Pre-Roman Iron Age

The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe during Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman Empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars because it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE.

Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This culture existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic, Iranic, Baltic, and Slavic peoples before they were noted by the Romans.

The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now Germany, stretching north into Jutland, and east into Poland, spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming the southern part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

The Zarubintsy, Zarubyntsi or Zarubinets culture was a culture that, from the 3rd century BC until the 1st century AD, flourished in the area north of the Black Sea along the upper and middle Dnieper and Pripyat Rivers, stretching west towards the Southern Bug river. Zarubintsy sites were particularly dense between the Rivers Desna and Ros as well as along the Pripyat river. It was identified around 1899 by the Czech-Ukrainian archaeologist Vikentiy Khvoyka and is now attested by about 500 sites. The culture was named after finds of cremated remains in the village of Zarubyntsi [uk] on the Dnieper.

The Zarubintsy culture is possibly connected to the pre-Slavic ancestors of early Slavs (proto-Slavs), with possible links to the peoples of the Dnieper basin. The culture was influenced by the La Tène culture and the nomads of the steppes (the Scythians and the Sarmatians). The Scythian and Sarmatian influence is evident especially in pottery, weaponry, and domestic and personal objects.

The stone circles of the Iron Age (c. 500 BC – c. 400 AD) were a characteristic burial custom of southern Scandinavia and Southwestern Finland, especially on Gotland and in Götaland.

Finland court stones are found in Eura, Ulvila and Kokemäki.They date typically during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. In Sweden, they are called Domarringar (judge circles), Domkretsar (judge circles) or Domarsäten (judge seats). In Finland they are called Käräjäkivet (court stones). In some places in Nordic countries they were used until 17th century.

The Tollund Man (died 405–384 BC) is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body near Silkeborg on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The man's physical features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before his discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, was found in the same bog.

The cause of death has been determined to be by hanging. There is insufficient evidence to determine if the reason for the killing was a ritual sacrifice or a punitive execution.

In archaeology, the Rhine-Weser Germanic peoples (German: Rhein-Weser-Germanen) were the Germanic peoples who shared an identifiable set of identifiable technologies and material goods which appeared during the Roman era, and existed in a region encompassed approximately by the Rhine, Weser, Werra and Main rivers in what is now western Germany. Traditionally the changes in this archaeological culture have been associated with the spread of Germanic languages from the Elbe river region to its east, during the period in which the Roman Empire dominated the region from the west.

In archaeology the concept of a Roman era Rhine-Weser zone of related cultures has been influential since 1938, but it has remained difficult to define the limits of this zone, and distinguish them clearly from both their neighbours to the north, east and south, and their precursors. In the early first century AD the region was dominated by the La Tène culture which is associated with Celtic languages in regions to the south and west of the Rhine-Weser region, including pre-Roman Iron Age regions now in France and southern Germany. Evidence of later cultural influences from the Elbe during the Roman era are clear, but they are also clear in neighbouring regions to the north and south.