page_title: Franconia
section_title: Early history and Antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Franconia / History / Early history and Antiquity
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die 1990 rekonstruierte Porta decumana am Kastell Weißenburg, Bayern. Zustand im August 1991. Italiano: Del 1990 ricostruì porta decumana la fortezza di Weißenburg, Baviera, Germania. English: The 1990 reconstructed Porta decumana at the castle Weißenburg, Bavaria, Germany.
context_page_description: Franconia is a region in Germany, characterised by its culture and language, and may be roughly associated with the areas in which the East Franconian dialect group, colloquially referred to as "Franconian", is spoken. There are several other Franconian dialects, but only the East Franconian ones are colloquially referred to as "Franconian".
  "Core Franconia" is constituted by the three administrative regions of Lower, Middle, and Upper Franconia of the state of Bavaria. Also part of the cultural region of Franconia are the adjacent Franconian-speaking regions of the otherwise Thuringian and Upper Saxon-speaking state of Thuringia, the Franconian-speaking parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in the state of Baden-Württemberg, and small parts of the state of Hesse.
  Those parts of the region of Vogtland lying in the state of Saxony are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as "Franconian". On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart mountains do consider themselves as "Franconian".
context_section_description: Fossil finds show that the region was already settled by primitive man, Homo erectus, in the middle Ice Age about 600,000 years ago. Probably the oldest human remains in the Bavarian part of Franconia were found in the cave ruins of Hunas at Pommelsbrunn in the county of Nuremberg Land. In the late Bronze Age, the region was probably only sparsely inhabited, as few noble metals occur here and the soils are only moderately fertile. In the subsequent Iron Age (from about 800 B.C.) the Celts become the first nation to be discernible in the region. In northern Franconia they built a chain of hill forts as a line of defence against the Germanii advancing from the north. On the Staffelberg they built a powerful settlement, to which Ptolemy the name oppidum Menosgada, and on the Gleichberge is the largest surviving oppidum in Central Germany, the Steinsburg. With the increased expansion of Rome in the first century B.C. and the simultaneous advance of the Elbe Germanic tribes from the north, the Celtic culture began to fall into decline. The southern parts of present-day Franconia soon fell under Roman control; however, most of the region remained in Free Germania. Initially Rome tried extend its direct influence far to the northeast; in the longer term, however, the Germanic-Roman frontier formed further southwest.
  Under the emperors, Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian (117-138), the Rhaetian Limes was built as a border facing the Germanic tribes to the north. This defensive line ran through the south of Franconia and described an arc across the region whose northernmost point lay at present-day Gunzenhausen. To protect it, the Romans built several forts like Biriciana at Weißenburg, but by the mid-third century, the border could no longer be maintained and by 250 A.D. the Alemanni occupied the areas up to the Danube. Fortified settlements such as the Gelbe Bürg at Dittenheim controlled the new areas. More such Gau forts have been detected north of the former Limes as well. To which tribe their occupants belonged is unknown in most cases. However, it is likely that it was mainly Alemanni and Juthungi in especially in the south. By contrast, it was the Burgundians who settled on the Lower and Middle Main. Many of these hill forts appear to have been destroyed, however, no later than 500 A.D. The reasons are not entirely clear, but it could have been as a result of invasions by the Huns which thus triggered the Great Migration. In many cases, however, it was probably conquest by the Franks that spelt the end of these hilltop settlements.
caption: A 1990 replica of the Porta decumana of the Biriciana. View over the camp ring road
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