A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 32. Kunt Ernő emlékére. (1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - FODOR István: A magyar őstörténet vázlata (magyar és angol nyelven)

found itself in a completely different ethnic and linguistic environment. As far as one can judge, no other Finno-Ugrian group switched over to an equestrian-pastoral way of life. Hungarians, however, still retained their language and ethnic identity during the 1500 to 2000 years spent in the steppe regions. This population did not disperse and did not merge into the continuously reorganized ethnic formations of the steppe as was the case with many other steppe peoples. One of the reasons behind this phenomenon may be that in spite of the significant changes within this ethnic entity during the long period concerned, newly accepted population elements always remained in the minority and usually played a secondary role in the power structure as well. The peculiarity of the Hungarian language of Finno-Ugrian origin may have significantly contributed to cultural survival in the steppe environment since it hindered interaction with other people and created an impenetrable, closed communication system for the different linguistic environments. Endogamy within the ethnic Hungarian group further contributed to this situation. While the clans were exogamous, marital bonds between them were mostly limited to marriages within the major ethnic group. This, however, does not mean that the community as a whole was completely cut off from external influences. Hungarian culture almost entirely changed in the steppe region and the physical anthropological make-up of this population was significantly modified. The Hungarian language was enriched by a whole stratum of loan-words during this time. The consistently strong military force, which could prevent the dispersal of this group even when it served as a vassal to greater powers, was another important factor in ethnic survival. It is for this reason why the hypothesis of some historians, which assumes that nomadic social organization was introduced to primitive Hungarians by the ruling strata of another ethnic group, does not seem plausible. The early history of Hungarians has another peculiar feature as well, that is it was the only nomad people of Eastern origin which had succeeded to adapt itself to the family of European nations consequently it did not collapse in the new environment. That is other peoples which had arrived earlier into the Carpathian Basin from the East - like Sarmatians, Huns and Avars - could preserve their political and ethnic independence and identity only for a - historically speaking - short period. For the long run they were marked out by fate for ethnic assimilation. The settlement of nomad people within the Carpathian Basin can be explained first of all by geographic factors; vast plains, like the Great Hungarian Plain, the last and westernmost relic of the Eurasain steppe with groves offered biogeographic conditions more or less corresponding to those which were characteristic of the Eastern-European regions where these nomad peoples had lived before. However, the conditions of the two regions are not quite identical since in the Carpathian Basin those steppes of vast extension where these peoples used to practize their nomadic way of life in the East, are absent, furthermore large, inundation areas of the rivers Duna and Tisza also impeded considerably the practice of that riverside cyclic pasturage system which was so characteristic of nomad economy in the East. It was due mostly to this geographic feature that among those nomad peoples which had come into the Carpathian Basin the process of settling down accelerated within a relatively short period. A gradually increasing part of the population began to live at permanent settlements and agriculture, together with a stock breeding more intensive than before, was becoming more and more important in the economy. It is conspicuous that while in the eastern archeological record of nomad peoples arrived from the East settlement remains are almost completely missing, dozens of Sarmatian and Avar settlements had been unearthed in Hungary so far. 122