The Nordwestblock (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, "Northwest Block") is a hypothetical
Northwestern Europe
Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern and Western Europe. The region can be defined both geographically and ethnographically.
Geographic definitions
Geographically, Northw ...
an
cultural region
In anthropology and geography, a cultural region, cultural sphere, cultural area or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). Such activities are often associated ...
that some scholars propose as a
prehistoric
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
culture in the present-day
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, northern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, and
northwestern Germany
Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...
, in an area approximately bounded by the
Somme,
Oise
Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 ...
,
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...
and
Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...
rivers, possibly extending to the eastern part of what is now
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, during the
Bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
and
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
s from the 3rd to the 1st millennia BCE, up to the onset of historical sources, in the 1st century BCE.
The theory was first proposed by two authors working independently:
Hans Kuhn and
Maurits Gysseling
Maurits Gysseling (Oudenburg, 7 September 1919 – Ghent, 24 November 1997) was an influential Belgian researcher into historical linguistics and paleography. He was especially well known for his editions and studies of old texts relevant to the h ...
, whose proposal included research indicating that
another language may have existed somewhere in between Germanic and Celtic in the
Belgian region.
The term ''Nordwestblock'' itself was coined by Hans Kuhn, who considered the inhabitants of the area neither Germanic nor Celtic and so attributed to the people a distinct ethnicity or culture up to the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
. So far, this has not been proven or disproven.
Language hypotheses
The hypothetical language or languages spoken by the Iron Age Nordwestblock population are a matter of speculation, as there are no written records of such languages as is the case with the Germanic language, but can be inferred based on analysis of
substrate features in the primarily
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into t ...
languages that later came to be spoken in the region (for example, areal
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s of unknown origin, and the presence of certain
geminate consonant
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
s that cannot be explained by
inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...
from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
), or by analysis of place-names (
toponymy
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
and
hydronymy
A hydronym (from el, ὕδρω, , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a ...
). Broadly, this substrate area is sometimes called the North-West European substratum. Kuhn speculated on linguistic affinity of this substratum to the
Venetic language
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, usually classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and ...
, while other hypotheses connect the Northwestblock with the
Raetic
Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which were ...
("
Tyrsenian") or generic
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
of the
centum
Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...
type (
Illyrian, "
Old European"). Gysseling suspected an intermediate
Belgian language
Ancient Belgian is a hypothetical extinct Indo-European language, spoken in Belgica (northern Gaul) in late prehistory. It is often identified with the hypothetical Nordwestblock. While it remains a matter of controversy, the linguist Maurits G ...
between Germanic and
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
, that might have been affiliated to
Italic. According to
Luc van Durme, a Belgian linguist, toponymic evidence of a former Celtic presence in the
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
is almost completely absent. Kuhn noted that since, in
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE), the phoneme * was very rare, and since PIE *, via
Grimm's law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Grim ...
, is the main source of regularly inherited in words in Germanic languages (except after fricatives, e.g. initial ''*sp-'' from PIE ''*(s)p-''), the many words in which occurs must have some other language as their source. Similarly, in Celtic, PIE * disappeared and in regularly-inherited words did not reappear in
p-Celtic
The Gallo-Brittonic languages, also known as the P-Celtic languages, are a subdivision of the Celtic languages of Ancient Gaul (both '' celtica'' and '' belgica'') and Celtic Britain, which share certain features. Besides common linguistic in ...
languages except as a result of
Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...
''*kʷ'' becoming ''*p''. All that taken together means that any word starting with a /p/ in a Germanic language that is not evidently borrowed from either Latin or a p-Celtic language, such as Gaulish, must be a loan from another language. Kuhn ascribes those words to the Nordwestblock language.
Linguist
Peter Schrijver
Peter Schrijver (; born 1963) is a Dutch linguist. He is a professor of Celtic languages at Utrecht University and a researcher of ancient Indo-European linguistics. He worked previously at Leiden University and the Ludwig Maximilian University o ...
assumes the pre-existence of
pre-Indo-European languages
The Pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-Europe ...
linked to the archeological
Linear Pottery culture
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing . Derived from the German ''Linearbandkeramik'', it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Inci ...
and to a family of languages featuring complex verbs, of which the
Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
might have been the sole survivors. Although assumed to have left traces within all other Indo-European languages as well, the influence of an unknown substrate would have been especially strong on Celtic languages originating north of the Alps and on the region including Belgium and the Rhineland.
