 Hello, this presentation is part of the project named Beyond the Borders of the Empire, the Roman power and influence north of the Danube and east of the Rhine. In the beginning, I'd like to say a few words about my opinion on the idea, which is the background of today's discussion, that humanities and social sciences in general have been for quite some time under pressure. I believe this stems from the increasingly practical nature of our society, which reduces all to two simple questions. What concrete results can any activity provide and what is their economic worth? This situation is apparent also in Romania, where no further than two years ago there was a proposal to remove history from middle school curricula. Of course it would have been replaced with other history related topics, but archaeology and in general the more distant past were simply shunned. So the larger question to be answered should be what do archaeology and the social sciences on a larger scale actually provide the society? My answer would be that while technical and natural sciences make individual lives better, humanities and social sciences make society better, where society, where most of the problems stem from. I agree with the premises of today's discussion. Archaeology can help to crystallize local or regional identities. It can help people to feel more attached to their environment and the past, therefore more prone to protecting them. And it can also bring a sense of cohesion in society. But this presentation is not about the benefits. On the contrary, it goes for a bit of caution by presenting what could go wrong if the methods and techniques used to make archaeology useful take a wrong turn. And a perfect example about this is the Santana de Mures-Chenapov culture, dated between the late 3rd, early 4th to late 4th, early 5th century AD. It's area lies between the Carpathian Mountains, the Lower Danube, the Black Sea and the Nipar in modern day Romania, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. Its creation and appearance is linked to the Gothic political dominance of the area. Of course, the area was inhabited by a mixture of many very diverse populations. But today I'd like to speak not about them, nor about the very problematic concept of an archaeological culture, but about the way this whole historical situation and context was used during the 20th century. The problems in the discourse started right with the first discovery of what would be later called the Santana de Mures-Chenapov site. Discovery made by Vyacheslav Vyacheslavic, formerly Čenec Vojka, a Czech archaeologist from Austria, Hungary, who emigrated to the Ukrainian part of the Russian Empire. In 1899 and 1900 he found two cemeteries in Romachky and Čenehov, north from Kiev. A year later, in 1901, he published his discoveries and said that the two sites belonged to a particular culture dated correctly between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD. In his opinion, they were the material remains of the Slavs or proto-Slavs. He actually linked them to the Tripelia site, which he also found, which in his opinion belonged to even earlier Slavs. With the publication in 1912 of Išvan Kovac's excavation at Santana de Mures present-day Romania, it became apparent that some types of artifacts were spread over a large area in late antiquity. The good quality of the publication and the extended abstract in French allowed for many archaeologists to know about the new discoveries and allowed them to be able to compare them. The only problem was that the point of view by which they interpreted the discoveries was influenced by politics. Russian-German and, to some extent, Romanian archaeologists launched different hypotheses according to their stance and the need for the people and their needs. They also tried to provide a meaning for the communities, but by doing so they sometimes sacrificed objectivity. In Germany before the Second World War, there was not a very strong interest for this particular part of history, but it was neither disregarded. For example, Kostina and Erich Blumann in works focused actually on other subjects, wrote that the discoveries between the Carpathians and the Nipper were a proof of the Geopelic past in the area, while Brenna saw them as prequels to the Gothic kingdoms in the Mediterranean. Despite these differences of interpretation, all works shared a common motive. They underlined the German presence and especially dominance in the East. And this particular idea will have very important consequences after a few decades. To be fair, the Goths and the period they stayed north of the Danube were not vital for the whole nationalistic discourse in interwar Germany. However, they did play a part and this is obvious from one particular propaganda film from 1934. It was titled Wir Wander mit dem Ostgermanem. We migrate or wander with the East Germans. Of course, just a few years later, this wandering meant an invasion of the Soviet Union. I must confess that I haven't seen the film, but I believe the title is pretty self-explanatory, as it illustrates how the Germanic history in Eastern Europe was seen as a good enough justification for the occupation