Pages: 227-248

The article deals with the space between the Danube and the northern Adriatic mainly in the 6th and 7th centuries, when this space was transformed from a part of the Roman Empire in the territory in which they sprung early Slavic principalities. It defines the term Slav, reconstructs the contemporary Slavic identity, gives a brief overview of the material culture of the Slavs, their social organization and legal mechanism of Slavisation. It presents a model of Slavic expansion by separate groups, which in the described area lasted for at least three centuries and started no later than in the first third of the 6th century.

Keywords: Slavs, Vlachs, 6th—7th centuries, Eastern Alps, Pannonia, settlement, economy, social organisation, župa, pottery, slavisation.

Information about author:

Andrej Pleterski (Ljubljana, Slovenia). Full professor, doctor of archaeology, doctor of history and doctor of ethnology. Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). Novi trg 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E-mail: [email protected]