Makkay János: A magyarság keltezése – A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 48. (1994)
Slavs, Bolgars, Avars and other (pagan) tribes (see chapter 8.6.!). Modern archaeological research estimates that a very high proportion of the population was subjugated and swept away into the West by Avarian and Onogur nomads. Early Hungarian speakers surely were a part of these non-Turkic barbarians. In view of the lack of written sources concerning the ethnic structure of the Carpathian Basin in the 8th —9th centuries we should turn to archaeology for demonstrating the existence of population groups from the Late Avar chiefdom in the 9th century and the presence of Hungarian speakers amongst them. One remarkable fact is that the historical distribution of the Old-Hungarian language in the 1 lth century coincides perfectly (down to the smallest details) with the areal distribution of the Late Avarian cemeteries of griffin and tendril type (and indeed also with the distribution of early Avar cemeteries). In contrast the earliest sites of Arpád's people (mostly cemeteries) have a distinctly narrower distribution. The areas where this apparent earliest linguistic territory of Old-Hungarian exceeds the well-known (archaeological) distribution of the 10th century Arpádians are very characteristic old Hungarian territories, especially the Hegyentúl (i.e. the area west of the Little Carpathians up to the valley of the Morava river; county Sasvár was once also part of it). It includes also the adjoining territory to the south in the Danubian —Rába plain (counties Pozsony and Moson) and the eastern slopes of the Alps and also further southeast the plains and low hills of the Őrség and Őrvidék, the counties Zala, Somogy and Baranya in the southern half of Transdanubia. To it belongs also the eastern part of the territory between the Drava and Sava rivers, i.e. the Szerémség and county Valkó in modern Slavonia, and county Bács between the rivers Danube and Tisza, the area east of the Tisza to the south of the Maros river in county Temes, and finally the central part of Transylvania in the valley of the Maros and Küküllő rivers as well as to the northwest of it, in the so-called Mezőség (open land) .The early presence of Hungarian ethnic groups in these territories is shown by early place names (see chapter 3.4.3.!). These territories, especially those in the West in Slavonia and in the Székelyföld (easternmost Transylvania), are specific dialectal entities of Old-Hungarian, showing strong mutual interconnections, but having no close connections to the central dialect areas of Hungarian. 217
