But there is no proof that significant Gothic populations lived in basins of Vistula and Oder for a long time.
And there is proof for Slavs for the same period? That is interesting!
According to the Polish archaeologist this is completely different and a lot of recent research has shown, that migrations and ethnics were very flexible and therfoer it would surprise, that their should have been no exchange in the more than 200 years the Goths stayed along the Baltic coast and the Vistula estuary.
The researchers did not compare Goth's skulls with Slavic, but scandinavian skulls with slavic. BTW, during their migration Goth included lots of other people, intermarried wth Satrmatians and who knows with whom else. It would really interesting to see such typical "Goth" skull. It seems you are back at pseudo-science.
For ancestors of Slavs, there is.
Goths came from Scandinavia.
There could be, but not numerically significant enough to change statistical range of skull shapes of locals.
Really and for Slavs?
I wrote it above, the size of connection with Scandinavia is uncertain and some even question it. But if just a few Gauts came from Scandinavia and formed with Pommerian culture people the Oksywie or Wielbark culture, how will you find scandinavian skull in great numbers, especially if they did notonly bury their people but as well put them on pyres.
Uhm... In 500 they started interaction with and expansion into the Byzantine Empire (the only literate, civilized state in the area at that time), including the Balkans. This is why before that they were not known as Slavs (maybe they were known under other names, or maybe Slavic ethnogenesis took place very late - but they did not come from other planets, so there had to be Proto-Slavic populations already before).
And do you think that Slavs suddenly started to speak Slavic after 500, when they "revealed themselves to history", and spoke Germanic before? Because Roman era populations in Vistula-Oder basins were direct ancestors of Medieval Slavic-speaking populations of the same area...
and even about those Proto-Slavs is nothing known from the regions you would love to place their origins. Antes and Sclavines appear in the east and their, inside the Kiev-culture is their origin.
Slavs spoke an quite identical language around 900/1000. That shows, that their origins are young and not bronze aged or neolithic. Slavs did not set a single foot into the Vistula-Oder bassin before 450 CE!
Why did they immediately spoke Slavic in 500? In the time in which the western Slavs evolved as linguistic group there are for long no written sources. As I mentioned in other threads before, some relict groups existed till the 6th or early 7th century. The Vidivarii seem even to assimilate with Balts, before they disappeared among the Slavic Pomoranians.
The Goth's saga mentions three ships under Berig. Not that I would take this too serious, but they don't talk about a mass migration, but about a small group. The later Gutones/Gotones of the Wielbark-culture are a great gens. That means, that the few Gauts from Scandinavia weren't more than a Traditionskern. So that perfectly explains, why scandinavian skulls are different to Vistula-Oder skulls.
Are over 40 Germanic words enough to "identify as germanics"?
I support an scandinavian influence, you mention correct the burials, stone circles. The question is simply is this necessarily meaning, that we had masses of Scandinavians there. We are Christians, use many mediterranian, oriental customs, but nevertheless is a jewish, roman or greek population quite unknown for our regions.
There is one slavic expression know in Gothic. I know more Inuit or Persian words in German!
At least two, if you count also sword (meki).
There are theories which say that there was one, identical Balto-Slavic language, from which around 1500 - 1300 BC emerged two languages - Baltic and Old Slavic. Old Slavic language then divided at the latest in 6th - 7th centuries to West Slavic, East Slavic, South Slavic.
Spoke or wrote?
Oh, it contradicts, because the thesis which is shown by domen is those of autochthonous Slavs in recent Poland. The "evidence" he presents shalll directly support this. The autochthonous Slavs were more than once used for political interests.
I question the accuracy of these research, the anthropological more than the genetic. I wrote above why. The difference between me and domen is, that he sees the population there as the direct forefathers of the Slavs and maybe as proto-Slavs. Genetically may this be, but these forefathers were neither Slavs nor proto-Slavs, they were germanics or celts or venetics or balts.
I am no linguist, but the german language is full of words, for which in Latin exists only one expression. So I am not sure if high culture means more complex language. WE need our mate midas here.
Every poulation has a neighbour population or more. The Slavic language changed e.g. to a satem-language by indo-iranian influence. If we look at the corded ware culture, we should expect, that the indo-european populations inside these culture had still close relations. And this is supported by linguistic, which places Germanic, Slavic and baltic into a common branch. The difference is, that the western germanic did not participate in the satem shift. So to answer your question, archaizisms may have different reasons.
Balto-Slavs were one ethno-linguistic group in the past.
The autochthonous Eastern Germanic tribes were used for political interests more than once as well.
