Concerning the origin of the Goths before the 3rd century CE, there is no consensus among scholars. In the 3rd century the Goths began to be mentioned by Roman writers as an increasingly important people living north of the lower Danube and Black Sea, in the area of modern Romania, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. The Goths at first allied with, but then increasingly replaced other peoples who had been dominant in the region, especially the Carpi, the Germanic-speaking Bastarnae, and the Sarmatians. While many scholars, such as Michael Kulikowski, believe there is insufficient evidence to come to strong conclusions about their earlier origins, there is also a long-standing proposal that the Goths must have derived their at least their name from the Gutones, who lived near the delta of the Vistula in what is now Poland in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Associated with that tradition, it is also often proposed that these Gutones were in turn culturally related to the similarly named Gutes of Gotland and the Geats of southern Scandinavia, who are both known from much later historical periods.
The Goths of late antiquity were seen by classical authors as one of a group closely related "Gothic peoples". Procopius (), for example, remarked that the Vandals and Gepids used the same Gothic language. Examples of this language have survived and it is classified by modern scholars as a Germanic language. However, classical writers did not call the Goths "Germanic", but rather categorized them as Scythians and Getae, linking them to their predecessors in the regions they lived in, whose customs they believed to have been similar. Modern scholars agree that the 3rd-century Goths can be seen as one dominant group within an ethnically diverse region, indistinguishable in their material culture from their neighbours north of the lower Danube and of the Black Sea.
Among the different types of evidence which are considered most relevant to tracing Gothic origins are their name, their written language, artistic and archaeological evidence of links between regions, and classical Greco-Roman ethnographic literature. The Germania of Tacitus, written , has played an important role because it mentions the Gutones living in the area of present-day Poland. The only surviving Roman account of Gothic origins, the Getica of Jordanes, written , continues to exert a strong influence.
Since the Second World War, most scholars, accepting parts of the "ethnogenesis" model associated with the Vienna school, have tended to emphasize that the name, language and traditions of Goths of the 3rd century need not imply any a single large-scale migration of, or similar ancestral connection to, the Gutones or other peoples with similar names. Nevertheless, some historians such as Peter Heather, while partly accepting this argument, have argued that there must have been a significant stream of movement from Poland towards Ukraine over a long period of time.
Language and name of the Goths
Philologists and linguists generally believe that the name of the Goths is derived from a Germanic language, and can be analyzed as the same name as "Gutones", though the name of this earlier and more northern people had a different grammatical form. According to such proposals, the name is derived from an old Germanic verb meaning "to pour", reflected in modern English "gutter" (modern Dutch goot). Various proposals have been made about why the Goths would have been called "pourers".
Heather has argued that while this similar name on its own could arguably be an "accidental resemblance", there were also other ethnic names, the Vandals and Rugii, which seem to have moved in a similar way - found in what is now Poland in the 1st century, but found south of the Carpathians near the Goths in subsequent centuries. Another type of evidence strengthening the case for a connection to the north is the language which the Goths used.
The Gothic language, known from their bible translation and fragmentary evidence, is the only clearly attested member of what modern linguists designate as the East Germanic language family, because it was already distinct from the two Germanic families that have survived today, West Germanic and North Germanic, which were originally respectively spoken in the neighbouring regions of what is now northern Germany, and southern Scandinavia, both of which are relatively far from the homeland of the 3rd-century Goths. It is therefore generally believed that the language of the Goths had its origins to the northwest, implying a movement of people from the direction of Poland. Already in the first century, the Roman author Tacitus also mentioned similar to those found mainly in Germania being spoken east of the Carpathians and Vistula, among the group of peoples known as the Bastarnae or Peucini.
That the Baltic Gutones may also have spoken a Germanic language is also implied by Tacitus, in his Germania written around 98 AD. He described the "Gotones" or "Gothones" as a part of a group of similar Germanic peoples, which also included the neighboring Rugii and Lemovii, who both lived on the Baltic coast. He reported that this group had some distinct characteristics compared to other Germanic peoples. These three peoples armed themselves round shields and short swords, and he described them as "ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other Germanic peoples" . Between the Gutones and the mountains to the south lived the Lugians.Tacitus, Germania, chapter 43
On the other hand, the Germanic language of the Goths could have arrived in their region from sources other than the Gutones. Heather points out that Germanic language arrived earlier in the Black Sea region, because Tacitus reports that the Bastarnae living in the Gothic region already in first century, spoke a Germanic languages. The name and language of the Goths may have even had separate origins. Historian Herwig Wolfram argued that although the Gutones of the Lower Vistula brought an originally Scandinavian name to the Goths, the Gothic language known from later times developed on the continent under Vandal hegemony in what is now Poland.
