Istvánovits Eszter: International Connections... (Jósa András Múzeum Kiadványai 47. Aszód-Nyíregyháza, 2001)
Mark B. Shchukin: Forgotten Bastarnae
(SHCHUKIN 1989, 284-285, fig. 11; SHCHUKIN 1994, 227-232, ris. 79). The people of the Lipitsa Culture, at least those buried in the cemetery of Verhniaia Lipitsa, were perhaps representatives of the Dacian population that moved north under the pressure of the Roman troops of Domitian in 88 A.D. Another change in the ethnic situation probably took place in the Carpathian-Dniester region, although the details of this process remain unknown. One of the most attractive objects of the period was excavated by Kozak in the cemetery of Grinev (KOZAK 1982). It is an open-work bronze decoration of a sword sheath with representations of a love scene, a horseman with a shield, a griffin and others (SHCHUKIN 1989, 425; SHCHUKIN 1994, ris. 80). Judging from its style and technique, this object combined some features of Celtic, Roman, Thracian and Sarmatian art. We lack the space here to investigate all of them, but as for the last mentioned motif (the representation of the griffin), we can see a certain similarity with open-work decorations of belts found in the Northern Caucasus (TEKHOV 1969). It is very important that the find of the sword sheath was joined in the Grinev assemblage by a fibula of the Almgren type 67-68, which, as is well known, was in fashion in the 20s-70s of the 1 st c. A.D. (KOSSACK 1962; SHCHUKIN 1994, 39). In fact, the assemblage from Grinev is perhaps the best reflection of the historical-ethnicsocial situation in the middle of the 1 st c. A.D. in Eastern Europe, where the Bastarnae were still active. As for the preceding events, the period of existence for the Zvenigorod Group corresponds with the composition of important political events and demographical processes of the mid-l st c. A.D.: the westward movements of various Sarmatian tribes, the formation of Pharzoios' kingdom, the destruction of the Zarubintsy Culture, and so on. I have attempted several times to reconstruct a common account of the events (SHCHUKIN 1989, 302-326; SHCHUKIN 1994,185-244), and space prohibits a repetition. The collapse of the Zarubintsy Culture caused by the Sarmatian invasion had especially profound consequences. The Zarubintsy population dispersed in different directions: northwest to the forests of the Desna basin, east to the Upper Don, west as far as the West Bug. The latter migrants met Przeworsk and Zvenigorod populations on the territories of Volhynia and the Upper Dniester; it was here in the second half of the 1 st c. A.D. that the so-called Zubra Group formed, combining Zarubintsy and Przeworsk elements (KOZAK 1992). If we take into account the Zarubintsy elements in the pottery found at the settlements of the Zubra Group, we find that at least 30-70% of the vessels repeat Zarubintsy and Post-Zarubintsy forms (KOZAK 1992, ris. 31-32). Kozak concludes that the population of the Zubra Group took in and assimilated the population of the Zarubintsy Culture, mainly from the Pripjaf basin, who had moved westwards under Sarmatian or ecological pressure. If he is right, we can reconstruct the following picture. Perhaps the descendants of the Zarubintsy-Bastarnian population who moved eastwards soon lost their name and language, becoming the Venedi (SHCHUKIN 1998), but those who moved westward might have preserved their name, language and Bastarnian ethnic identity.
