Culture of Friedenhain-Prestovice

The culture of Friedenhain-Prestovice was highlighted by German and Czech archeologists at the beginning of the year 1980 per comparison of the archaeological vestiges collected on the one hand in Friedenhain, close to Straubing (Bavaria) and on the other hand in Prestovice (Czechoslovakia), on banks of Otava, an affluent of the Moldau.

Archaeological excavations

F. Winkelmann, person in charge of the service of Roman archeology of the district of Average-Franconie had carried out in years 1920 of the intensive excavations in the area of Eichstätt, and had published its results in 1926. A few years later, the Reinecke historian proposed to a first synthesis of the archaeological data relative to the “files” Roman in the area of Ingolstadt. After the Second world war, Josef Reichart, conservative of the museum of Ingolstadt, prolonged the ideas of Reinecke by putting forth the assumption that certain vestiges could be attached to a Germanic occupation of the area. New reports of excavations were published in 1962 and 1964. The description of a specific culture associated with tribes of Germains is due to the archeologist Th. Fischer with the beginning of the year 1980.

The culture of Friedenhain-Prestovice developed towards 400 a. J. Chr. in the valley of the the Danube between Passau and Neuburg, and is recognized with a ceramic technique specific, related to that of the group of the “ Germains of Elba ”. Vestiges of similar pottery, dated from the beginning of Ve century, were put at the day not only in the tombs of Prestovice and other sites in Czech Republic, but also throughout the Danube until Linz (High-Austria), in the valley of the Altmühl, and until Wertach in Souabe (at one time Kastell-amndts-Goldberg close to Türkheim).

In the west of Bavaria, the archaeological vestiges of German of Elba are often interfered with objects Germanic origin . This mixture is sometimes also found in the toponyms, which evoke German Thuringiens (Thürheim, Türkheim, Thierhaupten). The archaeological remainders of German of Elba can for the moment being attached with certainty neither to German of Friedenhain, nor in German Thuringiens.

Current interpretation

These archaeological excavations show that the men of Friedenhain were initially established along the Roman Limes of Rhétie and Norique, beyond the Danube. They then seized (probably following a federation of various tribes) the Roman camps of the area (that of Ratisbon for example). Their migration coincides with the exodus of the Vandales and of the Suèves which, after being itself allied with the Alains, skirted the Danube, crossed the Rhine in 406, passing as a Gaulle then to Spain.

There is no testimony written on these men of Friedenhain. Eugippe, which in its biography of Holy Severin, described what he itself lived as an inhabitant of the valley of the Danube at that time, evokes only cruel tribes or the German ones of Elba of the tribe of the Thuringiens, which can be identified, so much by the geographical proximity than historical, with the men of Friedenhain.

The excavations of Friedenhain are of essential interest for the comprehension of the occupation of Bavaria between the end of the Roman Empire and the time of Mérovingiens. Taking again the etymology of the toponym “Bavaria”, the culture of Friedenhain is identified with that of the Bavarii.

Random links: