Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve (1965) (Pécs, 1966)

Régészet - Kiss, Attila: Pannóniai rómaikori lakossága népvándorláskori helybenmaradásának kérdéséhez

PANNÓNIA LAKOSSÁGÁNAK KONTINUITÁSÁRÓL 121 Contributions to the Problem of the . of Pannónia in the A. In his paper consisting of an introduction, three chapters and conclusion, the author investigates the chances of the survival of the population of one-time Pannónia after the loss of the profvinoe, eventually in the period of the Avars. Chapter I summarizes the political history of the area df Pannónia firam the last decades iof the Remain period to the Avar conquest, on the basis of written sources in the first place. Chapter II deals with the so-called cointiinuity problem from the point of "view Of definition and methodology. The forty years in which the idea of Painnoinian continuity was shaped and its problems were investigated bear out the conclusion that students, lacking a positive definition of this idea, attributed divergent featutfes to it uminaneiy, thus they inclined to regard the results of a special interpretation as statements valid for the whole problem. Therefore the paper suggests a new defihMon of the idea of complex continuity, namely: a population living in a given territory in a given period, characterized by the complex of biological, linguistic and cultural (material and spiritual) features, the latter taken in the widest sense, does not leave the given area as a whole,, an course of the political and economic changes resulting from the appearance and the setflemiant of a population of a different territory; its life goies on parallel to or together with the recently arrived population, amalgamating it or amalgamated by it culturally, linguistically and biologically. The value of the statements made as regards the survival df the Roman-age population in the period of the Migrations depends an the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of archlaelogical data in the first place. In the author's judgiihemt, the data on the late Roman period and the following one, scattered unevenly in space and time, having a simiail representative value, do not support a detailled treatment, thus research ought to be restricted to the main trends of development. Amiong the problems of methodology, archaeological dating of late Roman finds occupies a leading position. This is done on the basis of coins in the first place. However, reurvival of the Roman

—Age Population Period of Migrations Kisis cent research has shown their circulation till the tenth and eleventh centuries. Thus we are entitled to doubt, whether the phenomena, attributed to the fourth century so far, are to be dated rather to the fifth or the sixth, at least in part. Chapter III investigates the chances of survival of the late Roman Pannonian population in the age of Migrations on the basis of written, linguistic, anthropological and archaeological sources, talking them one by one. Written sources do not mention people who have remained in Pannónia but those who have fled. On the other hand, the date of flight imeians a terminus ante quem as regards the survival of those people in the saime place. Thus a written statement on the emigration of a part of Roman inhabitants at the end of the second third of the sixth Century shows that they remained in theis area up to this date. In the early Middle Ages elements of Reman linguistic and topcinymioal material are found in the sources. This seems to prove the survival of a part of the Roman population. (Anthropological sources do not contradict the survival off the Roman^age population in the period of the Migrations; the very low quantitative and qualiiltitive representative value of this material does not support a valid suggestion nevertheless. In the author's view, the valuation of the archaeological source material yields several data of a negative character for the survival of the inhabitants in the age of Migrations. On the basis of archaeological finds the population of Pannónia may be assessed in the fifth and the sixth centuries to the half of the number which might be awaited, regarding the calculations made on the earlier and the later periods. The antecedents off the Keszthely culture, appearing in the age of the Avars and regarded as one of Roiman origin, are missing for the one and a half centuries, connecting it with the Roman times. To the west off the Szombathely—Keszthely—Pécs line one does not find material for the span between 450 and 670 A. D., i e. the Germanic and the early Avar periods. Owing to the inadequate condition of archaeological chronology, one cannot tell,