Genava55

I have never tried to conceal the fact that the authors use the word settlement. On the contrary, I provided the reference openly. The disagreement is not about the presence of that word, but about what this very broad term means in this particular context and what conclusions can legitimately be drawn from it. The Cambridge Dictionary, for example, defines settlement simply as "a place where people come to live or the process of settling in such a place". Nothing in that definition necessarily requires several independent households, a cluster of houses, or anything resembling a village. A large isolated farm or estate can therefore constitute a settlement in its own right, even if it contains only one principal residential building. It may also include barns, stables and other agricultural structures, but those additional buildings are not what makes it a settlement. The essential point is that it is a distinct place where people have established themselves and live. This distinction matters because you repeatedly treat settlement as though it necessarily implied a collective residential community larger than a farmstead. It does not. A farmstead, an agricultural estate, a dependent holding, a hamlet and a village can all be described as settlements. The word itself does not tell us how many households were present, whether the buildings were nucleated or dispersed, or whether the site constituted an independent community. I fully understand that the word can be confusing, since I myself have made this mistake in the past, especially because English is not my native language. However, in research, this word refers to a concept distinct from the concept of the number of buildings. As P. J. Duffy notes in the "Historical Geographies, Rural" entry of the International Encyclopedia of Geography, "Historic rural settlement patterns occur in many different forms, from single dispersed farmsteads, through a range of agglomerations of simple farm clusters and hamlets to much more complex nucleations around greens, churches, or castles." If I may give two examples of academic researches along these lines: https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/faculties/faculty-of-humanities/departments/department-of-history/institutes/ancient-history/research/lycia-project/research-areas/tower-and-isolated-farmsteads/ & https://architectus.pwr.edu.pl/files/numery/75_05.pdf In the book (Thorps in a Changing Landscape), I understand settlement primarily in the sense of a newly established farmstead, agricultural estate or dependent rural holding, rather than as an unambiguous synonym for 'village'. This reading is not arbitrary. From the beginning, the authors emphasize the agricultural context of the word and repeatedly connect thorps with farms, estates, cultivated land, soil types and changes in agricultural organization. Their study is not simply an attempt to prove that thorp meant 'village'. It investigates what distinguished these particular rural establishments from places bearing other habitative name elements. The authors explicitly challenge the standard explanation that thorps were merely small villages attached to more important places. Their argument is that this conventional label does not adequately explain what made these places distinctive. They instead examine their subsidiary status, their relationship with older centres, their position in the landscape and their role in the reorganization of arable farming. In other words, their principal concern is not whether a thorp had crossed some demographic threshold separating a farm from a hamlet or a village. Their concern is the specific economic, territorial and agricultural function that justified the use of the name. Their archaeological evidence admittedly shows that some thorps eventually developed into nucleated settlements with several holdings, regular plots or dependent tenants. I have never denied that. But this does not establish that 'village' was the original lexical meaning of the word. It shows what some places bearing that name became during a period of major agricultural and social reorganization. That chronological distinction is essential. A newly founded farmstead or dependent agricultural establishment can attract additional households and gradually become a hamlet or village while retaining its original name. Place names regularly survive major transformations in the size, structure and function of the places they designate. The fact that a medieval or modern thorp was later a village does not prove that the name originally denoted a village when it was coined. Indeed, the authors note that thorp and throp names can point today to villages, hamlets or individual farms. That diversity is exactly what we would expect if the term had been applied to a type of rural establishment whose later development varied from one site to another. Some remained farms, some disappeared, and some developed into larger and more nucleated communities. The later outcomes cannot simply be projected backwards and turned into the original