Ancient German Identity in the Shadow of the Roman Empire

An archaeological study of evidence for Roman influence on the Germanic peoples of the middle Danube frontier in present day south-west Slovakia. Vrba uses data and finds from his own excavations at a site called Urbarske Sedliska to form an impression of the impact which the nearby frontier (16km to the south) had on the development of Germanic identity in the region concentrating on the period of the early empire (10 BC - AD 166). His work fits very much within recent reassesments of "Romanization," rejecting the idea that the use of Roman material culture implies the extistence of a Romano-Germanic identity, or even that the peoples of Roman period Slovakia were necessarily ever trading directly with Roman merchants.