The term Germanic peoples or Germanic tribes applies to the ancient Germanic peoples of Europe.
The Germanic tribes spoke mutually intelligible dialects and shared a common mythology (see Norse Mythology) and story telling as testified by for instance Beowulf and the Volsunga saga. The existence of a common identity is testified by the fact that they had a name for non-Germanic peoples, Walha, from which the local names Welsh, Wallis, Walloon, and Wallachia have been derived.
In the absence of large-scale political unification, such as that imposed forcibly by the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the various tribes remained free, led by their own hereditary or chosen leaders.
Regarding the question of ethnic origins, evidence developed by both archaeologists and linguists suggests that a people or group of peoples sharing a common material culture dwelt in northwestern Germany and southern Scandinavia during the late European Bronze Age (1000-500 B.C.). This culture group is called the Nordic Bronze Age. The long presence of Germanic tribes in southern Scandinavia (an Indo-European language probably arrived ca 2000 B.C.) is also testified by a lack of pre-Germanic place names. This cultural grouping, which emerges and spreads, without sudden breaks, can be distinguished from the culture of the Celts inhabiting the more southerly Danube and Alpine regions during the same period. Cultural features at that time included small, independent settlements and an economy strongly based on the keeping of livestock.
Linguists, working backwards from historically-known Germanic languages, suggest that this group spoke proto-Germanic, a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family.
During the 5th century, as the Roman Empire drew toward its end, numerous Germanic tribes began migrating en masse (Völkerwanderung) in far and diverse directions, taking them to England and as far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and Africa. Over time, the wandering meant intrusions into other tribal territories and the ensuing wars for land claims escalated with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Nomadic tribes then began the staking out of permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expanded outwards. A defeat meant either scattering or merging with the dominant tribe and this continued to be how nations were formed. In Denmark the Jutes merged with the Danes, in Sweden, the Geats merged with the Swedes. In England, for example, we now most often refer to the Anglo-Saxons rather than the two separate tribes.