First published 1971 © Thames and Hudson Ltd,, London 1971 All Rights Ri No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, Filmset by Kespoos Lid, Colbome, Lanes and 1 INTRODUCTIO ORIGINS THE NOR ronologicalTHE RECOVERY. EARLY SLAVIC SETTLE¢ MENT IN THE UKRAINE AND RUSSIA SLAVIC MIGRATIONS TO CENTRAL: EUROPE AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA Historical evidence Linguistic evidence Archaeological evidence SOCIAL STRUCTURE The joint family Kinship terminology organization RELIGION Temples Gods and their functions NOTES ON THE TEXT SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE PLATES NOTES ON THE PLATES INDEX Molday Gold ornament59, 60 61 62-66 x ae SEK az Silver plaque depicting a falconer Gilt bronze girdle mountings Antler plaque from Mikuléice Bronze-gilt spurs ftom Mikuléice Sword and girdle mounting Semi-subterranean houses, Novotroitskoe Pottery kiln from Nitra Lupka Grave of a Great Moravian chieftain Novotroitskoe hillfort, before excavation Novottoitskoe hillfort, after excavation Ornaments from rich women’s graves Fortifications of Staraja Ladoga Iron and wooden buckets from Stare Mesto Foundations of the palace at Mikuléice Silver ornaments from a hoard at Novotroitskoe Gold ear-rings and a chain Silver and gold ear-tings of Moravian noble women ilver and gold ear-rings from Pohansko Silver earring surmounted by a lamb Gilt and silver buttons or pendants Staraja Ladoga, carving of Perun Triglav, a three-headed god Bronze-gilt tongue-pieces, Mikuléice Tongue-pieces and belt clasp, Mikuléice Bronze crucifix Votive miniature offerings Sacred figures cut out of earth 16 Pottery of C 17 Pottery from Schematic plans 0 from graves of om Chernoles Tron Age wood I ge wooden ploughPIGURES Urn burial from Chernjakhovo, Plan of an Early Slavic village at Rorchak, p. 8 Semi-subterrancan house, plan and cross-section, p. 82 Hand-made pottery of Zhitomir type, p. 82 Hand-made pottery from Ripnev, p. 83 Oramented sherds from the Zhitomir district, p. 85 Pottery from the Zhitomir district, p. 85 Early Slavic villages at Pen'kovka, p. 86 »graphic plan of an Early Slavic village, p. 87 Plan of Early Slavic semi-subterranean dwellings, p. 88 Plan and cross-section of a house at Semenki, p. 88 Biconical vases of Pen’kouka type, p. 89 Map : Slavic tribes and the area of the Saltovo culture, p94 Map : Byelorussia and the Baltic substratum, p. 95 ic tribes of Russia, p. 96 Map : Slavic expansion, p. 107 Women’s hair ornaments, p. 113 Pottery from the settlement at Popin, pp. 114, 115 Map : earliest Slavic settlements, p. 116 Semi-subterranean dwelling, Nitriansky Hrddok, p. 118 Pottery from Nitriansky Hrddok, p. 119 Plan of part of the village at Brezno, p. 123 Early Slavic cremation graves, p. 124 Pottery of Prague type, p. 125 Semi-subterranean dwelling, central Germany, p. 126 Map : early Slavs in Germany, p. 127 Map : distribution of Slavic languages, p. 131 Reconstruction of Novotroitskoe, pp. 144, 145, Reconstruction of Novotroitskoe house, pp. 14 Map : the Great Moravian Empire, p. 14T ‘oman Jakobson of Harvard University invited me to. on the prehistory of the Slavs in the course entitled “ Peoples and Cultures’. This volume covers the period of Protos (prehistoric) and Early Slavs before the formation om Slavic States in the ninth and tenth centuries aD. Now that it; finished, I dedicate The Slavs to Roman Jakobson in commemor- ation of his seventy-fifth birthday in October, 1971. The story of how the original Slavs erupted from a small nuclear territory to spread over large tracts of Europe is one of the most remarkable in the early history of peoples, and provides a particularly challenging topic for the archaeologist. Our know, of the Slavic migration is based on a combination of le historic record and archaeological and linguistic evidence, This provides good indirect proof for many other prehistoric Indo-European migrations for which no written records exist. The challenge of evaluating the tremendous amount of litera ture in the numerous Slavic languages, containing conflicting views on the problem of the Slavic homeland, was akin to a long tip through a jungle. Whether or not I have succeeded i locating it with the aid of the available archaeological and linguistic data, future scholars will judge. Tt was a further challenge to attempt to trace Slavie