This is what is known as the ‘Age of Migrations’.[5] Centuries of relocation of ‘tribes’ from Southern Scandinavia across Europe and as far South, in the case of the Vandals, as North Africa[6]. The migrations were probably caused by a flip in the North Atlantic Oscillation bringing drought conditions to the groups’ traditional habitats.

These ‘German’  migrants inter-bred with the indigenous populations. The labels assigned by archaeologists (and outraged Latin authors and monks) signify complex cultural, as opposed to biological, identities, as evidenced by the wide range of genetic signatures in many of the cemeteries at this time.