definition. It is also important that the authors situate the creation of these names within changes in agricultural organization and the process of village nucleation. That wording implies a historical development, not an original equivalence between thorp and 'village'. If thorps participated in or contributed to a process of nucleation, it does not follow that they were already fully developed nucleated villages at the beginning of that process. Nor do the authors simply reproduce the conventional model of thorps as dependent hamlets. They explicitly ask us to move beyond that characterization and investigate the particular features that made them distinctive. The book even states that, rather than dismissing them as 'secondary settlements' or dependent hamlets, we should examine their specific characteristics and their role in transforming farming practices. This is much closer to a functional and agricultural interpretation than to your claim that the authors straightforwardly support 'village' as the original meaning. I am therefore not arguing that settlement can only mean 'farmstead', nor am I claiming that every historical thorp consisted of one household. My argument is that settlement is far too broad to substantiate your interpretation. If thorp is glossed as settlement, that remains compatible with a farmstead, an agricultural estate, a dependent rural establishment, a hamlet or a village. The word 'settlement' alone cannot tell us which of these was the original referent. The authors' overall position appears considerably more nuanced than the one you attribute to them. They treat thorps as relatively small rural establishments, often new or subsidiary, closely connected with cultivated land and the reorganization of arable agriculture. Some developed into compact communities with several holdings, while others remained individual farms or disappeared. Their later, broader use as a designation for small rural settlements should not automatically be projected back onto the earlier stages. In short, both the book and the article do not establish that thorp originally meant 'village'. They suggest that thorps were distinctive rural establishments whose agricultural role, dependent status and development contributed to the long process by which parts of the English countryside became more nucleated. The village is therefore better understood as one possible outcome of that development, not as the only meaning already contained in the word from the beginning. The use of settlement consequently does not contradict my interpretation. It encompasses it. If you want to demonstrate that the term originally referred specifically to a collective settlement composed of several independent households, rather than to a farmstead, estate or dependent agricultural establishment that could later develop into such a community, you need evidence beyond the English word settlement. The source you cite does not, by itself, establish that conclusion. This also offers a different explanation for the earlier association of thorp with tuun. The two words did not need to be exact synonyms. Glossaries frequently group words because their referents overlap, not because their meanings are identical. A tuun could be an enclosed holding, and a thorp could be a rural establishment occupying such a holding. Their equivalence in one gloss may therefore reflect a shared physical or functional feature rather than a shared meaning of 'village'. I nevertheless think that the equivalences found in these glossaries follow a coherent semantic logic, as the authors themselves suggest. In my view, the association between competum, tuun, thorp and þingstow may rest on the shared notion of a physically delimited rural area, used for cultivation, habitation, landholding or local assembly. These words need not have been exact synonyms. They may simply have described different aspects or functions of the same kind of agricultural site. I hope this lengthy explanation helps you better understand my position and my perception of the literature on the topic. Personally, this kind of discussion is precisely the heart of my argument. The study of the meaning of words goes beyond simple etymological reconstruction. In my view, the book and the article effectively emphasize the importance of reframing the evolution of the word 'thorp' within the historical context of the Middle Ages and the many changes that transformed the agricultural world. As Stefan Brink says in the quote I've already shared: "The medieval element torp, however, must be seen in a context of the huge colonisation in northern Europe during the high Middle Ages, within a new ‘feudal’ agrarian system with a ‘manor’ and dependent tenant farms within an estate. In Germany these tenant farms often had the name dorf (< þorp), and the word for such a dependent farm was spread with the new colonising strategy to Scandinavia. Early on, the element torp must have developed into a meaning of secondary farm, a farm detached from a hamlet etc., hence not always denoting a tenant farm within an estate."