cultur. elements throughout the Iron Age when their lands were disturbed or occupied by Iranian-speaking peoples and Goths. and to identify the formation of Slavic material culture afte their widespread migrations. For comments on the text of the one fi slavic prel historyintroduction ne story of the Slavs as deciphered from archaeok OP ieocic al, linguistic and folkloristic sources reveals the ingredient of tenacity as the attribute that kindled the Sh; phenomenon, Initially an insignificant, repeatedly subjugated Indo-European group living north of the Carpathian mountains and the middle Dnieper river area, the Slavic farmers through | their persistence managed to survive and ultimately succeeded in occupying a vast territory in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. Their expansion was not episodic like that of the Huns and Avars, it was a colonization. Scholars have bril- liantly deduced the existence of a Proto-Slavic parent language istic evidence. :bout 200 million Slavonicspeaking peoples in the world. Their thirteen separate languages, grouped into 1, southern and eastern blocs, emerged from what appears ¢ language until the ninth century AD. The languages within the respective blocs show close affinities and transitional dialects connecting them can be observed; but there are also countless differences, just as there are between those of one bloc and another. The contemporary Poles, Kashubians, Sorbs (Lusatians), Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Macedo- nians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Russians and Byelorussians possess individual languages and diverse cultural patterns which evolved during the last ten centuries. The Slavs are not a blood here is no Slavic race, as there is no Germanic or Romance from the lin; Today there weste to have been a sin grou; race. The Slavic dispersion from a small nuclear area into I tracts of Europe and Asia provides a convenient basis for ing Slavic chronology. The period of their id ncentury formation of the Slavi records of the Slavic introduct earlier chan the accounts of th century historians, Procopius scituting a branch of the Indo-European pe to have needed as long a period oftime forthe, language and culture as did the Greeks, history of the Slavs from their beginnings in the se nium Bc to the ninth and tenth centuries aD whe Empire, and the Kievan and other Slavic states w‘The ‘Proto'eIndo-Europeans \ having a patrilinear and patriarchal social system. Thi breeders and possibly used horses as mounts and | vehicles as early as the third millennium Be. This explait mobility. It took them less than a millennium to conquer at assimilate a number of Balkan and Central Europear producing cultures as well as convert some North Euroy hunters and fishers to their way of life. Wherever the Ind European groups spread, Central or Northern Europe, the Balkar Peninsula or the Near East, they brought with them specifically Indo-European elements recognizable archaeologically in dif ferent social, economic and habitation patterns, religious symbols burial rites and art traditions. 4 The infiltration of Europe by the Indo-Europeans initiated a new era. Great civilizations of the fifth and fourth millennia in the | Balkan Peninsula, the Black Sea coasts and the Aegean area dis- integrated. The North Pontic culture was the first to be assimi- lated by the husbandmen from the east. Next, the highly civilized cultures of the Balkans and eastern Central Europe succumbed: Cucuteni-Tripolye in the western Ukraine and Moldavia, Gumelnitsa in southern Romania, Bulgaria and eastern Macedo- nia, Vinéa in the central Balkans, Butmir in Bosnia, Bodrog- keresztuir in the Tisza region and Lengyel in the Middle Danube basin, All of these great Neolithic-Chalcolithicand Copper Age _ cultures gradually disintegrated. The Funnel necked Beaker cul ture of north-western Europe, with its collective burials in passage graves, suffered the same fate. Even the east Baltic areaand southern Scandinavia underwent thoreuph eultieaieaanaa The cultural groups of Indo-European character which formed during the course of several centuries usually occupied teri whose limits of distribution no longer coincided with 3c pre-Indo-European groups. The environmental cond Indo-European tribes sought differed from those of the farmers of the pre-Indo-European era. They neededved, cultural contin Indo-European tumuli (k East Germanic migrations. Typ elements that derived from the steppes include: pastor some agriculture, hill forts, small villa ith smal houses, specific burial rites including | tures usually built of timber covered by a low m and simple unpainted pottery decorated \ a stabbing or incisions. Their economy, habitation structure, architecture, and lack of interest in art Beaker cultural elements. Tumuli with very similar artifacts are found in east as far west as the Ondava and Laborets river valle | in the northwestern Ukraine, in Bucovina and Moldavia and ae Middle Dnieper area south of Kiev.3 Most of this area belon the eastern Beskid and Volyno-Podolian uplands. The re naturally delineated by the steppe belt on the south-east, th south-e, Carpathians on the south-west and the Pripet lowlands ; forests on the north. A variant of the Kurgan culture i pathian region was closely related to the Kurgan ¢ orded Pottery’ groups existing in Central and Nort Europe during the latter part of the third and the beginning second millennium Bc. Because a Bronze Age culture of t orth C: we may regard the North Carpathian Kurgan regi nuclear zone of the Proto-Slavie culture.‘e cope toa long continuous de here. Max Vasmer, another Podolia and the Middle Dnieper region.” Studies of riverenames have shown that Sk: names oe coincides with the spread of the Bro Early Iron Age cultures to the north and north-easi of the pathian mountains and the Middle Dnieper region. Th these river names is most significant because they permanent evidence of ethnic conditions. However, Dnieper and Dniester are not of Slavic origin. Lingui sts jt them to be borrowed from Thracian (Dacian). Don and Do are unanimously accepted by linguists as Iranian names, find a number of other river names of Iranian origin north of Black Sea.? This is not surprising since Iranian tribes, Seythians and Sarmatians, in the North Pontic region were present fi 1round 700 BC to the fourth century AD. Common Indo-European names for trees such as bi de Proto-Slavic: all Slavic languages share them. This suppeial view that the Slavic homeland must have been located § climatic zone where natural conditions did not differ much those of the Indo-European homeland. The abovesment deciduous trees grow in the forest steppe and steppe belt ancient or Common Sea plant terminology i a8 aFig. 4 Diagram to show the place of Proto-Sta European langesie haat Early ‘Tron Ages; and 5) a Poe western Europe including Denmark, Hollan and north-western Germany. The North Carpat not incorporated in any of these Indo-European t The Carpathian mountains separated the Dacians, yet close relationships were mi: the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Iranian group of Indo-European languages, a names tend to show, then the earliest TranB Slavic languages there we and parallelism. Baltic lands covered forested Europe. Whilst there is evidens I and linguistic differentiation in the Baltic area, the Pr settled more compactly and the pace of their cultural guistic differentiation was considerably sloy languages remained much closer to each other th in spite of vast migrations durin, the Baltic centuries AD. Early historic sources are in agreement with ling Unfortunately, itis just in this region that archaeological resea lags behind that of most areas of Europe. Nineteenth: and e3 twentieth-century archaeologists were interested either ; glamorous Scythian animal art objects, sometimes made o} and found north of the Black Sea, or in central European Lusati urnfields thought to be proto-Slavic. The drab archaeological, remains of migrating farmers and stock-breeders who did 1 build houses or temples of stone or clay and did not createany ou standing and individualistic art style have not attracted the interes of archaeologists and have not stimulated national pri a The scientific reconstruction of the prehistoric Slavic culture 5 awaits a meticulous modern archaeologist. The general picture of the North Carpathian culture during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages as outlined in thenext chapter is a patchwork based meagre archaeological data. Nevertheless, it i ary to utilize every : Without the archaeological materials the ancient Slavie mate culture, its developmental phases, chronology and cu relations cannot be reconstructed.setlement on the Upper | of ash accumulations’, the indicating the settled narure of the popt influences have now diminished, 500 BC—Early Iron Age known as ‘Chernoles’, is contem Early Scythian period, Scythian sites of the s centuries BC are found east of the Middle Dnieper, in Psél and Vorksla basins. 