Sitones

Sitones were a people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the 1st century CE. They are only mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania. Tacitus considered them a Germanic people similar to Suiones (ancestors of modern Swedes):

:"Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage." [ [http://www.northvegr.org/lore/tacitus/005.php Tacitus' "Germania"] . Translation in English.]

Speculations on Sitones' background are numerous. According to one theory, the name is a partial misunderstanding of Sigtuna, one of the central locations in the Swedish kingdom, that is known to have had a Latin spelling "Situne" much later. ["Svenskt Diplomatorium I nr 852. Originalbrev". Pope Alexander III's address to king Knut Eriksson and Jarl Birger Brosa in 1170s.] Related to this may be a memory of a period in which the Swedes were ruled by a certain queen as described in the Disas saga.Fact|date=February 2007

Another speculative hypothesis is that the Sitones were living in Western Finland and were Germanic settlers or actually a Finnic group; sometimes they have been seen as the early inhabitants of ancient Kvenland. [Kyösti Julku has stated in his publication "Kvenland - Kainuunmaa" (1986) that "there is no indistinctness whatsoever about the geographical location of Sitones" (page 51) and places them to Finland as Kven ancestors.]

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