STUDY AREA

            Germania is a general term used to define the region of Europe where the Germanic tribes lived, unconquered by the Roman Empire.  The general territory of Germania remained relatively static in the western and southern frontiers along the Danube River and the Rhine River by a fortified road and fort system called the limes (Figure 1.3).  The limes are the functional west and southern boundary of Germania until the fifth century AD.  The northern and eastern boundaries of Germania are less defined. 

Some geographers have placed the eastern border of Germania at the Vistula River, where Sarmatia is believed to begin.  The idea of using rivers as boundaries is a tradition that dates back to the classical geographers (Wells, 1999) .  It was common for the Romans to claim rivers as natural boundaries between peoples (Caesar, Gallic War, Strabo, Geography, Tacitus, Germania).  This is probably why the river Vistula is used as a convenient border between Germania and Sarmatia even though there is little historical or archaeological evidence that this was a boundary at all.  The northern boundary of Germania stretched into Scandinavia, possibly to the Arctic Ocean, but again, not clearly defined. 

It is important to note that Germania is truly a conceptual region that has boundaries that are by no means clearly defined.  Understanding the “fluid” nature of the boundaries of Germania helps keep proper perspectives on the inhabitants of this area.  These people, called the Germanic tribes, not necessarily for ethnic reasons, but because they settled in this area and were also engaged in agrarian activities (Wells, 1999, Wolfram, 1988) .  They were quite diverse in their settlement patterns and tribal names with over 43 different names being used to denote tribal clans (Tacitus, Germania, Caesar, Gallic War, Strabo, Geographies, Jordanes, The Story of the Goths).

This region in central Europe ranges climatically from temperate to polar.  Germania is mostly a humid continental climate with cool summers (Tierney and Painter, 1983) .  In the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD, the area was much more forested than in modern times with oak, beech, and elm dominating the west while coniferous species dominated in the northeast (Tierney and Painter, 1983) .  In the northeast, the region includes both subarctic and tundra climates.  All of Europe is subject to the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream and of prevailing westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean and, consequently, its climate zones are found at higher latitudes than similar climates on other continents (Hoffman, 1990) . 

The loess plateaus and alluvial river valleys of the Loire, Seine, Rhine, Elbe, and Oder rivers were areas that supported agriculture and tended to be the places that were settled first (Wells, 1984) .  These areas would have been conducive to agriculture in most prevailing conditions, but long drought could have been influential because there is little to no evidence of irrigation by the Germanic tribes in these river valleys.  Without irrigation, the indigenous peoples would be fully dependent on rainfall, soil moisture, and the fertility of the flood plain and loess soils.

Settlement in ancient Germania would have been limited geographically by a few factors.  The Germanic tribes would not be able to settle in large agrarian societies in high latitudes, altitude, or in non-arable soils due to temperature and precipitation requirements.  However, temperate Europe is quite habitable for human beings and aside from dense forests, swampland, and boggy deltas has proven to be ideal for human occupation.

Several non-environmental limitations that would affect the Germanic tribes would be in the social, cultural, and climatic arenas.  Socially, tribes could be limited by choices made to live with buffer zones between themselves and their neighbors, relationships between the clan leaders, or treaties and bartering necessities.  Culturally, the tribes could be limited by their choices of homes through religious beliefs of not living in or around groves, desires to live in valleys or lowlands, or traditions of living by mountains or coniferous forests.  These tribes could also be limited by climatic needs of an agrarian society.  Rain shadows, precipitation, cold, or heat would all play important roles depending upon the food sources of the tribes.

Although droughts do occur in this region, the temperate nature of this well forested region would keep the climate extremes to a minimum.  This does not exclude central and eastern Europe from the occasional drought and larger populations could be affected by long drought periods.  The climate regime of this region has latitudinal gradients in both precipitation and temperature that could further exacerbate drought conditions.  It is because of these reasons that it is easy to rationalize why this area has been continuously occupied through out the past few millennia (Hoffman, 1990, Wells, 1999) . 

Modern records have documented significant climate changes that affected all of central Europe (Mitchell, 1975, Flohn and Fantechi, 1984) .  The science of dendroclimatology shows that drought has occurred several times in central European history such as in the early 1600s, the late 1770s, and early 20^th century (Hollstein, 1980) .  The meteorological recorded droughts in 1975-6 in Germany affected the Netherlands and Alps equally and are clearly recorded in the tree-ring record by small growth increments (Flohn and Fantechi, 1984) .  This area is a temperate region but that does not preclude its susceptibility to climate change.  Dendroclimatology reveals that climate has changed significantly in human history in Germania.  However, the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD appear to be climatically turbulent years.  These same centuries have a drastic increase in the Germanic incursions into the Roman Empire.  It is the hope of this paper to identify any coincidental relationship between these movements and climate change.