Gepidák vagy avarok?
Gepids or Avars?

Problems Related to the Research of the Row-grave Cemeteries from the Early Avar Period in Transylvania

Summary/Abstract: One of the most important archaeological phenomena in Transylvania during the Early Avar Period is represented by the late group of the so-called row-grave cemeteries, named conventionally in the archaeological literature “Band-Vereşmort group”. The scientific research of these cemeteries started at the beginning of the 20th century with the excavations carried out at Band by István Kovács. Since then several other necropolises belonging to the same group have been identified and partially unearthed which led to a relatively intense scientific debate regarding mainly to the chronological and ethnical aspects. Based on literary sources as well as on the archaeological evidence, the early scholars (István Kovács, Márton Roska) ascribed the discussed sites to the Gepidic population, while the graves containing horse bones, situated on the edges of the cemetery at Band, were connected to the Avars. Due to the excavations carried out at Moreşti in the 1950s which resulted in the discovery of a cemetery dated in the Gepidic Period, Kurt Horedt succeeded to elaborate the chronology of the Transylvanian row-grave cemeteries. According to him, the graveyards belonging to the Gepidic Period (group III/Moreşti group) can be sharply separated from the ones dated in the Early Avar Period (group IV/Band-Vereşmort group) both from chronological and ethnic point of view. In his opinion the former belonged mainly to the Gepids and could be placed roughly in the first half of the 6th century, while the latter was assigned to “late Germanic” communities, showing also “nomadic” influence, and dated exclusively in the 7th century. He excluded the existence of any direct link between the two horizons. Horedt’s theory was severely criticized by István Bóna who, unlike Horedt, developed his opinion based on the similarities between the two mentioned groups. The polemics between the two scholars dominated the research on the topic in the 1970s and 1980s. In Bóna’s view, the beginnings of the Band-Vereşmort group could be traced back to the second half of the 6th century, or even earlier, and therefore the existence of continuity between the row-grave cemeteries from the Gepidic and the Early Avar Period was out of question. He ascribed the latter group to the Gepidic communities which survived the Avar conquest in 568 and lived continuously in Transylvania under Avar rule. On the other hand, he connected the burials containing horse bones to the Avars. Later this assumption was generally accepted in the Hungarian archaeological literature. Further arguments for the late Gepidic interpretation of the Band-Vereşmort group were brought by Radu Harhoiu who published the cemeteries from Bratei 3 and Galaţii Bistriţei excavated in the 1970s. He dated the whole group in the second half of the 6th century – first half of the 7th century and considered that these cemeteries were used exclusively by the late Gepids living under Avar rule. The burials with horse bones were interpreted as a result of acculturation of the Gepids which adopted Avar burial customs and artefacts. In the course of approximately 100 years which passed since the publication of the cemetery at Band, the scholars focused on two main topics: chronology and ethnicity. Despite of this debate, in the current state of research both of them are far from being clarified. Taking a closer look, one can observe that the date of the collapse of the Gepidic Kingdom (567) and the Avar conquest in the Carpathian Basin (568) are usually considered a sharp borderline between the ‘Gepidic’ and ‘Avar’ material culture, and therefore between the Moreşti group and the Band-Vereşmort group. In the same time the cemeteries from the Tisza region are placed generally before this date, many times not on archaeological, but on historical grounds. However, several finds seem to belong to the first decades of the Avar Age (e.g. Egerlövő, grave 31 – with a coin of Justin II and Sophia; Tiszagyenda – with a coin of Maurice Tiberius; Kisköre-Pap Tanya, graves 42 and 43; Hódmezővásárhely-Kishomok, graves 1 and 7). In Transylvania the situation is less clear and therefore the question if the Moreşti type cemeteries reached the Avar Period or not remains open. The same problem rises in the case of the date of emergence of the Band-Vereşmort group. Recent results showed that the beginning of the group already in the 6th century is beyond doubt, but still, it is not clear enough to which date it can be traced back. There are a few elements which might indicate a date prior to the Avar conquest, like Noşlac, grave 121 or the stray finds coming from the vicinity of cemetery 3 at Bratei, but there is no evidence that these discoveries belonged to the cemeteries in question. The end date of the Band-Vereşmort type cemeteries is also unclear and is hindered by the fact that most of the graveyards were only partially unearthed. In this regard it seems more expedient to analyze the different cemeteries separately. The latest elements were discovered at Noşlac which reach the 8th century. Concerning the ethnic interpretation a relatively great variety can be observed. However, in this regard the research was seriously marked by the nationalistic approach of the communist era. Beginning with the second half of the 1950s the main task of the Romanian archaeology was to identify the local Daco-Roman population during the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages in order to find a link between the moment of the abandonment of the Roman province Dacia and the Medieval Period. This endeavour led to the emphasizing of the importance of the autochthonous population as well as to the minimizing of the significance of the ‘migratory’ peoples. This approach resulted in the emergence of a set of clichés which, in slighter degree, persists even today. One of the most important problems is related to burials containing horse bones which generally belong to the latest phase of the cemeteries. These were traditionally connected to a ‘nomadic’ community (e.g. Avars, Cutrigurs). Recently, Radu Harhoiu assigned them to the acculturated Gepids. In this regard the moment of the appearance of the Avars in Transylvania is of great significance. Since Kurt Horedt it is a commonplace in the Romanian historiography that the Avars entered in Transylvania for the first time only at the middle of the 7th century, or at the earliest, around 630. In contrast, Bóna believed that the first Avars reached the Transylvanian Basin already in the first decades after they settled down in the Carpathian Basin. Unfortunately, our present knowledge on this topic does not permit the establishment of the moment when the Avars entered in Transylvania, first of all, because of the reduced number of the well documented and published excavations. On the other hand, the fact that the research has not succeeded in identifying the specific burial customs and artefact types which could be connected undoubtedly to the first generation of the Avars in the Carpathian Basin was totally left out of consideration. Recent studies pointed out that the typical ‘Avar’ material culture was not brought by the Avars from the East, but emerged in the Carpathian Basin after 568 comprising several elements with different cultural roots (e.g. eastern, Byzantine, Germanic, Romanized, Slavic etc.). As it was shown above, the central question of the debate regarding the Band-Vereşmort group is related to the continuity or discontinuity of the Gepidic population in Transylvania in the last third of the 6th century – first half of the 7th century. It was observed already in the 1970s that the discussed cemeteries contained several grave-goods whose origins cannot be found in the material culture of the Gepidic Period, instead they have convincing analogies in the Late Merovingian necropolises from Western- and, mainly, Central-Europe. Taking this into account, the question which rises is if these elements arrived in Transylvania together with their owners colonized from the West, or they are the results of a development of the local communities which had strong relations with the Merovingian world. All these unsolved problems led to a lot of confusions and contradictions in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed mainly to the inflexible use of the concept of ethnic identity by most of the scholars, who considered it to be a rigid and permanent entity which can be identified based on the grave-goods or, in general, on the material culture. However, the archaeological evidence shows a much more complex picture where different cultural elements are in permanent interaction. In this respect a good example is the cemetery at Gâmbaş which was considered the most representative necropolis of the Avars from Transylvania by Kurt Horedt on one hand, and was thought to be a late Gepidic graveyard by Radu Harhoiu on the other hand. According to the present state of research it seems that the material culture of the Transylvanian Basin during this period included several elements of different origins. Therefore, the question asked in the title of this paper remains unanswered. On the other hand, the future research should focus not only on chronological and ethnical, but also on social aspects. To achieve such results new, well documented excavations as well as anthropological analysis are needed.

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