“The Outskirts of the Khagan”. The first “Avar” conquerors in the lower Mureş in light of the graves from Pecica “Est/Smart Diesel”: Archaeological and 14C analyses

Abstract

The archaeological rescue excavation near Pecica resulted in the unearthing of nine graves with scant grave goods, which, on the basis of the aspects of the funerary ritual and 14C analyses, could be dated to the period between the second part of the 6th century and first part of the 7th century. Taking into account the fact that these graves were dispersed over a very large territory (cca 1.8 ha), at a distance of dozens of meters from one another, without an organised character of a funerary location (like other cemeteries), with a heterogeneity of orientations, we suppose that these individuals were not related biologically, and they did not form a community, but that they were buried by different mobile communities at different times (pastoral nomadism). At the same time, based on the 14C analysis, it became very clear that some of them, like the individual from the grave Feature 448 was part of the group of those “Avars” who conquered the regions of the Carpathian Basin before the year 568. From this point of view, we believe that we would not be too mistaken if we advanced the hypothesis that a certain nomadic life was maintained from the second half of the 6th century to the middle of the 7th century, adapted to the geomorphological realities of the Carpathian Basin, at least in a part of the community, in the frame of so-called mid-range nomadism.

Keywords

• funerary space
• graves
• grave goods
• offering
• mobile communities
• early avar age