In the 7th and 8th centuries, the development of the local Slavs accelerated. The first Slavic fortified settlements were built in present-day Moravia as early as the last decades of the 7th century. From the end of the 7th century, it is possible to register the rise of a new social elite in Moravia, Slovakia, and Bohemia - the warrior horsemen. The social organization of the local Slavs continued to grow during the 8th century, which can be documented by further building and development of fortified settlements. In Moravia, they unambiguously concentrate around the river Morava. In Slovakia, the oldest Slavic fortified settlements are documented for the last decades of the 8th century. They were exclusively in areas which were not under direct Avar influence, but probably not built only as protection against them, because some of them are also found in northern territories.(Orava, Spiš) Variation in pottery implies the existence of at least three tribes inhabiting the wider region of the northern Morava river in the early 9th century. Settlement complexes from the period were unearthed, for instance, near modern Bratislava, Brno, and Olomouc. Fortresses erected at Bratislava, Rajhrad, Staré Město and other places around 800 evidence the development of local centres of power in the same regions.