Istvánovits Eszter: International Connections... (Jósa András Múzeum Kiadványai 47. Aszód-Nyíregyháza, 2001)
Halina Dobrzanska: Contacts between Sarmatians and the Przeworsk Culture community
Contacts between Sarmatians and the Przeworsk Culture community Halina Dobrzanska The studies of archaeological evidence confirming the contacts between Sarmatian peoples and the population of the Przeworsk Culture inhabiting a remarkably vast territory of southern and central Poland in the Roman Period were inspired by the latest results from research conducted on the high-status elite grave in Giebultów (fig. 1: a) north of Cracow (DOBRZANSKA 1996; DOBRZANSKA-WIELOWIEJSKI 1997). Some artefacts yielded by that assemblage have been identified as being linked with the Sarmatian cultures in the northwestern part of the Black Sea region. In the archaeological publications on this subject, questions concerning the presence of Sarmatians on the Polish territory were discussed in detail in the works of T. Sulimirski (SULIMIRSKI 1961/62; SULIMIRSKI 1979, 188 ff). Regrettably, due to the fact that the author's argumentation was found to be less than convincing, the issue did not engender any serious discussion among Polish archaeologists. We intend to present our own, slightly different point of view on the subject, without referring to past opinions. The Sarmatians were a nomadic people of Iranian origin who had formerly inhabited the steppes beyond the Volga and the Aral-Ural steppes. Later, they occupied the regions on the Volga and Don, the North Caucasus and the territories between the Don and Dnieper. As they were moving westwards, they gradually drove out the Scythians. At the turn of the millennium, the Sarmatian peoples began to invade and occupy the territory between the Dnieper and the estuary of the Danube. Their culture flourished on the steppes of the northwestern part of the Black Sea coast in the 1 ST c. Fig. 1 Central and Eastern Europe around the first half of the 1 st c. A.D. 1: cemetery in Giebultów (drawn by I. Jordan)
