Eric Breuer is a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and historian. He studied archaeology and history at the Universities of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Fribourg , neighboring_municipalities= Düdingen, Givisiez, Granges-Paccot, Marly, Pierrafortscha, Sankt Ursen, Tafers, Villars-sur-Glâne , twintowns = Rueil-Malmaison (France) , website = www.ville-fribourg.ch , Location of , Location of () () o ...

and

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

. He discovered the Roman

vicus In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus r ...

Eriskirch Eriskirch is a municipality in the Bodensee district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. History Eriskirch was a possession of the Free City of (now Friedrichshafen) until it was annexed by the Electorate of Bavaria in 1803. In 1810, it was ceded ...

(

Lake Constance Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...

), and conducted widespread research on early Medieval archaeology, archaeology of Roman provinces, Avar archaeology, and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

history. His main interest was the relative chronology of Roman and early medieval times.

Childhood and youth

Only scarce information can be found about his childhood and youth. It seems, that he spent his early years at Munich and the Lake Constance region. Already from early ages he was interested in archaeology. At the age of 8 he discovered an ancient building at the Roman settlement of

Argen The Argen is a river in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It flows into Lake Constance between Kressbronn am Bodensee and Langenargen as the third largest tributary to the lake. It is long; if one includes the Obere Argen and its source river See ...

by unearthening potsherds of samian ware. At the age of 13 he joined the local museum.

Life as an archaeologist

Already before his university studies, he was surprised about the total lack of Roman towns north of lake constance, dure to the massive density in southern region with ancient towns like Taxgaition, Constantia, Arbor felix, Ad Rhenum,

Confluentes Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its name ...

Brigantion Bregenz (; gsw, label= Vorarlbergian, Breagaz ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switze ...

and

Clunia Clunia (full name ''Colonia Clunia Sulpicia'') was an ancient Roman city. Its remains are located on Alto de Castro, at more than 1000 metres above sea level, between the villages of Peñalba de Castro and Coruña del Conde, 2 km away f ...

. By analyzing topographical situations of already known ancient towns, he worked out a list of characteristic topographical features of Roman vici. Based on this list, Breuer did widespread archaeological surveys at lake constance region. As a result he managed to discover an (in modern times totally unknown) Roman vicus at river

Schussen The Schussen is a tributary of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), which drains to the Rhine, in the southern portion of Upper Swabia in Baden-Württemberg (Germany). Course From its source, not far from the Lake Feder, around 1.5 kilometers nort ...

near today's village of

, where buildings with preserved ancient wood were excavated by him. In 2001 Breuer discovered a slightly separated part of the settlement with pottery kilns, already lying on the eastern side of river Schussen at Mariabrunn, more than half a mile eastern the first discovered pottery area. In 2012 he managed even to localize the Roman

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

of the first century AD of the ancient village. Studying

Claudius Ptolemaios Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

' ''Geography'', he stated further, that because Ptolemy didn’t realize the sharp bend of the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

, many

Raetian Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which were ...

towns are located by Ptolemy at the wrong position. Because also some towns like Cambodunum and

Abodiacum Abodiacum or Auodiacum ( grc, Ἀβουδίακον) or Abuzacum was a town of Vindelicia, probably coinciding with the modern Epfach on the river Lech, where remains of Roman buildings are still extant. The stations, however, in the Itinerari ...

are presented as being located much too eastern, he came to the conclusion, that there should be a big unknown ancient town called “Drusomagus” located by Ptolemy in the Lake Constance region, corresponding to the more western already known

Iuliomagus Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The inha ...

. Beneath this study on ancient vici he did also surveys on ancient villae rusticae. On the field of Early Medieval archaeology, Breuer published a new chronological system, based on earlier works of F. Daim and J. Zabojnik. As it seems, it is based on his thesis about chronology of the Avar cemeteries of Üllő and Janoshida. Contrary to early eastern European archaeologists, like I. Kovrig and others, Breuer favoured the idea that changes in ornaments and manufacturing of belts are not signs of new arriving ethnic groups in the

Carpathian Basin The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...

, but simply changes of fashion and lifetime of certain processes of production of goods - and not ethnic conclusions. As a result chronological horizons get at Breuer's work the meaning of starting, increasing, decline and end of fabrications of certain types of small findings.Eric Breuer, ''Byzanz an der Donau'', 2005, page 6-9.

References

Sources

* page 80. * Meyer, M. Ein römerzeitliches Gräberfeld bei Mochenwangen. Fundberichte aus Baden-Württemberg 27, 2003, Reference 11. * Bilamboz, A. Der Stand der Dendrochronologie für die Römerzeit in Baden-Württemberg. Festschr. Planck. Stuttgart 2009 page 669, 675. *Fiedler U., ez. zu Breuer, Eric: Byzanz an der Donau :eine Einführung in Chronologie und Fundmaterial zur Archäologie im Frühmittelalter im mittleren Donau-Raum. Eurasia antiqua 19, 2013,175-178. * Pleterski A., Eric Breuer, Byzanz an der Donau. Arheoloski Vestnik 58, 2007, 464. * Migotti B., Eric Breuer, Byzanz an der Donau, Vjesnik Arheoloskog muzeja u Zagrebu XXXIX, 2006, 3, 260-262. * Ungerman, Šimon., Breuer, E: Byzanz an der Donau. Archeologické rozhledy, 2006, 58, 368-374. * Meyer, M.G.M. Die laendliche Besiedlung von Oberschwaben zur Roemerzeit. Materialhefte zur Archaeologie in Baden-Württemberg 85. (Stuttgart 2010) page 160-172, 281-282, 299-300. * https://web.archive.org/web/20110531194925/http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php/Aquincum * https://web.archive.org/web/20110531195003/http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php/Keszthely_(Kultur) * https://web.archive.org/web/20110531195009/http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php/Pannonien_(Provinz) * https://web.archive.org/web/20110531195014/http://eeo.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php/Pannonii {{DEFAULTSORT:Breuer, Eric Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Swiss archaeologists