I have no reason to acknowledge any error in this case. It is an established fact that the Épinal-Erfurt glossary mentions the word 'tuun' in only two contexts, and that its only direct translation in this glossary is the Latin 'cors'. There is no explicit link in this glossary between the word 'tuun' and the concept of a village. There is, therefore, no reason to assume that 'conpetum' denoted a village solely based on the glossary. The dictionary I am criticizing (Murray’s New English Dictionary) uses the Épinal-Erfurt glossary to claim that both 'thorp' and 'tuun' meant 'village,' with the dictionary using one term to explain the other. I demonstrated this by examining both entries and tracing them back to their earliest sources, which refer to one another, a clear case of circular reasoning. They could have employed other arguments, but they did not. Consequently, my critique of this academic source is legitimate. If anyone wishes to argue that 'thorp' or 'conpetum' meant something along the lines of 'village' during that period, they must absolutely support that claim with an argument based on a body of evidence. The same criticism applies to the online edition of the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary that you're using. It offers a translation, but there's no explanation or justification. It's just a raw proposal. Once again, based solely on the glossary, it is difficult to argue that 'conpetum' and 'thorp' referred to a village. I am simply bringing this issue to light and offering an alternative interpretation that is entirely consistent with the primary sources (see below). I think you are misunderstanding what I meant by an appeal to authority. My objection is not that you cite academic sources. I have cited academic literature myself throughout this discussion, and I fully recognize its importance. The problem is that you repeatedly cite their conclusions as if the authority of the source were enough to end the discussion, without explaining how those conclusions were reached or addressing the criticism being made against them. Once again, I want to emphasize this point. What is starting to frustrate me is not the fact that you cite academic sources. What I object to is the way you repeatedly present the conclusion of a dictionary or a scholarly work as if its authority were enough to settle the question, without examining the evidence or explaining the reasoning behind that conclusion. This is what I meant by an appeal to authority. I was not suggesting that citing specialists is inherently illegitimate. The problem arises when the citation is used as a substitute for an argument. Saying that a dictionary reconstructs 'þurpą' as 'village' establishes that this is an accepted interpretation, but it does not demonstrate why that interpretation is correct, nor does it answer a criticism of the evidence on which it may be based. That distinction is particularly important here because the interpretation of the sources is precisely what we are debating. If the reconstructed meaning 'village' was inferred partly from later West and North Germanic evidence, it cannot simply be projected back onto earlier or ambiguous attestations and then used to validate the original reconstruction. That creates a real risk of circular reasoning. The conclusion is treated as a premise, and the evidence is then interpreted through the conclusion it is supposed to establish. The same applies when an editor translates an ambiguous gloss as 'village' or 'hamlet'. That translation is relevant and deserves to be considered, but it remains an interpretation of the primary evidence. It does not make alternative readings illegitimate, especially when the words involved have broad semantic ranges and when other early attestations point toward agricultural land, estates, farms or dependent settlements. What I find unhelpful is the repeated attempt to short-circuit this discussion by answering a criticism of the sources with the authority of the very sources being criticized. Academic works are not beyond examination. Their conclusions can be questioned by looking at their premises, their choice of evidence and the semantic assumptions behind their translations. That is not a rejection of scholarship. It is how scholarship is supposed to be discussed. If you want to defend the interpretation 'village', then explain why the primary evidence supports it better than the alternatives. Show why the Gothic evidence should be considered innovative, why the agricultural and estate-related meanings should be secondary, and why the later collective meanings represent inheritance rather than parallel development or semantic expansion. Simply repeating that a dictionary or an editor adopts that interpretation does not answer those questions. I am perfectly willing to engage with academic sources, including sources that contradict my position. What I do not accept is the suggestion that questioning their reasoning is somehow illegitimate, or that citing their conclusion is enough to close the debate The source I am referring to is a primary source. The Harley Glossary is an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon manuscript (British Library MS Harley 3376) that pairs Latin headwords with Latin and Old English explanations. ‘competum .i. uilla, uel þingstow, uel þrop’ (from The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary published by Robert T. Oliphant) Here 'competum' is translated by 'villa' (farm, estate), 'þingstōw' (place of assembly) and by 'þrop' (or 'thorp')... I'm just pointing this out to show you that even several centuries later, 'conpetum' wasn't translated as 'town' or 'village'. It is translated as a place of assembly, a farm or an estate, and 'thorp'. This supports my point regarding the Épinal-Erfurt glossary: the equivalence between 'thorp' and 'tuun' might instead stem from the concept of an enclosure or courtyard. Which once again is supported by the explanation made by Isidore of Seville: Original: Conpita sunt ubi usus est conventus fieri rusticorum; et dicta conpita quod loca multa in agris eodem conpetant; et quo convenitur a rusticis. Translation: Conpita are the places where farmers usually gather; they are called conpita because many country roads converge there (conpetant) and because that is where the farmers meet. So here I am presenting an argument based on several sources simply to show that there may be another very credible and legitimate interpretation. And the idea of challenging the conventional dictionary interpretation, that 'thorp' did not originally refer to a village but rather to a farm or an agricultural estate, is a view supported by other researchers. For example, while you cited Ekwall for 'tuun', he himself wrote the following regarding 'thorp': OE þorp, þrop is a rare word, and its meaning is doubtful. It was certainly used in the sense ‘farm’, possibly in the sense ‘hamlet’. There is no reason to suppose that it meant ‘village’. [...] The original meaning of þorp was ‘newly reclaimed land, new settlement’. It should not be rendered by ‘village’, but rather by ‘farm’.

As always, you don't understand my point. I'm not criticizing the primary source, but rather the fact that you're mindlessly parroting the opinion expressed in a few dictionaries without realizing that there's an obvious circular reasoning behind the argument. An appeal to authority is a form of reasoning that asserts that an argument is true solely because an influential or reputable person says so. As I've shown you, there are plenty of other researchers, articles, and academic works that don't share your opinion. I don't care if this or that researcher said this or that, what interests me is understanding what their arguments are and what reasoning lies behind them. Again this appeal to authority without any critical thinking... Old English (OE) was a spoken language from the 5th to the 12th century. Obviously, a dictionary of Old English will include all the uses and definitions of a word for the entire period covered by that language. That does not mean that all the definitions existed at the same time from the very beginning of the language. I can't believe I have to explain this. Why did you specifically choose to quote this passage from the article? How is it relevant? Why did you deliberately ignore the rest of the excerpt, which explains that this is a lexical shift? As always, I am astounded by the bad faith you’re displaying. It is dishonest to have deliberately truncated the full excerpt attributed to Ekwall. Here is the complete quote from the article: "The meanings 'homestead' and 'village' must have arisen at an early date as shown among other things by the numerous names in -tūn, even -ingatum found in Normandy and the Boulogne district and apparently due to early Saxon colonization in the district. Saxons are mentioned here by Gregory of Tours in the 6th century. Saxons became "permanent settlers" in northern and western Gaul" It is immediately apparent that the meaning is not the same. This reflects both the semantic shift toward the meanings of "homestead" and "village", which, according to Ekwall, emerged early on without distinguishing between the two. This is evident in the rest of the article following the quote, as all the examples of place names given are ambiguous; they could refer to a farm, an estate, or a hamlet. This uncertainty still exists in current dictionaries, such as The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (2004), where the difficulty of interpreting one definition or another based on place names is clearly explained: "tūn OE ‘enclosure, garden, field, yard; farm, manor; homestead dwelling, house mansion; group of houses, village, town’. Cognate with OFris, OSax, ON tūn, OHG zūn, G Zaun ‘fence’, OIr dūn ‘fort’, Gaulish dūnon in place-names in -dunum, and OE tӯnan ‘hedge in, fence, enclose, shut’ < *tūn-j-an from Gmc *tūna- ‘fence’. From this basic sense in English developed the meaning ‘place fenced in’ and in place-names the senses ‘enclosure, farmstead, estate and village’ are all in question. Because of this uncertainty in this dictionary the translation is frequently the non-committal ‘settlement’ or ‘farm or village’. Although tūn is already found as a place-name forming element before 730 its period of greatest frequency is in the centuries thereafter. Its main use seems, in fact, to coincide with the period of the break-up of large unitary estates due to land-grants made out of them by kings, noblemen and bishops to individuals of the thegnal class. It is these individuals, it is thought, whose personal names are so often compounded with tūn in the names of English villages, implying manorial overlordship rather than founding fathership and tillage of the soil. It is for this reason that names such as KIRTLINGTON or KNAYTON are normally translated ‘the estate called after Cyrtel(a)’ and ‘Cengifu’s estate’ respectively. PNE ii.188–98, Signposts 177–85, Kluge-Seebold 806." Your document contains the following statement: "With the exception of Britain and southern Upper Germany, the roadside settlement was the commonest-occurring type of small town in the northern frontier provinces." So, in the British context, this does not seem to apply. Furthermore, your document makes no mention whatsoever of any connection to the word "competum". You’re simply assuming that because towns sprang up near crossroads, this necessarily means that the word "competum" once meant "village". That’s a stretch, and I don’t find it convincing. Please address my second point regarding the glossary that equates competum with villa (farm), þingstōw (place of assembly), and þrop. Here: It would be nice if you'd stop dodging the arguments that contradict you. Okay, then let's try to assume for a moment that this thoughtless statement is true. How do we explain the indisputable fact that the word þurpą and its derivatives in other Germanic languages also very frequently refer to isolated farm buildings? The usage referring to a farm has persisted in most Germanic languages. You're suggesting that the root of this word already referred to a village even before the emergence of the Germanic languages. So how can we reconcile such an ancient meaning with the fact that the Germanic languages have retained the meaning of "farm" for this word and its derivatives ? Your main argument is that you consider Gothic to be an anomaly in this particular word, that in the case of the Gothic language, the original meaning of "village" has been lost. But if we compare it with other Germanic languages, that is not really the case. It is therefore more plausible that, on the contrary, the meaning "village" was acquired later. In the Proto-Indo-European studies, the root *treb- is generally reconstructed to mean "to build, to dwell". From a strict historical-comparative perspective, linking Proto-Germanic *þurpą directly to the Proto-Indo-European root *treb- ("to build, to dwell") is methodologically problematic and far from universally accepted. Guus Kroonen is contesting this link for example. Phonetically, deriving *þurpą from *treb- requires accounting for an unexpected voiceless stop (*p) where a voiced aspirate or plain voiced stop (*b / *bʰ) would regularily be expected under Grimm's Law, often forcing scholars to lean on secondary morphological extensions, ablaut irregularities, or substrate borrowing hypotheses. Furthermore, several Indo-Europeanists suggest that *þurpą may belong to an entirely different etymological family, such as terms associated with a fenced enclosure, an outlying field, or a secondary clearing (compare with Balto-Slavic terms for courtyards or folds which seem to derive from *twer- / *tur-), rather than the house-and-dwelling semantic core represented by *treb-. Therefore, treating *þurpą as an unproblematic cognate of the *treb- paradigm relies on forced etymological equations that ignore the existence of a debate and the lack of consensus.

Reconstruction of a comparable Iron Age structure at Fison Way, Thetford

Civilis did not possess a native Batavian navy. The vessels he commanded were captured Roman ships. Earlier in the rebellion, the Batavians had ambushed and captured Roman river flotillas (Classis Germanica) based along the Rhine, as well as light coastal vessels operating in the North Sea. To pad his numbers, Civilis added local transport boats, skiffs, and canoes. Tacitus notes in this quote you shared that he rigged these captured craft and boats with particoloured plaids (traditional Germanic woven cloaks) as improvised sails, creating a colorful visual display.

This excerpt comes from Appian's Roman History (Historia Romana, Book X: The Illyrian Wars, Chapter 19). It describes the Siege of Metulum (35 BC), the capital city of the Iapydes (located in modern-day Croatia), which took place during Octavian's (the future Emperor Augustus) military campaign in Illyricum. Octavian's forces were attempting to capture the heavily fortified city by constructing a large siege mound to reach the top of the ramparts. In response, the Metulians engaged in fierce day-and-night sorties and launched counter-defenses, constructing a second inner wall as their outer fortification began to crumble. The Metulians harassed the Roman legionaries using specialized siege engines (tormenta—primarily ballistae and catapults/scorpions). Remarkably, these were not native weapons, they had been captured or acquired eight years earlier (in 43 BC) following the siege of Mutina (Modena), where Decimus Brutus was besieged by Mark Antony before Octavian’s intervention.

Nescio was against giving the abilities to other civs to capture enemy engines, he answered just after. Up to the others.

"Great Scythia" flourished across the northern Black Sea steppes, including Crimea, from the seventh to the fourth century BC. The traditional view held that Sarmatian expansion from the east caused its collapse in the early third century BC. Although Scythian culture disappeared from much of the region, the Scythians were believed to have retained Crimea and established a powerful kingdom there. This Crimean kingdom supposedly reached its height in the second century BC and pursued an aggressive policy towards the Greek cities. It subjugated Olbia, seized Chersonesos’ territories, and threatened the Bosporan Kingdom. The conflict ended when Mithradates’ general Diophantos destroyed the Scythian Kingdom, after which the Greek cities entered Mithradates’ state. Archaeological discoveries since the early 1990s, especially at Neapolis Scythica, have fundamentally revised this interpretation. The city was once thought to have been founded in the late fourth century BC as the successor capital of Great Scythia. Excavations showed, however, that the earliest remains belonged to an unrelated Tauric settlement that disappeared in the early third century BC. The site was then abandoned for a considerable period. New buildings appeared only around the middle of the second century BC. A political centre began to develop around 150 BC, followed by fortifications around 140 BC. After the settlement was destroyed by fire between 135 and 130 BC, a royal palace and stronger defensive walls were built. Only then can Neapolis Scythica confidently be identified as the kingdom’s capital. Its destruction in the late second century BC, probably during Diophantos’ campaign, suggests that the Crimean Scythian Kingdom existed for only forty to fifty years. These findings reveal a major chronological and cultural gap between Great Scythia and Late Scythian society. The last sites of Great Scythia date to the early third century BC, while Late Scythian culture emerged only near the century’s end. The two societies were also fundamentally different. Fourth-century Scythians were nomads, known mainly through burial mounds, whereas Late Scythian communities lived in fortified and unfortified settlements with flat-grave cemeteries, mostly in the Crimean foothills. The disappearance of Scythian burials from the Crimean steppe suggests that the Scythians were forced to leave the region rather than maintaining continuous control over it. In the foothills, they adopted a settled way of life and participated in the formation of a new, culturally mixed society. Local Tauric traditions played an important role, alongside Classical and La Tène influences. Most scholars therefore reject direct political or cultural continuity between Great Scythia and the Late Scythian Kingdom. The term “Late Scythian” remains useful mainly as a scholarly convention: it describes a new, settled, and culturally diverse society rather than the uninterrupted continuation of earlier Scythian civilization.

