The Closest Hinterland of Great-Moravian Centre in Mikulčice - Development and Social-Economical Structure

The project represents a contribution to economic and social matters of Great Moravia, the first state of Slavs. The processing of this theme was evoked by surprising results of recent research in close vicinity of Mikulčice. Previous phase of large exposures in Mikulčice during the years 1954 - 1992 was oriented to the fortified centre itself, together with its churches, rich burial grounds and further evidences of courtly culture. To the contrary, new research strives to recognize castle hinterland, e.g. the settlement that ensured basic functions for early medieval power centre. Just the alimentation of estimated 1 - 2 thousand of inhabitants in the centre required well-organized economic hinterland. The question is, whether its structure could be similar to service organization as it is typical for economical system of later early medieval states in Middle-East Europe. Description of the matters is based on archaeological and anthropological analyses of several settlements and burial grounds coming from the ninth century. The project includes also new field work that maps the settlement in the vicinity of the castle. The most important discoveries were made at Kopčany at Slovak side of the agglomeration of Mikulčice. Here, we succeeded to date still existing chapel of St. Margita in 9th century.

Institute of Archaeology of the ASCR (Brno)