Иствеоны: Германское племенное объединение эпохи Римской империи

Historical ethnic group
the Germanic tribes as described by Pliny and Tacitus
The Istvaeones were a Germanic group of tribes living near the banks of the Rhine during the Roman Empire which reportedly shared a common culture and origin. The Istaevones were contrasted to neighbouring groups, the Ingaevones on the North Sea coast, and the Herminones, living inland of these groups. In linguistics, the term "Istvaeonic languages" is also sometimes used in discussions about the grouping of the northwestern West Germanic languages, consisting of Frankish and its descendants (principally Old Dutch) as well as several closely related historical dialects. Whether or not the Istvaeones spoke a Germanic language according to modern definitions, the theory proposes that their language indirectly influenced later Germanic languages in the area as a substrate.

The German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984), in his book "Nordgermanen und Alemannen", used the term Istvaeones to refer to a unattested proto language, or dialectal grouping, ancestral to Old Frankish, Old Dutch and, at the very least, influenced several dialects of West Central German.

Finds assigned to the Istvaeones are characterized by a greater heterogeneity than can be found in the other Germanic archaeological groupings. Their predominant burial type is the pyre grave. There are no richly equipped princely graves or weapons as grave goods to be found as, for example, occur with the neighboring Elbe Germanic groups. Scholars have speculated about whether weapons were used as "immaterial" grave goods instead. In other words, weapons made of metal were placed on the pyre of a warrior, for example, but only his ashes were buried in the pyre grave. This is, however, a controversial thesis. Weapons as grave goods first appear in northern Gaul, i. e. on the Roman side of the Rhine, in burial graves, and are not found to the east of the Rhine until the Merovingian period.