Slavs in the Making takes a fresh look at archaeological evidence from
parts of Slavic-speaking Europe north of the Lower Danube, including the
present-day territories of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland,
Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
Nothing is known about what the inhabitants of those remote lands called
themselves during the sixth century, or whether they spoke a Slavic
language. The book engages critically with the archaeological evidence
from these regions, and questions its association with the Slavs that
has often been taken for granted. It also deals with the linguistic
evidence--primarily names of rivers and other bodies of water--that has
been used to identify the primordial homeland of the Slavs, and from
which their migration towards the Lower Danube is believed to have
started. It is precisely in this area that sociolinguistics can offer a
serious alternative to the language tree model currently favoured in
linguistic paleontology. The question of how best to explain the spread
of Slavic remains a controversial issue. This book attempts to provide
an answer, and not just a critique of the method of linguistic
paleontology upon which the theory of the Slavic migration and homeland
relies.
The book proposes a model of interpretation that builds upon the idea
that (Common) Slavic cannot possibly be the result of Slavic migration.
It addresses the question of migration in the archaeology of early
medieval Eastern Europe, and makes a strong case for a more nuanced
interpretation of the archaeological evidence of mobility. It will
appeal to scholars and students interested in medieval history,
migration, and the history of Eastern and Central Europe.
