Los godos

There is no doubt about the Germanic origin of the Goths -as recognized by most scholars-, whatever the point of view adopted: etymological, philological, archaeological, mythological, anthropological, genetic. Greater reservations may arise from its Scandinavian origin, which, however, is not questionable from toponymic criteria or from the latest archaeological and paleogenetic discoveries. This questioning has been used, on many occasions, to deny the Germanity of the Goths. But, at that time, the Baltic region located in the northwestern half of Poland was inhabited by Germanic-speaking populations. Another different thing is related to the volume of Gothic migration. Therefore, we must conclude that the first Goths were a small group of aristocratic and warrior character. This Gothic elite would act as a kind of advance guard for later movements of Gothic populations that followed the route traveled by the first, it being irrelevant, for these purposes, whether these movements originated in southern Scandinavia or on the continental coasts of the Baltic Sea. Similarly, their prestige and reputation, as well as the mythological core of their traditions, encouraged other groups, Germanic and non-Germanic (but in any case of Indo-European origin, such as the Balto-Slavs, Getodacians, and Sarmatians) to join. in the Gothic federation, creating among them an authentic ethnic identity that remained almost intact until the disappearance of the last Visigoth kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula.