Idea behind the project

The huge collection of archaeological and anthropological finds and records that has been assembled in Moravia over the past 70 years in the course of an extensive empirical research has a great potential for the investigation of the dynamics of early medieval large-scale polities and populations. However, in order to be able to efficiently use this potential, we need to change our theoretical points of departure and enrich the future research with new comparative and interdisciplinary approaches, such as digital morphometry or genetic analysis. The traditional “ethnic paradigm” will be replaced in our project by collective action theory, which understands ethnogenesis as a strategy to manage intensifying competition for valuable resources when the larger political environment is chaotic and as a productive path to enhancing cooperation of various groups of different origins in the challenging contexts between the core and peripheral zones of a world system (Blanton 2015; DeMarrais - Earle 2017). The new approaches allow us to analyse diversity and changes in the early medieval population as well as in the material culture. We believe in an empirical and theoretical shift in European early medieval archaeology and anthropology, where the application of collective action theory (Furholt - Grier - Spriggs et al. 2019) or genetics (Amorim - Vai - Posth et al. 2018; Krzewińska - Kjellström - Günther et al. 2018; Schiffels - Haak - Paajanen et al. 2016) is still rare. The combination of the strong theory and the scientific methods will dismiss epistemological problems with the traditional “ethnic paradigm” (Brather 2011) as well as with the biological determinism and the simplification of the complexity of the past, which has recently been strongly criticised (Heyd 2017). Thanks to the re-evaluation of the seven decades long empirical research we will now be able to integrate the data from Central Europe into the new stream of global comparative research into premodern state formations (Blanton - Fargher 2008). With our project we offer a pilot study, which could later be extended into the broader European project (ERC).

Current state of knowledge

Previous researches into early medieval society in Moravia were based on a traditional approach to archaeology focusing on the historical explanation of archaeological and anthropological evidence. Within this paradigm, most of the social changes were explained either by migration or with the help of top-down models positing hierarchical control by elites.
The Slav predecessors of the Moravians were thought to have migrated en masse to Central Europe from the east in the 6th century (from the Slavs’ homeland in the central and upper Dnieper region) and Great Moravia was thought to have been established in the 9th century by the decision of the social elites using Christianisation as a power tool (Brather 2008, 66-71; Třeštík 2000). The multi-ethnic character of the society was never taken into consideration, because the traditional and national “ethnic paradigm” had dominated the “Slavic archaeology” for decades (Brather 2011).
In the second half of the first millennium AD, the territory of today’s Moravia (the eastern part of what is now the Czech Republic) underwent a deep transformation culminating after the year 1000 in the establishing of the stable political and social structures of the High Middle Ages (the Czech Přemyslid principality in Moravia from 1029). Although a similar evolution was taking place across the whole wide area between the Frankish and Byzantine empires, it exhibited a number of regional differences. Every large- and small-scale society that existed during the Early Middle Ages needs to be analysed in its own terms. A specific feature of Moravia in that period was the shared habitus (incl. own language) of its inhabitants, labelled traditionally as Slavic (Dzino 2010; Parczewski 2004).
It is assumed that in Moravia, an open, ranked society with a lower standard of living (6th-7th century) was replaced by a hierarchically structured, closed society in which a noble class with birth rights had emerged (9th-10th century). The culmination of this social development was the emergence of Great Moravia (Megale Moravia, Magna Moravia), as we traditionally refer to the first larger political grouping in Slavic Europe that can be found at the interface of two world systems – between the Carolingian West and the Slavic “outer Europe" in the 9th century (Curta 2009a; Goldberg 2006, 138; Wickham 2005, 47; 2009). Its inhabitants, the Moravians (Sclavi Marahenses according to Annales Fuldenses, 871 AD), formed their own semi-peripheral nation. They were also among the first Christianised Slavic-speaking groups in Europe (Sommer - Třeštík - Žemlička 2007).

Objectives of the Project

The main objective of the project is to investigate the formation and dynamics of the early medieval Moravian polity and population over an extended period of time (from the 6th to the 10th century). Our research is focused on social and ethnic group building, variation in the nature of leadership and on the collective–autocratic variability of governance. The scale and the nature of socioeconomic networks – e.g. kinship or the interplay between the powerful and the disempowered (leaders and followers) will be the key variables for understanding of such social processes.

• How did the local-scale of social and ethnic group building (Blanton 2015) evolve within Moravian territory under the chaotic conditions of the Migration period and the Early Middle Ages and on the frontier zone between multiple world systems (Carolingian, Slavic and Nomadic)?
  
  Hypotheses to be corroborated: a) The predecessors of the Moravians arrived in Central Europe during ¨the massive migration from the east and their homogeneous population overlaid the earlier populations and their culture; b) the ethnogenesis of the Moravians may be the result of dramatic social and political transformations taking place in the lands inhabited by the local populations without any migration c) the ethnogenesis of the Moravians is the result of enhancing cooperation of various groups of differing origins – local as well as migratory.

 

• How was the power of the Moravian principals distributed – by governmental offices at the centre of governance or by individuals, their families and cults of personality? What was the basis of succession? Was it through kinship or primogeniture, which would reflect concentrated power, or more open processes (Feinman 2018)?
  
  Hypotheses to be corroborated: a) power in the Moravian polity was concentrated in one leader or family through kinship or primogeniture; b) the power of principals was more widely distributed among governmental offices, which controlled the “bottlenecks” or constriction points within systems of production or distribution; c) monopoly control was not possible, and the Moravian polity emerged from compromise and negotiation, when farmers, merchants, and artisans joined local associations to promote and to protect their shared interests.

 

• How to fill the gap separating bottom-up approaches from top-down explanations? What do the archaeological remains recovered from household excavations of Moravian settlements reveal about the conditions of daily life? What can we say about kinship and social ties recovered from Moravian burial grounds (DeMarrais - Earle 2017)? Can we estimate the size and diversity of social networks depending on elite or non-elite status?
  
  Hypotheses to be corroborated: a) the social and settlement structure of Early Medieval Moravia was formed by an enforced centralisation process and leaders wielded power over others; b) the social and settlement structure of Early Medieval Moravia was formed rather by natural evolution and social ties between rulers and followers and was maintained through gift exchange, shared ritual, compromise and negotiation

 

• Where can we place early medieval Moravian society on the “collective – autocratic” scale based on cross-cultural comparative analysis? How did this position change in the period from the 6th to the 10th centuries (Blanton 2009)?
  
  Hypotheses to be corroborated: a) the Moravian polity moved from more collective to more autocratic forms of governance within the Early Middle Ages; b) the Moravian polity moved in the opposite direction; c) the form of governance has not changed in Moravia during the entire Early Middle Ages​

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