It is uncertain when Germanic began to gain a foothold in the area. The Nordwestblock region north of the Rhine is traditionally conceived as belonging to the realms of the Northern Bronze Age, with the Harpstedt Iron Age generally assumed to represent the Germanic precedents west of the
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and associating with Germanic peoples. The culture evo ...
.
[ Mallory, J.P. (1989), ''In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth.'', , p. 87] The general development converged with the emergence of Germanic within other previously Northern Bronze Age regions to the east, maybe also involving a certain degree of Germanic cultural diffusion. From about the 1st century CE, that region saw the development of the "
Weser-Rhine" group of West Germanic dialects which gave rise to
Old Frankish
Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century.
After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul, its speakers in Picardy an ...
from the 4th century.
The issue still remains unresolved and so far no conclusive evidence has been forwarded to support any alternative.
Mallory
Mallory is an Irish surname derived from the Goidelic languages, Gaelic ''Ó Mallairígh''. Spelling variants include Mallary, Mallery, Malorie, Mallorie, Mallerie and Mallorey. Mallory and Mallerie are also given names derived from the surname. ...
considers the issue a salutary reminder that some anonymous linguistic groups that do not fully obey the current classification may have survived to the beginning of historical records.
Prehistoric composition
The archaeological case for the Nordwestgroup hypothesis refers to a time as early as 3000 BCE. The following prehistoric cultures have been attributed to the region and are compatible with but do not necessarily prove the Nordwestblock hypothesis.
The
Bell Beaker culture
The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from a ...
(2700–2100 BCE) is thought to originate from the same geographic area, as early stages of the culture apparently derived from early
Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a va ...
elements, with the Netherlands/
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
region as probably the most widely accepted site of origin (
J. P. Mallory
James Patrick Mallory (born October 25, 1945) is an American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the former editor of the ''Journal of Ind ...
,
EIEC p. 53).
The Bell Beaker culture locally developed into the Bronze Age
Barbed Wire Beaker culture (2100–1800 BCE). In the 2nd millennium BCE, the region was at the boundary between the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
and
Nordic horizons, split up in a northern and a southern region, roughly divided by the course of the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
. To the north emerged the
Elp culture
The Elp culture (c. 1800—800 BCE) is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Netherlands having earthenware pottery of low quality known as "Kümmerkeramik" (also "Grobkeramik") as a marker. The initial phase is characterized by tumuli (180 ...
(1800-800 BCE), featuring an initial
tumulus
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...
phase showing a close relationship to other Northern European tumulus groups (sharing pottery of low quality: ''Kümmerkeramik'') and a subsequent smooth local transformation to the
Urnfield culture
The Urnfield culture ( 1300 BC – 750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and p ...
(1200–800 BCE). The southern region became dominated by the
Hilversum culture
The Hilversum culture is a prehistoric material culture found in middle Bronze Age in the region of the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. It has been associated with the Wessex culture from the same period in southern England, and is one ...
(1800–800 BCE), which apparently inherited the previous Barbed Wire Beaker cultural ties with Britain.
From 800 BCE onward, the area was influenced by the Celtic
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western Europe, Western and Central European Archaeological culture, culture of Late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age (Hallstatt A, Hallstatt B) from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and Early Iron Age Europe ...
. The current view in the Netherlands holds that subsequent Iron Age innovations did not involve substantial Celtic intrusions but featured a local development from Bronze Age culture.
In the final centuries BCE, areas formerly occupied by the Elp culture emerge as the probably-Germanic Harpstedt culture west
of the Germanic
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and associating with Germanic peoples. The culture evo ...
, and the southern parts become assimilated to the Celtic
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture (; ) was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any defini ...
, as is consistent with
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
's account of the Rhine forming the boundary between Celtic and Germanic tribes.
Later, the Roman retreat resulted in the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins and a return to virtually-unchanged local Iron Age production methods. To the north, people continued to live in the same three-aisled farmhouse, and to the east, completely-new types of buildings arose. More to the south, in Belgium, archaeological results of the period point to immigration from the north.
[J. H. F. Bloemers & T. van Dorp. ''Pre-en Protohistorie van de Lage Landen.'' De Haan/Open Universiteit, 1991, pp. 329–338, , NUGI 644.]
Roman era
With the onset of historical records (
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
, 1st century), the area was generally called the border region between Celtic (Gaulish) and Germanic influence.
Tribes located in the area include the
Batavians
The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived around the modern Dutch Rhine delta in the area that the Romans called Batavia, from the second half of the first century BC to the third century AD. The name is also applied to several milita ...
,
Belgae
The Belgae () were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by Ju ...
,
Chatti
The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe
whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis''). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the valle ...
,
Hermunduri
The Hermunduri, Hermanduri, Hermunduli, Hermonduri, or Hermonduli were an ancient Germanic tribe, who occupied an inland area near the source of the Elbe river, around what is now Bohemia from the first to the third century, though they have also ...
,
Cheruscii
The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themsel ...
,
Salii
In Religion in ancient Rome, ancient Roman religion, the Salii ( , ) were the "leaping priests" (from the verb ''saliō'' "leap, jump") of Mars (mythology), Mars supposed to have been introduced by King Numa Pompilius. They were twelve Patrician ...
,
Sicambri
The Sicambri, also known as the Sugambri or Sicambrians, were a Germanic people who during Roman times lived on the east bank of the river Rhine, in what is now Germany, near the border with the Netherlands. They were first reported by Julius Cae ...
,
Tencteri
The Tencteri or Tenchteri or Tenctheri (in Plutarch's Greek, Tenteritē and possibly the same as the Tenkeroi mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy if these were not the Tungri) were an ancient tribe, who moved into the area on the right bank (the norther ...
and
Usipetes or Usipii. Caesar took the course of the Rhine to be the boundary between Gauls and Germans (Germanic people) but also mentioned that a large part of the Belgae had ancestry from east of the Rhine and that one part were even known collectively as "Germani" (the so-called "
Germani cisrhenani
The ''Germani cisrhenani'' (Latin '' cis- rhenanus'' "on this side of the Rhine", referring to the Roman or western side), or "Left bank ''Germani''", were a group of Germanic peoples who lived west of the Lower Rhine at the time of the Gallic W ...
"). The
Belgae
The Belgae () were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by Ju ...
were therefore considered Gaulish (the
Usipetes
The Usipetes or Usipii (in Plutarch's Greek, Ousipai, and possibly the same as the Ouispoi of Claudius Ptolemy) were an ancient tribe who moved into the area on the right bank (the northern or eastern bank) of the lower Rhine in the first century B ...
Germanic etc.) because of their position with respect to the Rhine, and not in the modern linguistic sense of the terms.
Some of those tribes would later join the
Frankish confederation.
See also
*
Ambrones
The Ambrones ( grc, Ἄμβρωνες) were an ancient tribe mentioned by Roman authors. They are generally believed to have been a Germanic tribe from Jutland.
In the late 2nd century BC, along with the fellow Cimbri and Teutons, the Ambrones m ...
*
Archaeology of Northern Europe
The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain,
roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
The region ...
*
Dutch mythology
The mythology of the modern-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg has its roots in the mythologies of pre-Christian (e.g. Gaulish (Gallo-Roman) and Germanic) cultures, predating the region's Christianization under the influence of the Franks in ...
*
Germanic substrate hypothesis
The Germanic substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the purportedly distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European languages. Based on the elements of Common Germanic vocabulary and syntax which do not seem ...
*
Old Europe (archaeology)
Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age cultural horizon or civilisation in Southeastern Europe and part o ...
*
Old European hydronymy
Old European (german: Alteuropäisch) is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe.Hans Krahe, ''Unsere ältesten Flussnamen'', Wiesbad ...
References
* Hans Kuhn, ''Vor- und frühgermanische Ortsnamen in Nord-Deutschland und in den Niederlanden'', Westfälische Forschungen 12, pp. 5 – 44, 1959. (German). Translation: "Pre- and early Germanic Place Names in Northern Germany and the Netherlands".
* Wolfgang Meid, ''Hans Kuhns 'Nordwestblock' Hypothese: zur Problematik der Völker zwischen Germanen und Kelten"'', in Germanenproblemen in heutiger Sicht, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1986. (German; translation: 'Hans Kuhn's "Northwest Block" Hypothesis: The Problem of the Peoples between Germani and Celts'.
{{Germanic peoples
Bronze Age Europe
Iron Age Europe
Archaeological terminology (Germanic)
Archaeology of the Netherlands
Pre-Roman Gaul
Archaeology of Belgium
Archaeology of France
Archaeology of Germany
Archaeology of England
History of the Low Countries