Antaeus - Communicationes ex Instituto Archaeologico Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 29-30. (A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Régészeti Intézetének közleményei, 2008)
"Betrachtungen zur Chronologie der Mittelawarenzeit" Budapest, 26–27. 11. 2004 - Nad'a Profantová: The Middle Avar Period and the Problem of a "Cultural Change" at the End of the Seventh Century North of the Avar Khaganate
ANTAEUS 29-30 (2008) 215-232 Nad’a Profantová THE MIDDLE AVAR PERIOD AND THE PROBLEM OF A “CULTURAL CHANGE” ATTHE END OFTHE SEVENTH CENTURY NORTH OF THE AVAR KHAGANATE Introduction In contrast to the heartland of the Avar Khaganate, the regions north of its northern border offer fewer chronological anchors for dating. Neither dendrochronology, nor the numerous grave groups, nor, for that matter, securely datable imports are available (the latter are usually few and far between and generally come from unreliable contexts).1 In the case of imports, the routes along which they reached the places where they were eventually deposited were probably long, complex and winding. The rather poorly furnished burials and the fact that the deceased in these graves were cremated together with their belongings means that there is little in the way of non-ceramic assemblages on which the period’s chronology could be firmly based. The single exceptions in this respect are the rare finds of Byzantine coins, which again usually come from insecure archaeological contexts. Middle Avar period finds in the Carpathian Basin show a scatter of varying density. North of the distribution of Avar cemeteries, which can plausibly be correlated with the territory of the Avar Khaganate proper, the occurrence of these finds is a rare and isolated phenomenon. The number of such finds is considerably lower than that of Late Avar period artefacts. One possible reason for this can be sought in the technological transformation of one of the most characteristic find types of Avar culture, namely the metal components of belts and horse harness. Among the grave assemblages, articles of sheet metal made using the repoussé technique run a considerably higher risk of decay than the more massive, cast pieces of the Late Avar period. In fact, this could be one explanation for the differences between the frequency of finds from the two periods. What are the implications of an explanation along these lines? In spite of their rarity, Avarinspired finds form an integral part of the archaeological record from former Czechoslovakia and southern Poland for the seventh century AD, whose significance is underlined by later developments up to the fruition of cultural impacts from the Avar world in the pre-Great Moravian production of Moravia. What has been described as the random effect of technological change can, from a different perspective, reflect a cultural difference. Differences in the burial rite can cause a distorted vision. On the one hand, there are the Avar cemeteries, in which the deceased are laid to rest into deep graves, whose grave goods are made up of a rich and diverse array of articles which can be fairly well classified in terms of their chronology due to closed find contexts. On the other hand, articles from the same tradition tend to survive more randomly and in a much more fragmented state in settlement contexts, which are often less easily interpreted, creating the impression of a “poor relative” with an inferior culture. It seems to me that things being as they are, any investigation of Avar-inspired finds north of the Khaganate’s frontier is hardly likely to contribute to the focal theme of this conference, namely to the refinement of Middle Avar chronology. I will therefore attempt a different sort of contribution, namely to demonstrate how even this blurred and fragmentary image supports Csanád Bálint1 s argumentation, which challenges the too simplistic correlation between forms of expression in a particular cultural sphere and assumed external political and/or demographic changes. 1 For example, the two bronze brooches of the Gîmbaç were discovered with a metal detector at Kozojedy(Marosgombás in Romania) type after Joachim Drcvic in 2002 on a hillfort from the 9th-11th Werner Type IC, probably dating from the end of the century. E. Droberjar: Vëk barbarû. Praha 2005, 210. 6th or the early 7th century, known from Bohemia