Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 29/3. (2009)
Fábián István: Artefacts and Ethnic Group sin the North-Danubian Area int he 4th-7th Centuries
162 FÁBIÁN ISTVÁN the horizontal plan of tribal differentiation5. This would mean that a great variety of archaeological discoveries (i.e. fibulae) cannot be taken into account. The typologies established by modern archaeology do not necessarily reflect the perception of the individuals in the Late Antiquity and if there are literary sources, they may refer to a certain artefact that is very hard match with the modern terminology. That is why the regional material cultures can be defined only statistically and they do not give the evidence of an individual ethnic identity. Many times, the archaeological discoveries do not belong to a certain ethnic unit but to much larger populations6. In modern terminology this ethnic units are defined as “Germanic populations” or “aliens” or “nomads”, terms which correspond, more or less, with the antique Huns, Goths or other Germanic populations. Pohl considers that we are dealing with “cultural terms” in spite of the ethnic vocabulary used to describe them. This description is rather large, a specific example being the Santana de Mure§ - Cernjachow culture with its great variety of hardly distinguishable ethnic groups7. So where is the answer in the ethnic assignment of certain categories of objects? A more or less valid answer could be in the massive number of import objects (or objects made with import technologies), number which can be related to a certain ethnic group. For instance, the half-disk fibulae are assigned to the Sántana de Mure§ - Cernjachow populations, being one of the most used objects to date this material culture although in its evolution many influences can be traced, from Roman to Nordic ones. Likewise, the digited-fibulae represent a classic case of a helping element in ethnic assignment. Although they are realised under Roman (technological) influence, they become so specific both to Germanic populations and to Slavic tribes that they are called as such: Slavic or Germanic digited fibulae. The situation in the case of Zwiebelknopfibeln, the fibula with spearshaped foot, the buckles or different types of jewellery is clear enough as long as they were discovered in obvious archaeological contexts. These import objects, or made with import technologies, are made according to the owner’s taste and represent a certain political and cultural trend (if we are to analyse the Zwiebelknopffibeln, the onyx fibulae from $imleul Silvaniei or the hoard from Pietroasa) as material elements of some power centres and imitatio imperii8. Coming to these categories we reach another issue: the royal treasures, an issue largely debated in modern Western European historiography. The royal barbarian treasures were seen as an important material base for territorial domination not only because of their intrinsic value, but also through their symbolistics. Although the great majority of the studies refer to Western Europe, we think that the territories situated on the northern shore of the Danube River made no exception from the general rule concerning the royal treasures. The great majority of researchers link these treasures to power centres in alliance with the Empire. Hardt offers other possibilities which appear as unsuspected: beyond the classical hypothesis of the war spoils, there appears the possibility of the role played by these treasures as 5 Pohl - Reimnitz 1998, 41. 6 Pohl - Reimnitz 1998, 41. Often the categories that emerge most clearly from archaeological evidence do not correspond to ethnic units (like Franks, Huns Visigoths) but to broader populations. 7 Pohl - Reimnitz 1998, 41. 8 Pirenne 1933; Claude 1973, 242-246; Hardt 1998, 257-261.
