Armament And Society 385
Much less information is available for spearheads, with only 59 burials with
sufficient anthropological data, with 23 of them dating to the Early phase, two
graves being known from the Middle phase and 34 from the Late phase. The
low number of Early Avar burials is a consequence of the deposition of spear-
heads mainly with horse burials, whilst in the Middle phase the small number
of spearheads limits viable examination, resulting in only the quantity of avail-
able data for the Late phase being regarded as sufficient.
The diagram shows a similar result in the case of edged weapons, with most of
the spearheads having been deposited in adult burials during the Early phase
(between 20–40 years of age), while the Late phase is characterised by twice as
many spearheads having been deposited in mature (40–60 years of age) burials
as in adult ones. More infant burials are known with spearheads as adolescent
burials (between 14 and 23 years of age), which is an interesting phenome-
non that probably demonstrates the high status of the children buried with
such weapons.
This phenomenon is even more striking if we consider that youths between
14 or 23 years old would have been physically suitable for fighting, while the
rate of men over 40 years old is very high for both kinds of weapon. Even in
senile burials (over 60 years old) more close combat weapons were found than
in juvenile graves. As a result the deposition of weapons in burials was much
more closely associated with social maturity than with fighting ability.
DIAGRAM 21 Distribution of polearms according to the age of deceased in the Avar Age.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
infant juvenile adultmaturesenile
Avar Age
Early Avar
Middle Avar
Late Avar
