New Results and Ideas of the Archaeological Research on Early Hungarian History in the Eurasian Context. Povolzhskaya Arkheologiya. №1 (47) 2024 (original) (raw)
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Nomads and Natives beyond the Danube and the Black Sea, 700-900 CE
Amsterdam University Press, ARC Humanities Press, Leeds, 2018
The book re-examines the history of the Carpathian-Danubian region during the eighth and ninth centuries. Thus, the central task is providing an overview of the historical realities to the north of the Lower Danube over two centuries. Writing this book began from the desire to develop a synthetic study through which we will reconstruct, the history of the Carpathian-Danubian region during the eighth and ninth centuries based on narrative, archaeological, and numismatic sources. The diversity of issues presented by such a study requires analysing the following topics in succession: the historiography of the problem, the particularities of the human habitat, the reconstitution of economic occupations, the establishment of the features of spiritual life, the evolution of social relations, the chronological and ethnic affiliation of discoveries, the reconstitution of the political history of the region, and so on. The achievement of this goal, the objectives, and the proposed plan rely on an examination of the composition of the repository of sites and archaeological findings from the Carpathian-Danubian regions during the eighth and ninth centuries. Thus, I will try to point out some issues related to the eighth and ninth centuries, seeking to contribute thereby to the fixing of an image that would allow for an updated scientific interpretation of the early Middle Ages in the regions to the north of the Lower Danube.
Ethnicity in the steppe lands of the northern Black Sea region during the early Byzantine times
Archaeologia Bulgarica, 2019
Obsessed with linking particular groups known from the written sources to archaeological assemblages or cultures, archaeologists have neglected the accumulation over the last few years of data on the steppe lands north of the Black Sea during the 6 th and 7 th centuries. Many are still guided in the interpretation of those data by an uncritical understanding of the written sources. The paper offers an overview of the ethnographic reports of the Black Sea region, from Priscus to Menander the Guardsman, with a particular emphasis on the passage in Procopius' Wars which imitates a periplus-like account. Ethnographic concerns greatly distort the traditional framework of the periplus, and make room for digressions on such things as customs, religion, government, and the like. In spite of the common opinion on the matter, Procopius does not describe nomads moving around in the steppe lands. The constraints of the genre that Procopius imitated (periplus) are responsible for the "linear" arrangement of the ethnic names one after the other. Only in the northern segment is a three-tiered classification introduced, as in the case of the Huns-Cimmerians-Cutrigurs. That classification allows the distinction between foes and friends of the Romans. Those closer to the Romans (Cutrigurs) are their enemies, while those farthest from them (Utigurs, Trapezites) are their allies. Both Procopius and Pseudo-Zachariah wrote about Huns, albeit in different languages. Procopius and Agathias mention Cutrigurs, but Jordanes has only Bulgars. Are assemblages dated to the 6 th century and discovered in the lands north of the Black Sea the remains of the Bulgars or of the Cutrigurs? What is, in fact, the basis for any linkage between the historical and the archaeological evidence? The second section of the paper is based on a critical approach to the archaeological record. Judging from the existing evidence, the people in the Black Sea steppe lands regarded prehistoric mounds as "old, " and therefore chose to bury some of their dead in barrows. Such practices may have been connected with claims to the ancestors supposedly buried underneath the mounds. At the same time, the idea of placing the dead in prehistoric mounds may have something to do with the desire to make their tombs visible in the landscape, and thus to communicate the status of an individual or of a family In the steppe lands north of the Black Sea, burial within a prehistoric mound was probably meant to conjure the (imagined) past in order to re-invent traditions. That the earliest cases are from the northwestern area of the Black Sea Lowlands, while in the late 6 th and early 7 th century burials in prehistoric barrows appear also in the northwestern region of the Sea of Azov and in Crimea may not be an accident. During the second half of the 6 th and the early decades of the 7 th century, the Black Sea Lowlands between the Dniester and the Molochna rivers were troubled borderlands, and the written sources clearly point to the dissolution of earlier tribal confederacies, such as the Cutrigurs and the Utigurs, as a result of attacks from Avars and Turks. It is possible that burial in ancient barrows was a response to the claims laid on the Black Sea steppe lands, particularly those in northern Crimea and those between the Dnieper and the Danube, in close proximity to the Empire.
