The Lombard Invasion

The Lombard invasion of Byzantine Italy was a pivotal event in Venetian history.

The invasion, and the conquests that followed, led to an increased importance of the lagoon settlements, to a slow demise of Byzantine control in north-east Italy, to the establishment of a semi-independent church in the lagoons, and ultimately to Venetian statehood.

The Lombard invasion, and the subsequent migration of parts of the mainland residents into the lagoons, became a central part of the later Venetian national narrative — the stories they told to explain where they came from and who they were.

#Avars #Gepids #histodons #Invasions #Lombards #Plague #Venezia #Venice

Read more here: https://historywalksvenice.com/article/early-venice/the-lombard-invasion/

Another cool #openaccess study about Late Antiquity / Early Middle Ages (my favourite historical period): "Demography and life histories across the Roman frontier in Germany 400–700 ce" (see end of post for full citation and DOI link).

Perhaps expectedly, the population in this region in Central Europe turned out to be very diverse and subject to change, but at the same time consistent in many key cultural traits. Change and continuity - what else is new?

Well, I'm always on the lookout for traces of my steppe nomad darlings, so imagine my joy when I spotted the following:

"... a male from Altheim (Alh_245; 528–553 ce) who shares long IBD segments with individuals from the Berel necropolis in modern Kazakhstan, derives roughly two-thirds of his ancestry from East Asian sources and one-third from populations of the western Steppe." Atam, what are you doing in Bavaria?

Was he a very late Hun or a very early Avar, or something in between?

"A contemporary male from Wölfersheim (W67) carries similar, albeit less of this Asian ancestry, whereas late fifth century females with artificial cranial deformation (Wh4 and Wh59) lack Steppe-related ancestry and instead exhibit patterns consistent with post-Roman admixture" - The "trend" of artificial cranial modification appears in Central Europe in the mid-400s and correlates with the arrival of the Huns. However, as these findings show, genetics and culture are not necessarily connected - neither in the past, nor today.

Oh, how I would love to know more about all these unique individuals!

Blöcher, J., Vallini, L., Velte, M. et al. Demography and life histories across the Roman frontier in Germany 400–700 ce. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10437-3

#archaeology #steppeancestors #avars #huns #archaeogenetics #iwanttobelieve #lateantiquity #earlymiddleages

I was reading the chapter "A Völva or Seiðmaðr in Finland? Cultural Creolization as a Problem for Interpretations" by Anna Wessman, Frog, and Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson in the book Gendering the Nordic Past: Dialogues between Perspectives (Brepols 2025, p. 121–35).

Imagine my steppe warrior fan fiction drenched surprise when I read the following description of some findings in a 700 AD elite boat burial in southern Ostrobothnia:

"Of the three belt buckles found in the burial one is of eastern origin, probably deriving from the Avarian areas of Hungary or Ukraine."

So cool! Unfortunately, there were no illustrations of this belt buckle, and I failed to find it in Finna.fi (probably just my own incompetence, will try again later).

The Avars arrived in Europe from North-East Asia in the mid-500s AD and established a khaganate in the region of modern-day Hungary, Serbia, Austria and Ukraine that endured until the 800s. They left many elaborately decorated belt sets in their own burials, which makes their style easily recognizable. But how did this belt buckle end up in Finland?

The burial was unearthed in Pukkila, Isokyrö, Finland, and described as "one of the last elaborate burials during the Merovingian period" in the region; a "Scandinavian-type burial" situated in a cemetery context "often associated with Finnic language areas but in a region where the closest genetic matches are not too distant to the modern Sami" (see genetic evidence from the Levänluhta lake burials).

The chapter is available here: https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1961525&dswid=-8292

(It's a bit funny that the belt buckle found in Finland is characterized as "eastern", when the longitude of southern Ostrobothnia is clearly to the east of most of the Avar-ruled territory. "Southern" would be a more accurate geographical description. Of course, the use of "eastern" is cultural here, not geographical.)

#avars #archaeology #occidocentrism

Testing a video share on Mastodon. Part of my Pannonian Avar project. I watched a few videos on Youtube and practiced drawing lance moves. Content warning: Violence.

#drawing #avars #earlymedieval #lancer #speculativehistory #historicalcomics

#GreatRead

❤️ interdisciplinary research

"We found that even 200 years after immigration, the ancestry at one site (Leobersdorf) remained dominantly East Asian-like, whereas the other site (Mödling) shows local, European-like ancestry. These two nearby sites show little biological relatedness, despite sharing a distinctive late-Avar culture."

This DNA analysis meets #archeology article about the #Avars around Vienna has some amazing findings + it is so well written.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08418-5

Archaeoethnologica: ZIRIDAVA Nº 37 - 2023

+INFO in: https://archaeoethnologica.blogspot.com/2024/07/ziridava-n-37-2023.html

#Archaeology #MedievalArchaeology #prehistory #historicalarchaeology #arqueozoology #Avars #materialculture #slavs #BlackSea #EastEurope #agriculture #journal #openaccess

Czech archaeologists unearth unique bronze belt buckle from early Middle Ages

Czech archaeologists from Masaryk University in Brno have revealed a bronze belt buckle dating back to the eighth century, depicting a snake devouring a frog-like creature...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2023/12/bronze-belt-buckle-from-early-middle-ages/

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#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #medieval #middleages #Avars