tombs and in elite items, like ceremonial helmets and some types of weapons. But to say that these examples of borrowing show descent from the Skythians, or even worse, to then confuse the Skythians with the Sarmatians, is plain wrong.

The same sort of borrowing we see from the Skythians we also see from celtic peoples and the Hellenes. That's one of the things that I find interesting about the Getai: at an archaeological site, you'll find traditional Thraikian ware alongside La tene (ie, Celtic derived) artifacts, which had a much larger impact on the middle and lower classes than did the Skythian influence, along with upper class and predominantly elite materials from the Skythians, Hellenes, and again from the Celts. Its a really cool fusion.

Oh, and as far as the Sarmatians, the Getai continue to engage with their neighbors to the northeast, whether Skythians, Bastarnai, or Sarmatians, well into the first century AD. If anything, the Getai may have shown a stronger steppe influence at the time of the Dacian Wars than they'd had in the EB time period. However, the changes we see in the culture group that we should probably identify as the Bastarnoz are more sweeping. The Sarmatians seem to have mixed fairly extensively with them, though the picture there is even more fuzzy than it is when working with the Getai. Anyway, hope that helped a little.

[Wolfman]

Could you reccomend more books by professional historians on the getai, sarmation, scythian, carthaginian, armenian, and celtic peoples. I would like to get even more information on them.

[Frostwulf]

I can suggest some good reading on dealing with the Celts as well as some of the Celt/Roman interaction.
Simon James "The World of The Celts"
H.D.Rankin "Celts and the Classical World"
Dyson "The Creation of the Roman Frontier"
Cunliffe "The Ancient Celts"

[cezarip]

Could you reccomend more books by professional historians on the getai, sarmation, scythian, carthaginian, armenian, and celtic peoples. I would like to get even more information on them.

From my knowledge "Prehistoric Dacia" is a complete book on the subject. You can find it here:
http://www.pelasgians.bigpondhosting.com/index.htm
in English.