| Summary: | ‘Avar’ identities and affiliations were constructed in the Carpathian Basin from a combination of new influences from the western Eurasia Steppe (brought by people through population movements and exchange/trade) and by the existing descendants of the Roman provincial population. They were also influenced by earlier settlers from the Steppes in the era of the Hunnic Confederacy in the later fourth and fifth centuries and by influences and people originally from the Baltic region (Lombards and Gepids) by the sixth century. Although the Avars strongly shaped the other European communities' economic, cultural, and political organisation, their ruling and lifestyle habits are little understood.
This dissertation investigates the significance of socio-political and ethnocultural interactions between the so-called Avar and other communities in the early medieval Carpathian Basin through the integrated analysis of material culture used in burial practices to construct the „Avar” identity following the theoretical approaches developed by Pohl and others. The new perspectives gained from textual sources, current isotopic and genomic techniques, and the potential impact of climate change on Avar movements and ethnogenesis between the late sixth and early ninth centuries will also be explored for a deeper understanding of this mysterious society.
|
|---|