Поволжская археология (Mar 2015)
Issues of early ethnic history of the Hungarians-Magyars
Abstract
On the basis of archaeological and written sources and linguistic studies, the issues of Hungarians’ early ethnic history before they found their homeland on the Danube are analyzed in the article. The ethnic core of the Magyars (proto-Magyars) was formed in the Tobol-Irtysh forest-steppe zone within the Sargat archaeological community. After the split of the latter in the 2nd quarter of the 1st millennium, a part of the population migrated to the southern areas of Eastern Europe with the Hun Horde. The remaining component groups of the Sargatskaya archaeological community formed closely related ethno-cultural entities, mixing up with the forest population of the border zone. In written sources, the ancestors of Magyars are fixed as the Savirs (Savyrs, Savarts). For the first time, they are mentioned in the works by Byzantine authors after the collapse of the Hun ethno-political union in the mid-5th c. The Savirs inhabited the territory of the Volga-Don interfluve and had stayed under the aegis of the Khazar Khaganate since its formation in the mid-7th c. and until the Pecheneg intrusion from the Trans-Volga steppes in the late 9th c. Later, the Savirs got divided, and a part of them, led by the Magyars, resettled to the Northern Black Sea area, and soon to Pannonia. The groups of population closely related to them, who had left the Kushnarenkovo-type (2nd half of the 6th c.) and the Karayakupovo-type (2nd half of the 8th c) sites, moved from the trans-Urals to the Volga-Urals regions. Ultimately, they mixed up and dissolved in the alien cultural medium, as well as the related Bakalskaya culture population in southern forest steppe of the Trans-Urals
