The World behind the World

Therefore, the methods of exploring the various cultural and temporal levels of multifarious prehistoric worlds at the break of the earliest metal periods in the Inner North-Western Carpathians that were used in this work are essentially a blending of multiple approaches to the sources studied. The methodological instrumentarium used (artefactual archaeology heuristics, prehistoric, environmental, cultural-anthropological, inductive-deductive and cognitive approaches, conservative spatial analyses, etc.) largely reflects the possibilities arising from the current level of exploration of the level of information in individual segments of the issue. Thus, in principle, the spectrum of the methods used can be ranked more like classical approaches, while being aware of the risks associated with the interpretation or reconstruction of past phenomena. Indeed, no interpretation of a dead archaeological culture can be objectified or generalized. It is only a very imaginary explanation of the fragmentary reflection of a living culture after the archaeologization process.

However, the more or less conservative approach to the research of the monitored group of sources was not contingent only on the relativity of the investigated database, but also, to a large extent, on the long-term forming opinion of the authors on the significantly limited research possibilities of some issue segments in the field of traditional artefactual archaeology. At the same time, however, there were more difficulties and embarrassment, especially in the field of applied analytical methods, highlighting the “exactness” of outputs of in-depth analyses of various cultural and socio-group phenomena. The question is whether the work with mathematical-statistical accuracy can solve “all the main problems”, whether studies of this kind can be truly stimulating, but especially which meaningful methods can be reliably applied to archaeological material. Doubts, uncertainty, and ultimately the nature of the sources studied caused that in the work the accent has been put on the use of classical inductive-deductive methods.

In this line, in several chapters of the monograph, the focus of our reflections is shifted from artefactual archaeology to the circle of prehistory (that is perceived as contextual science, comprising applied disciplines from the field of historical sciences, including archaeology), or their mutual intersection. Regarding the methodology, this meant a substantial extension of the research field, which included both the narrow circle of study of archaeological sources and also the disciplines that could significantly exceed this material framework (… the main motivation here was especially the effort to study the issue in a complex way, including both the scientific empiric facts and the sphere of metaphysics or ethics). Here, the chapter on the corded ornament can be an example. Artefactual sources in the form of pottery with corded ornament are examined in different meaning levels. A closely empirical artefact is directly reflected in the field of vision of semiotics, philosophy, art, or ethnology. The broader field of research simultaneously brought new possibilities of interpretation, but also undeniable risks of entering the circle of working hypotheses. Any indications of assumptions or purpose-built interpretations were subjected to collective authorial criticism and elimination.

The excursion to the prehistoric (interdisciplinary) framework of relations of archaeology with related disciplines (history, ethnology, arts, anthropology, philosophy, etc.) during the research of intercultural processes can be perceived as a necessity, as archaeology is positioned directly among natural, social, and artistic disciplines. Considering the authors and the research, the context of archaeology with arts is very attracting and extremely agreeable, not only in the sphere of creative processes of transcription of artefact into the text (information) itself, but especially in the interpretation levels revealing possible levels of its sensitivity (aesthetics). That is, in the spirit of Kantian philosophy and aesthetics, everything that a person physically creates first emerges in human consciousness. The idea may be artistic in nature, but an artefact as its materialized form has rather a meaning of purpose. It is this ambivalence of the artefact that suggests its potential areas of study – information (communication-purpose) and aesthetic (artistic-utility) ones. In addition, the prehistoric artistic field is a much more open personalization space, in which synergy of creative contribution of ancient artist (creator) with intellect of current researcher arises, in difference to mechanical artefactual research of an individual or a narrow circle of specialists.

What does the monograph examine, what is its goal and what could it bring in? Something of this has been suggested by the previous lines. To put it very briefly – the research subject lies primarily in archaeology of migration, i.e., interactions (migration-invasive movements) of the relatively well-known central European world of the incipient early metal period with the parallel and also relatively well-known Eurasian Pontic world, which were studied – in terms of the program – based on archaeological sources. In obtaining knowledge of the Northern Pontic cultural responses (of the Yamna culture predominantly) in the North-Western Carpathian foothills in the Aeneolithic final phases and in the Early Bronze Age, our attention will be paid more or less to some of the attributes and identifiers of eastern origin that appeared in the North Carpathian border zone of the Yamna culture and that hardly can be attributed to local prehistoric communities.

In the past, the topics of intercultural contacts, structure of mobile processes, and consequent socio-cultural interactions on the territory of the Inner North-Western Carpathians at the turn of the Final Aeneolithic and the Early Bronze Age were contributed and many important impulses were brought to the attention by famous personalities of Slovak archaeology – V. Budinský-Krička, A. Točík, J. Vladár, and more recently by J. Bátora in a more concentrated way. At present, on the basis of new knowledge and research methods, J. Vladár and subsequently E. Wiedermann returned to this issue. In separate studies as well as in joint ones (see bibliography), they have drawn their attention especially to the interactions of autochthons settled in the Inner North-Western Carpathians with allochthons flowing to the Carpathians in varying intensity from the Northern Pontic and Lower-Danubian territories. The accent was largely put on the study of processes of diffusion, migration, immigration, invasion, and acculturation, in particular on the exploration of the nature, causes, and consequences of transterritorial population movements.