2017
The article considers the geography of studied archaeological sites dating back to the first half of the 1st Millennium A.D. located in the steppes of the Southern Urals and the Lower Volga region. According to the author, the localization of these sites follows a specific pattern. Barrows of late Sarmatians (or ‘Huns-Sarmatians’) are mostly located in the forest-steppe area or along the left bank of the Volga river, which was accounted for by the deterioration of the steppe climate (aridization) which began in the first centuries A.D. A small number of barrows of late Sarmatians have been discovered in the Trans-Urals and the Volga region. Large burial mounds consisting of several dozen barrows - Salikhovo, Akhmerovo, Derbenevo - have only been traced in the Cis-Urals. There is no reliable evidence of the ethnic-cultural interactions of the Sarmatians with the local Finno-Ugric population. Therefore, the Turbasly culture with its sites represented by two compact groups have been discovered in the basin of the middle reaches of the Belaya river and near the mouth of the Kama river and apparently appeared in the region in an established form. At the same time, small groups (military detachments) of the population of a different ethnic and cultural origin were introduced in the western regions of the area populated by the carriers of the late Mazunino culture - barrows at Turaevo and Staraya Mushta burial mounds. Due to their scarcity, these detachments quickly dissolved in the local Finno-Perm (Mazunino) population. The archaeological map of the Southern Urals and Trans-Volga region demonstrates that the steppes of the region were very poorly populated in the first half of the 1st Millennium A.D. The ethnic-cultural groups represented by a large number of archaeological sites have only been discovered in the forest-steppe area – these are the Late Mazunino (Bakhmutino) and Imenkovo cultures, whose carriers, according to the author, did not belong to the Sarmatian or ‘Hun-Sarmatian’ world.
JAHA, 2023
The geographic area broadly corresponding to the Upper Basin of Tisa delineates the north-eastern extremity of the Carpathian Basin, which has given the evolutions taking place there over time specific characteristics. Regardless of the historical period, this area has been a connecting space between the regions north of the Carpathian Mountains and territories situated in the direction of the Superior Danube, but mostly the entire Tisa Plain and the Transylvanian Basin towards the south-east. There are many settlements that can be dated roughly to the second half of the 6th century and the first half of the 7th century, alongside some funerary discoveries. However, there are few sites that were investigated extensively, at least according to current publication records. The inventories of the dwellings and of the few reported graves are lacking in diversity as handmade pottery is the norm. The current examination offers indirect proof of the agricultural activities and the domestic crafts that were undertaken there at the time, which were potentially connected to a certain degree of specialization in tool and iron utensil production, and the manufacturing of the raw matter this required. A simple, autarchic economic model can be reconstructed from the data as there are few indications of external contacts – thus, a model similar to the one commonly attributed to the Slavs of that period.
Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics Online, 2020
Most archaeologists associate the Roman-period Proto-Slavs with the Kiev culture in the middle and upper Dnieper basin, kindred to it sites of the type Zaozer´e in the upper Dnieper and the upper Dvina basins, and finally the groups of sites of the type Cherepyn-Teremtsy in the upper Dniester basin and of the type Ostrov in the Pripyat basin. The fate of the early Slavs was much influenced by the events on the early stage of the Great Migration, when the Huns attacked the Goths in 375 CE. In the Dnieper area, from the mid-5th century CE on, the lands of the Goths were gradually taken by the populations of early Slavic cultures, who moved there from the upper Dnieper region. For the age of Slavic migrations from the 5th to the 7th centuries CE, most archaeologists have identified the Slavs with the Prague culture, some of the sites of the Ipoteşti-Cîndeşti, the Penkovka culture, the Kolochin culture, and far to the north the Long Barrows culture, at least partially relatable to some Slavic or Balto-Slavic population. There are two specific aspects of the archaeology of Slavic migrations: the movement of the populations of the Slavic cultural model and the diffusion of this model amid non-Slavic population. Several stages and directions are associated with the Slavic migrations of the 5th-8th centuries CE:-migration into the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe (5th c. CE);-migrations in the lower Danube area (late 5th-early 6th cc. CE);-migration south of the Danube and into the Balkans (6th-7th cc. CE);-migration in the middle and upper Danube areas (mid-6th-7th cc. CE);-migration into the Vistula, Oder, and Elbe basins (6th-7th cc. CE); and-migration in the forest area of Eastern Europe (7th-9th cc. CE). From an archaeological point of view, these migrations are manifested in the spread of Slavic cultural traits (related to handcrafted ceramics, types of buildings, cremation tombs, and female costume), and, for the southern part of the area, they are confirmed by the testimony of written sources. In archaeological research on Slavic antiquities, the following schema comprising three chronological stages has been increasingly accepted (see e.g., Stanciu 2015: 165):-Proto-Slavs, corresponding to the Wends (Venedi, Venethi, Veneti, Ouenedai) of ancient sources (Roman period, 1st-4th cc. CE);-Early Slavs, i.e., the Antes (Antae, Antai, Anti) and the Sclaveni (Sklavenoi, Sklavinoi) of the writers from the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages (mid-5th to the middle or the second half of the 7th c. CE);
