The Eastern Alps revisited

The Eastern Alps underwent major transformations in the transition from late Antiquity to the middle Ages. As historical and archaeological sources show, the late antique province of Noricum Mediterraneum of the late 5th and beginning 6th c. presented itself as typically Roman - provincial. After the Gothic wars and the Lombard conquest of large parts of the Italic peninsula, the Eastern Alps disappeared from the sources. In the 7th c. only very sparse information is available, indicating that the area was controlled by Slavic groups and attached, more or less firmly, to the Avar Khaganate centred in Pannonia. The archaeological findings decreased and are quite ambiguous. However, in the 8th and 9th c. the region reappears in the written sources as a Slavic and pagan realm. Also the archaeological findings become more numerous and noteworthy. Traditionally this transformation from Roman province to barbarian territory was explained by the Avar and Slavic conquest around 600, was called "Landnahme" and reported to be accompanied by a complete change of population. Today`s research prefers a "multi-ethnic" concept with traces of continuity. Nevertheless, the course and mechanisms of this transformation are still fairly unknown. New studies demonstrate that the roots of the changes indicated above can be traced back to the middle of the 6th c., a time, where Slavs or Avars where not yet near the Alpine region. What, then, caused these changes? What impact had these transformations and the following developments on the population of the 6th c.? Were the elites destroyed and new ones formed? Might there have been a connection between them? What influence did this have on the perception and self-perception of the Eastern Alpine population - both indigenous and immigrant? How can we define the identity of this population? The written sources of that time always used labels that had more than one meaning and purpose. In the Eastern Alps it was above all the Salzburg Mission that produced the surviving written sources - how trustworthy are these accounts? And last but not at all least: what was the economic base of the Eastern Alpine population and why were the elites quite wealthy, according to historical and archaeological sources, both in the 6th as again in the 8th c.? And why is there no trace of wealth in the 7th c.? The detailed historical and archaeological analysis of the Eastern Alpine region from the 6th to the 9th c. can provide a key to the explanation of this transition. Because of the scarceness of the sources in these centuries, only a combined research strategy and synthesis of archaeology and history can shed some light on the processes of transformation and will lead to a better understanding of the formation of the Eastern Alpine medieval societies. Close cooperation between these disciplines will lead to new interdisciplinary methods and therefore result in a large gain of knowledge. As a consequence, this project will be lead by a historian - M. Diesenberger - and an Archaeologist - C. Theune- Vogt. Both co-workers of the project already did extensive research about the Eastern Alps: K. Winckler`s historical research about the Alps from 500 to 800 dealt a lot with the Eastern Alps (monograph to be published, two Articles 2010 and 2011). S. Eichert has written a Monograph (2010) as well as various articles about the early medieval archaeology of Carinthia. Based upon this work they created a combined list of questions, serving as a starting point for the proposed project.

The project consisted of an archeological and an historical part and dealt with pivotal questions of the history of the Eastern Alps between the 6th and 9th c..Historical part: The life of St. Severin, written in the beginning of the 6th c. is often seen as the final moment of the Roman Empire north of the Alps. But the migration of the Romans narrated in the text cannot be understood as the movement of larger population groups.The bavarian sources of the 8th c. show that in the duchy still some roman traditions were alive, for example in name-giving, language or certain legal concepts. As groups speaking a romance language were never addressed as one coherent group in the sources, it seems that a certain kind of Romanness was an integrated part of the Bavarian duchy. But there were also ruptures, for example in the Christian organization of the area. In the 8th century a new, ecclesiastical elite began to appear: the newly founded bishop-seats and their dioceses. It is well visible in the written sources how the bishops of Freising and Salzburg started to expand their area of influence in the Eastern Alps. The struggle between the ecclesiastical institutions over space resulted in the emergence of new routes that could be outlined in this project. For the Carantanian part of the eastern Alps we have only scarce sources in the 8th c., most of them stemming from the south. This confirms the theory that not before the beginning of the 9th c. the affiliation to Bavaria was definitely fixed. Only then the area begins to appear much more often in Bavarian written sources.Archaeological part: The transformations of the roman province to the early medieval principality and further to Carolingian counties could be observed on several levels. Regarding the burials it could be shown that after a simple social structure from 700 onward a local elite became visible. They buried the dead according to certain patterns. After the Christianization this pattern burials in pagan burial mounds are replaced by Christian founders graves in churches, often belonging to the family. Also after the incorporation of Carantania into the Carolingian realm the Slavic elites kept their high social position. In this time also the material culture began to show significant traits in the non-ferrous metal industry that is different to the time before in its brass alloy. Also it could be demonstrated that ethnic and national categories used for the different population groups in this time were developed in the Enlightenment and projected back, which makes a differentiated viewpoint necessary. Both project parts worked on a joint Database with archeological objects and historical data and drafted a first concept for an online-visualisation. This concept eventually led to a follow-up proposal with a larger, interdisciplinary team for another project, Digitising Patterns of Power, which was financed by the OEAW in 2014.