Introduction

The controversy surrounding the history of the early Slavs, especially their ethnogenesis, refuses to die. Most books treat Slavs as a discrete category requiring description, not explanation. This book presents a fresh look at the (primarily archaeological) evidence from those parts of East Central and Eastern Europe that are farther away from the Lower Danube, namely the present-day territories of Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. It engages very critically with the interpretation of the archaeological evidence from those lands, and questions its association with the “Slavs” that is so often taken for granted. The book reflect more directly the idea that the Slavs were not so much a creation of the 6th-century in the Lower Danube region, but a later, 7th-century creation in East Central Europe. It is based on an updated discussion of key concepts and approaches to ethnicity and the archaeology of ethnicity.