Istvánovits Eszter (szerk.): A nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve 57. (Nyíregyháza, 2015)
Régészet - Lőrinczy Gábor: Újabb adatok Hajdú-Bihar megye avar kori lelőhelyeihez I. Megjegyzések a terület kora avar kori történetéhez
Lőrinczy Gábor To-date we know Avarian burials or cemeteries and parts of settlements from almost 100 sites coming from 133 settlements of the county. Judging from this, not only the number of towns and villages has increased from where Avarian settlements or cemeteries were found only in the last decades, but during this period the amount of Avarian sites has grown by one third. Preventive excavations conducted in the county (preceding construction works of motorways and by-pass roads, gas pipelines, industrial parks) on large surfaces brought a lot of significant achievements considering Avarian Age. As a result, cemeteries-frequently completely excavated -with numerous, well observed and recorded burials, archaeological, anthropological and archaeozoological material of great source value got to museums. From the new excavations we can get a more authentic picture of life and world of beliefs of an Avarian community and more than that: this quantity of new information makes it possible to compare different communities in detail. Taking into consideration all these, it is obvious that I am not in the position of writing the Avarian Age history of the territory of Hajdú-Bihar County either. Given the-earlier unthinkableenormous amount and complexity of the Avarian find material, this task can be fulfilled only with a new type of division of labour. Real results can be reached only by joined efforts of excavating archaeologists and specialists of the age, coordinating the work in the frames of a special project lasting for long years. With the present study I would like to contribute to the future regional summarising work. My goal is to review the presently known Early Avarian sites, to interpret and evaluate them according to our present knowledge. Due to this, I completed the evaluation of the presented grave finds and burial customs mainly from a relatively small region, the Hajdúság and Nyírség withdrawing graves and cemeteries from a larger region, Tiszántúl (the territory east of river Tisza). In my opinion such regional level analyses can give a firm base for creating a more detailed and tinged settlement history of the wider region, the Tiszántúl and later that of the Carpathian Basin. Gábor Lőrinczy e-mail: lorinczyg@gmail.com 176
