Linguistic and Cultural Dynamics in a Frontier Society

By synthesizing new data and offering novel analyses of the early medieval
landscape in a region of shifting political and cultural boundaries, this volume
traces how and when interactions developed among socially distinct groups across
‘Bavaria Slavica’ and Western Bohemia. Historical-linguistic analyses of
Germanic and Slavic place names and lexical material are brought into dialogue
with evidence for settlement processes – including new radiocarbon dating of
Carolingian-Ottonian grave sites – within a shared geographic framework through
GIS-based spatial analysis. Individual chapters address toponymy,
historical-linguistic interpretation, and material culture, complemented by a
Slavic lexicon reconstructed from the toponymic record of ‘Bavaria Slavica’.
Taken together, these studies provide an integrated basis for analyzing
settlement and contact processes and offer a methodological template applicable
to the investigation of frontier zones in other regions and periods.

• Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
• Edited by Tomáš Klír
• Edited by Nicolas M. Jansens