The monograph presents the results of the studies of archaeological sites located in a close proximity to Novaya Beden’ga rural area (Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia). The studies were conducted by Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University, Tolyatti State University and Samara State University in 2008-2012. The sites under the focus of the studies (Novaya Beden’ga hillfort and settlement) are considered to have a significant role in the studies of ethno cultural processes in Ulyanovsk Cis-Volga region during the Great Migration period. The main activity of the sites is considered to be ferrous metallurgy, that probably had seasonal and non-permanent character. The archaeological finds from the sites can be attributed to the following cultural and chronological groups. The first group representing the earliest finds is related to the so-called “late Scythian” culture of the first quarter of the first millennium AD. The second groups, including the majority of the finds, encompasses the end of the 4th – the 5th centuries AD and represents a mix of cultures, as the number of artefacts in the groups has its analogues in Kiev. Besides the Kiev culture, other finds can be attributed to the cultures of forest zone. The third group is formed by the archaeological finds of Khazar period, distinguishing by the combination of artefacts of Saltovo culture and different Kama region cultures. Therefore, the results of the studies of Novaya Beden’ga sites reflects the historical process of migrations during the Great Migration period, whereas the core of the migration wave that reached Ulyanovsk Cis-Volga region was constituted by the groups that held the traditions of Kiev culture. It is highly possible that the groups were formed by early Slavs. At the same time, the cultural complex of the population was influenced by other ethno cultural groups, making the cultural image of the population non-homogenous. The Novaya Beden’ga settlements had maintained their significance as an iron mining centre during the first millennium AD. The iron ore production is considered to seize it’s function during Volga Bulgaria period. This fact can be related to a dramatic decrease of migration, coinciding with the reclaiming of new territories that were more suitable for farming.
The aim of the research is to offer archaeological answers to the question of the identifiability of burial cultures at the end of the migration phenomenon in the regions east of the Tisza river and to identify the “first generation” of the population arriving as a result of migration in the Carpathian Basin during the second half of the 6th century. As we have shown at length in the discussion, analogy-based dating involves major risks, and the specialist ventures providing what one may call circular arguments that do not take into account the context of the items, possible different time periods, their “lifespan” (i.e. these artefacts might have been used differently over time), but the possible typochronologies established in a unitary manner in disregard of the social-human contexts, centre-periphery relations, the region where the items had been discovered, etc. A key role in the identification of the few graves is undoubtedly played by the radiocarbon dating method. We reached the conclusion that a new burial culture is very difficult to identify, however not impossible. Out of a total of 195 burial sites or burial finds datable to the first part of the Avar period (the early Avar period) east of the Tisza, we were able to date, with more or less relative security, to the second half of the 6th century – or, if approached biologically, to link to the specific population that could/would travel from the Caucasus and the Don areas to the Carpathian Basin – only thirteen (+one) burial sites or graves. The geographical distribution of those sites which we had relatively linked to the new migrants from the east is sporadic, diffusive and disproportionate, being recorded mainly in the areas of most important rivers: the middle area of the Tisza, the Mureș area and the dried Szárazér stream, the Crișul Repede – Barcău area, further to the north-west, in the Hortobágy area (Hajdúszoboszló), the Kissárét area, namely the Crișul Triplu and Crișul Repede river areas. Concurrently, together with the 14C AMS data from Pecica-Smart Diesel-Gr. 448, Nădlac-1M-Grave Ftr. 86, Szegvár-Oromdűlő and some graves from Makó-Mikocsa halom, combined with strontium data (indicative of their locality) begs the question: prior to AD 568, could not there have been unrecorded migrations from the east to the Carpathian Basin?