4 6 750 toe This culture, ¢. 500 foc. 200 BC contemporary with and influenced b 5 The same culture, continued until the arrival of the Sarmat Scythians, beyond the Volga. These phases, in relation to the Table, will now be examit eater detail: 2 Early second millennium t0 c. 1500 BC ~ Early Bronze Age Barrows and isolated finds provide the only information ab this group during the first half of the second millennium gescale excavation of settlement sites has not yet been carried out, From preliminary surveys of Early Bronze Age villages it known that they were small, occupying nomorethan 3,000-3, square metres, and usually were located on a bank of a Traces of houses indicate that they measured about 4X § m. Inthe Uppet Dniester basin a number of well-preserved barrows excavated fifty or more years ago. The tumuli of Kochanoyka ai Ostapie near Skalat in the district of Tarnopol are of inter The barrows were 1-2 m. high and over 20 m. in diamete rounded by stone rings. The dead were buried in: a con position, lying on their sides, within a cist-like structure : “stones,of the Carpathian it pot, a bartle-axe or a flint celt of eA >per ornaments, usually spiral earrings, ds resemble \ ose found during the 1 Pottery’) culture of the second millennium pe, a named the ‘Bilopotok culture’, rtkiv in the district of Tar, lley.3 The artifacts associated with m about twenty barrow cemeteries Moldavia. To this group belongs the 1 on the bank of the River Bis- stone cists were equipped with ndled, stone battle-axes, flint fa culture of Kurgan derivation, nd millennium Bc the Bilopotok 1 by another Indo-European f north-eastern Romania. In the ural group continued into the{rom the Komsroo phag ; BC— Middle Bronze Age s Bc the Upper Dniester basin was with Central European “Tumulus culture’ bronzes, ny 1 culture became markedly enriched, Bronze tools par, F nd bone tools; the number of bronze orna, apons increa - Around 1400 ge th ne region of present. naps Bavaria moved gary to northern Yugoslavi © Central day western Slovakia, South-eastward across a and western Romania, The 1 Europeans were apparently not interested in the forest, d forested region; it remained beyond the main Toute of ) oe. 0 BC, from Komarov and other sites in the Upper Dniester basin : umber of bronze hoards of Central zs igrion ae bs in ie Upper Dniester basin, there are no wace of penciralionof Cette anaet north of the Car, 0 hian mountains Hayeeemna European influences can Pa iaeemed though tenet at oA aed ade A ornament ofthe North Carpathian-Middle Dreger regio find pins with shomibaldsglaesia and several pins with circular esas ates een Pee arm-tings and neck-rings and arm- an. siding in spits) plas probably locally pi : of metallurgical s that are typical n appeared. We roduced. GoldTraces of settlements ha banks or promontories. Pits that most houses had been of a: bo by 5 m.,’ but that some houses we vidi ni agriculture and animal domesticatic barley and two types of wheat ( Triticum monoc flint sickles, grind- and quern-stones, bot and pig. One of the largest cemeteries, cont. | cavated at Komaroy, in the district of St. le oni some 25 km. along the ridge of a Carpathian in this cemetery date ftom various periods of the B Iron Age, but the richest ones belong to the Middle synchronous with the ‘Tumulus’ period of Centra Therefore, we apply the name “Komaroy’ to pathian complex which existed between the fifteent centuries BC. Burials in Komaroy and other cemeterie lying in a contracted or an extended position in timber stone-covered graves. Occasionally flat and crem; appeared. a Komarov pottery was in no way outstanding: shaped pots, sometimes with a ridge decoration arot There were also barrel-shaped or globular pots, b fine ware. The finer ware, made for funeral double-handled vases some of which were decorat sings, closely resembling those on Central E and Transylvanian ‘Otomani’ vases, th igh Bu lac mountains separated these people from the ution of the Komarov