Ethnic Origins of the Bulgars

This mixed population, speaking most probably Slavic, was prepared for an expansion to the south-west, as shown by isolated finds of Penkovka pottery in early Byzantine forts [32]. Forced soon after that to leave in its entirety its Dnepr settlements, most probably as a result of the expansion of the Khazars, it was content to find itself under the control of the group of Asparukh, looking for assurances of its safety. Asparukh had probably brought (or swept along) much more Indo-European than Turkic speakers, and that is why the Türks proper had easily lost their language in such an environment. The Turkic tradition, chiefly in its spiritual forms, military-administrative structures, names and titles was preserved by the ruling elite, who occupied predominantly the Pliska plain. A massive presence of proper Slavic and Slavicised Iranian population can more convincingly explain some widely known by unconvincingly interpreted so far facts of the early stage of the Bulgarian culture:
  1. The ubiquitous Slavic toponymy of the central region of the Bulgarian state;
  2. The Slavic names of the capitals Pliska and Preslav;
  3. The few Turkic remains in the Bulgarian language;
  4. The non-conflicting bi-rituality of the Bulgarian burials of the VIII-IX c. AD;
  5. The rapid consolidation of the Bulgarian ethnos which was a reality long before 865 AD and which was only formally legitimised by the adoption of Christianity.