Who are the Germanic tribes descended from?

 Hello there, and thank you for your interest in the prehistory of Europe! 

 The Germanic tribes descend from the people of the Nordic Bronze Age, and these again are a mix of Indo-European Steppe Herders, Early European Farmers, and Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers. (The capital letters are used because these are more or less official names for different ancient populations.) Now that I have answered your question very briefly, I hope you will take the time to sit down and listen to an old man talking a bit more about his ancestors…  

It is quite a complex topic, and our understanding has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years, thanks to the new computer-assisted technology for analyzing ancient DNA. This has been a great help, combined with our existing knowledge from archaeology, genetics, and more lately gene testing of modern humans.  

We have long known that the Germanic languages are part of the larger Indo-European family, but the origin of these languages was long unknown, giving rise to different hypotheses. Unfortunately, some of these became mingled with politics, like the Nazi fantasies of Aryan supremacy. 

We can now safely put all that behind us, as we have both genetic and cultural flow from the same area into the modern Indo-European areas. The Proto-Indo-European language must have spread from the Pontic-Caspic steppes, and is most closely associated with the Yamna culture. (Copper Age to Early Bronze Age, ca 5300–4600 years ago.)  As the Steppe herders expanded into Europe, the northern branch overran an already weakened culture, the Funnelbeaker culture. 

The Funnelbeaker existed mainly in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, ca 6300–4800 years ago (in the Neolithic, or late Stone Age). This culture was one of the many offshoots from the Early European Farmers, which had expanded from present-day Anatolia more than 8000 years ago to colonize most of Europe, replacing the original Western Hunter-Gatherers with relatively little interbreeding. 

In the north, however, the climate was less ideal for farming, and the Anatolian farmers had mixed with the earlier hunter-gatherers to some degree, taking up a more hybrid lifestyle. That lifestyle changed when they were overrun by the Steppe herders.  Sharing southern Scandinavia uneasily with the 

Funnelbeaker farmers were the maritime hunters and fishermen known as the Pitted Ware culture, expanding from eastern Sweden. They were Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer, themselves a unique blend of Western and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers who had adapted to life in the chilly north. When the Funnelbeaker population collapsed (probably because of the first Plague in the area) the Pitted Ware people started expanding into Funnelbeaker territory. Then when the Yamna people from the steppes overran the area, the Pitted Ware culture gradually merged with the newcomers, now called the Corded Ware culture. 

The eastern parts of the Corded Ware area gave rise to the Baltic and Slavic peoples, while the western part merged with the Pitted Ware and became the ancestors of the Germanic peoples.  Between the arrival of the Indo-Europeans and the spread of the Germanic tribes was a long golden age known as the Nordic Bronze Age. For about 1200 years (from 3700 to 2500 years ago), this culture in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany traded with the inner Mediterranean and assembled remarkable riches, despite the relatively low population. There were never any cities in this area, and as far as we know there was no writing until centuries later. But the hoards of gold and bronze found in the royal graves shows that this culture traded as far as Egypt and also had its own artists and craftsmen. 

The climate in the area was milder back then than in modern times, which not only was good for agriculture but also allowed for some pretty nice clothes:   This attire was based on the grave of the Egtved Girl, a Bronze Age woman who died all too young in Denmark in summer 1370 BCE, seemingly from natural causes. 

 

The photo is of course of a modern woman from the same area. 

As you can see, the Proto-Germanic people weren’t exactly cavemen. Egtved Girl could have walked right into a modern Scandinavian party. (Once she got her Covid vaccine, of course…)  After the end of the Bronze Age, the climate grew chillier, and many Germanic people sought southward, where they eventually ran into Romans and Greeks again and enter our written history, starting with the Cimbrian invasion in 113 BCE. But that is another long story.