The Khazar Economy: Economic Integration or Disintegration? 181
4.2 The Beginning of the Sedentarization Process in the Khazar Lands
In M. Artamonov’s view, “the most remarkable phenomenon in Khazaria’s his-
tory during the eighth century was the considerable spread of a sedentary way
of life and the agriculture, related to it,—not only in the old agricultural areas
of the Caucasus foothills and the mountains of the Southern Crimea [.. .], but
also in the maritime areas of the Eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula,
and along the lower reaches of the Kuban and Don Rivers [.. .] Moreover, sed-
entary agriculture occurred deep in the steppe zone and particularly in the
forest steppe it bordered, where for many centuries the only inhabitants were
nomads and where nothing of the sort had existed, both before the Huns and
after them”.49 This process is usually referred to as “mass sedentarization”. It
is assumed that prior to the eighth century, only the Scythians of the Third
Scythian Kingdom settled down en masse (on the threshold between the third
and the second centuries BC).50
Among the nomadic societies of the steppe region, mass sedentarization
is indeed a rare phenomenon. The reasons for this are many, but the most
important one (apart from the climatic impact)51 probably is the fact that the
nomads did not want to abandon their habitual way of life. The nomadic tribes
have in a way always practiced a sedentary way of life. But the ones who settled
down constituted only a small part of the population and as a rule were forced
to engage in agriculture due to poverty. Such involuntary and often temporary
settlement was patronized by the wealthier segments of society. The seden-
tary nomads, however, were ’marginal’ members of society and lost important
privileges and protection rights. They were therefore willing to return, when
possible, to nomadism.52 From this perspective, a mass sedentarization sig-
nified a change in the nomadic way of thinking and the destruction of their
traditional value system. Such a process meant that the nomadic society itself
had disintegrated.53
The unsuitability of the steppe territory for the development of agriculture
is the reason why mass sedentarization was most often the result of a migra-
tion beyond the steppe zone. It could be gradual, stretching over a prolonged
49 Artamonov 1962, 235.
50 Khazanov 1975, 13, 248–249, and 259–261; see also Noonan 1995–1997, 294.
51 Climate as a factor in the development of the steppe economy will be discussed later on.
52 Khazanov 1975, 150–151; Khazanov 1994, 83–84 and 199.
53 Khazanov 1994, 199.