Evidence that the Goths spoke the same language as the Vandals comes from the 6th century Procopius reported the Goths of his time spoke the same language as the Vandals and Gepids, who lived to their west, and who he described as the most important "Gothic peoples" (plural) apart from the Goths themselves. He writes that “there were many Gothic nations in earlier times just as there are now, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids.Procopius, Vandal Wars, 1.2.2: "Γοτθικὰ ἔθνη πολλὰ μὲν καὶ ἄλλα πρότερόν τε ἦν καὶ τανῦν ἔστι, τὰ δὲ δὴ πάντων μέγιστά τε καὶ ἀξιολογώτατα Γότθοι τέ εἰσι καὶ Βανδίλοι καὶ Οὐισίγοτθοι καὶ Γήπαιδες." While the geographical origins of the Gepids are not described in classical ethnography, the Vandals in the first century were described by early Roman writers as inhabitants of the area between the Oder and Vistula in what is now Poland. Most notably, in about 77 AD, Pliny the Elder described the Gutones themselves as a member of the larger Germanic sub-group called the Vandili, who are generally believed to be precursors of the later Vandals.Pliny, Book IV, Chap. 28 (aka 40)
Archaeology There is a scholarly consensus that the Goths described by the Romans starting in the 3rd century were one of the peoples within the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex of material cultures, which covered a large area including modern Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. While the Goths enjoyed several centuries of hegemony over this region, this culture continued to contain peoples of different ethnicities, speaking more than one language.
The Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex exhibits clear evidence of close connections to the archaeological cultures which surrounded it, including the Roman Balkans, the Wielbark culture near the mouth of the Vistula, and the Przeworsk culture in what is now inland Poland and eastern Slovakia. The Wielbark culture is commonly considered to have represented a group of peoples which included the Gutones, and the Vandals are considered to have been present within the Przeworsk culture. There is evidence that the development of the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex was strongly connected to trade routes between the Roman empire to the south, and northern peoples such as the Gutones who supplied commodities such as furs and amber, which came from the Baltic coast.
Favouring a connection between the Wielbark and Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov cultures, archaeologists note that the Wielbark material culture spread southwards in the second century, overlapping with areas which had previously been more distinctly under the influence of the Przeworsk culture, until it reached the northern limits of the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov culture. In the same period, archaeological evidence also shows signs that groups using Przeworsk materials moved south to the area inside the Carpathians, which is presumed to correspond to the arrival of some Vandal groups into that area, as mentioned by Roman authors.
While Wolfram suggested that the 3rd century Goths had both Przeworsk and Wielbark influences, Kulikowski has argued that it is not necessary to assume any influence from the Wielbark culture, and the Vistula Gutones. As an example of an alternative scenario he suggested that the Germanic-speaking Gothic elite came from the same group of archaeological cultures which contained the Vandals, the Przeworsk culture. In his opinion, even with the similar name, the Gutones would never have been proposed to be ancestors of the Goths if it were not for the strong influence in more recent times of the 6th-century writer Jordanes.
The influence of Jordanes
Putting aside recent attempts to find other types of evidence to confirm his story, Jordanes is the original source of the idea that the Goths migrated from the Vistula to an area north of the Black Sea, and also of the idea that before then, their elite had migrated in two boats from Scandinavia under the leadership of a man named Berig, followed by one boat of Gepids. The name Jordanes uses for the "island" of Scandinavia was "Scandza", which can be found mentioned by earlier Roman geographers such as Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy. This account of Jordanes has been used to argue for an ancestral connection to the similarly named Gutes of Gotland and the Geats of southern Scandinavia.
Scholarly discussion about the reliability of Jordanes has focussed upon the questions of his sources, and his aims. Jordanes himself mentioned that he preferred written sources and he explicitly mentioned both older Roman ethnographical works, such as the ones which mentioned the Gutones living near the Vistula, and early works which interpreted passages in the Old Testament. Jordanes had read Josephus and apparently saw his account of the origins of the Scythians as descendants of the Biblical Magog in Genesis as compatible with his own account, though he questioned why Josephus had not specifically named the Goths and given more details.Jordanes, Getica IV 29 is normally translated as: "why he [Josephus] has omitted the beginnings of the race of the Goths, of which I have spoken, I do not know. He barely mentions Magog of that stock, and says they were Scythians by race and were called so by name". However, the original Latin did not mentioned Magog. See . Also influencing Jordanes were the influential christian writers Ambrose (about 340–397), Orosius (about 375–420) and Jerome (about 347–420). Ambrose equated the Scythians and Goths with the Biblical Gog and Magog, barbarians who come from the extreme north, where there are islands. Orosius is among the earliest writers to equate the Goths with Scythians, listing them along with the Huns and Alans as the "Scythians" of his time.