Even though I love archaeology, we shouldn't treat it as the ultimate source of truth. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For one thing, very few Iron Age graves have been discovered in Ireland, and what we do find inside is always subject to bias. We find bows and arrows in Celtic princely graves in Central Europe, but these are hunting weapons; objectively, we shouldn't interpret them as weapons of war. The reason I support the Gauls having archers and not the Britons is simply because we have historical accounts of archers deployed in the battlefield for the Gauls. There is no such account for the Britons for our time period.

As Thalatta explained, Irish epic tales were significantly altered by external influences, in this case Christianization and the medieval historical tradition. For one thing, oral tradition is inherently timeless, oral narratives are constantly adapted to the changing realities of society. Consequently, these stories had almost certainly undergone changes before being fixed in writing. Furthermore, when monks committed the tales to writing, they adapted them even further, drawing inspiration from the Bible, the writings of Jordanes and Gregory of Tours, and other sources from their medieval context. Irish tales contain a great many anachronisms and stories that are implausible for a pre-Christian society. It is essential to analyze them with a critical eye and sound methodology in order to extract useful information. In this case, scythed chariots are voluntarily added to further enhance a supposed link between Ireland and the Near East. The Serians represent a conflation of the Syrians and the Seres (of Central Asia).

Furthermore, the Old Irish carpat (ˈkaɾ.bəd̪) for chariot can only be derived from a Celtic language. A borrowing from Latin would have resulted in a completely different form and pronunciation.

No I don't think so. Pomponius Mela is the first to mention this implausible description but he was a notorious armchair geographer. Later on, several poets mentioned the scythed chariots but they were fabricating things. Thus, no scythed chariot. The reliable primary sources do not mention scythed chariots.

Petrie crown already shared by @Ultimate Aurelian

Yes I think it is better.

There is no consensus. Experts have been debating this subject for a long time without reaching a consensus. The problem is that it is difficult in any case to explain the presence of chariots in early medieval Irish myths if we assume that they did not exist during the Iron Age. Experts are sometimes disingenuous, going so far as to claim that the chariots never existed and that the myths were fabricated from scratch by Christians, drawing on Roman writings. Objectively speaking, that’s complete rubbish, but I don’t feel like debating the issue.

There is no iron age halberds. I don't know what @Duileoga meant by Alabardero. Battle chariots are attested through the finding of horse bits (snaffles), yoking fittings (such as terrets/rein-rings), iron tire fragments and bronze axle-caps. I think several items of those categories have been reliably found in Ireland.

Andrew Martz, a former senior software engineer at World's Edge, confirmed in a separate LinkedIn post that the studio's next project was cancelled as part of its reorganisation under Activision. People made a meme about the future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iverni https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iverni or Iverni? The earliest evidence of the Ogham is dated around the 4th century AD, it is the Silchester Ogham stone, it features an epitaph written in Primitive Irish dedicated to Tebicato maqi Memor ("Tebicatos, son of Memor"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Irish_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brehon Okay for me if we mentionned it is a legacy of an oral institution

Only in the name. The structure itself is a plausible interpretation of what an important sanctuary could have been in the British Isles. Not based on a particular site but a synthesis of several sites.

A ram (animal) association is plausible since the Greeks and the Celts did the same. Rammabukkaz could be the proto-germanic equivalent to the High German Rammbock. I would use something with *warō ("wares, goods, merchandise"). Maybe *Warnaweraz or *Warnamannoz.

Do you really need to know that for a unit?

Personally I prefer not presuming the etymology of those tribal names. It is easier to interpret the personal names as a reference to their tribes.

@Lopess I think you both need to talk and come to an agreement.

It is only archaeological, based on the pottery. Are the pots the best way to describe a people? The Goths seem to came from Scandinavia but their material culture is not really from Scandinavia. Furthermore, as I said, the Rhine-Weser Germanic culture is appearing at the end of 1st century BC. So, where are they coming from? Is it a local evolution or the spread of the Germanic peoples?