of that area in the 20th century. And the archaeological debates about the Santana de Morettinovo culture and its echoes in society and politics were obvious in yet another way. A document dated 16th of December 1941 reveals that during the discussion between Hitler and the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, the two agreed to later rename Simferopol as Gothenburg and Sebastopol as Teodore Hafon. Meanwhile, in interwar Romania, this period of history was more or less ignored, with few exceptions. One of it is the work of Konstantin Ceiliculescu, the Japanese research on the history of Dacia in the early Middle Ages and on the prehistory of the Romanian people, published in 1922, in which he assimilates some of the German ideas regarding the jeopardic influence in this area. The key difference is that instead of underlying the link between the modern Germans and the Jeppets, he postulated that the Romanians were the legitimate successors of the Jeppet legacy. And therefore, Romania had more historical arguments. Bear in mind, please, that this was written in a complicated interwar Transylvanian context. In the Russian Empire and then in the Soviet Union, all the discoveries were presented as being proofs of a pre or proto-Slavic population in the area aforementioned. In the interwar period, new and new sites were found between the Pruth and the Niebuhr. And the first maps of the Santana de Morestina, who culture, were created. Of course, this was also possible because of the rapid industrialization of the country. Russian works revealed many of these sites. These discoveries were enough proof for Boris Ibakov to reaffirm, in 1938 and 1939, not only the Slavic character of the people that lived in this area, but also their artistic and military superiority towards their neighbors. The subject was important in the Soviet Union, also because it was thought to be a cornerstone for finding an answer for maybe the most pressing question in Soviet archaeology at that time, the birthplace of the Slavs. After the Second World War, even if in Germany this type of discourse ceased to be used, in the Soviet Union it continued in full fervor. Even though some, for example, Marietta Kanova, contested the other views, Ibakov called these contestors traitors, of course not legally, but in his articles. And he reaffirmed the Slavic character of the culture in the first monograph. However, a change in perspective is clear in the following decades. Either as a cause or as a consequence of this change, there is a decreasing interest for this time period. Still though, some of the ideas persist for a long time, and traces of this old type of discourse are visible even after the fall of the Soviet Union. In Romania, there was an intensification of the archaeological excavations starting in the 1950s. After the decrease of the Soviet influence, more and more studies were focused on finding the Otokhtanas elements and the continuity of inhabitants in Romania. Therefore, for the Suntana de Moris-Cenapov culture, many of the articles tried to enhance the Carpic North-Tracian background. Some sites were presented as places where Otokhtanas people lived alongside other populations, but whose contributions were glossed over. And this did not happen by chance, as there was some kind of policy of state regarding the modification of historical consciousness and identity of the Romanian people. And this succeeded to some extent, because we can see today decomania in some parts of the Romanian society. And moreover, some reminiscence of this type of view can also be found even in archaeological context. And some catchphrases of the past are maybe subconsciously, maybe consciously, still used from time to time today. It is obvious that most of these interpretations and the problems caused by them are simply not possible today. It is not acceptable now to simply assign an ethical identity to an object. But I still chose to talk about them because all the people who heavily politicized the discourse perhaps thought that they were offering something to the people, a feeling of unity and the link to the territory where they were living. I'm not saying by any means that this desire is bad, on the contrary, but I just wanted to underline the fact that good intentions, if not acted upon very carefully and with a lot of responsibility, can bring about less desirable consequences. I am aware that archaeology has to bring benefits to society and that it can very well be used to help people acknowledge their past, their surroundings, and their heritage. I do believe that archaeology can and should be used to instruct people and to determine them to be better protectors of both their historical and their natural heritage. However, I am equally aware that this whole process is a very delicate one, as it can end up in disaster if other factors take control. And for the Santana de Morestina health culture, given on one hand that it deals with the very beginning of the so-called migration period, and on the other hand, given the political and social context today, there is a clear danger of falling into a trap. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.