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East Slavs only the East European excavations are
essential so it is proper to limit to them. So
it became known, that one of the oldest stages of human
culture, so-called Acheulian culture (about 100 thousand years
BC) also enveloped within its range the territory of the
nowadays Ukraine. As well as the culture of the middle
Palaeolith (about 40 thousand years BC) also called Mousterian;
in East Europe its range extended as far as from middle Volga
and Desna down to the Crimea. In final periods of the Old
Stone Age essentially increased the habitat; in north it
enveloped the basin of Pechora, in east it reached Ural,
crossed it and extended latitudinally to Siberian areas
protruding northbound. That was already the epoch of Homo
sapiens (40 - 10 thousand years BC) as well as of faster
developments, ability to spark fire, improving of stone tools,
organized forms of hunting, formation of nuclei of tribes,
beginnings of construction (dug-outs). |
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In the
transient period between the Palaeolith and the Neolithic Age
(Mesolithic Period - from 10 to 6 thousand years BC -
sometimes other time limits are being set) one began to use
the bow and arrows during the hunting for games. In the period
of the Neolithic Age came already crucial changes: polished
stone tools, ability of drilling in stone, bone and antler
crafts, development of pottery and weaving, husbandry and
agriculture, further settlement of desolated so far areas, the
establishment of a patriarchal system. More or less on the
turn of the 3rd and 2nd millenia BC started the Bronze Age, in
which previous tendencies came to an even bigger plenitude;
migration processes became especially intensive then - after
all they would be still vital later, although with a varying
intensity, mainly in southern parts of East Europe. Earlier
than in mid-1st millenium BC, about the 7th century it came in
some regions to transition to working iron.
The
agriculture has the highest estimation when it comes to the
human occupations. Also in that respect some tribes of the
ancient East Europe had quickly gained first serious
achievements. Those were the tribes of so-called Tripolye
culture - the name derived from village Tripolye in nowadays
Kiev district, it concerns after all a very wide cultural
circle, which in 4th and 3rd millenia BC ranged from
Transylvania to Dnieper. The first to discover the relics of
that culture was a Russian archaeologist (of Czech origin)
Vikentiy Khvoiko (1850-1914); it happened during excavation
works in villages of Kiev province. Tripolyans lived in a
matriarchal system, built large settlements with dwellings of
clay and wood, employed themselves with husbandry, cultivated
wheat, barley and millet, hunted for game as well and fished.
There was also an already differentiated set of tools, made of
flint, deer antler, bones and slate; they had early learnt to
work copper. The pottery was known (although without a
potter's wheel) and weaving, and the exchange with other
tribes was conducted.
In certain
epochs, and particularly in the Neolithic and Bronze ages,
specialists single out a lot of different cultures; the tribes
of East Europe also developed then not only within a single
cultural circle. In the 2nd millenium BC existed in the basin
of the upper Volga and Oka tribes of the Fatyanovo culture (the
name derived from the burials in village Fatyanovo near
Yaroslav on Volga), employing with husbandry and partially
with agriculture too, possessing already their own primitive
beliefs and their own peculiarities of the burial of the dead.
Their tools were made of stone, bronze and copper, and
globular vessels had a rich ornamentation. One attempts to
link the results of researches on Fatyanovo tribes with
ethnogenesis problems, among others by identifying those
tribes with ancestors of the Slavs, Balts and Germans. However
it is difficult to claim here any certainty.
Other, later
cultural circles, are linked too with Finno-Ugric nations, and
from the turn of the old and new ages with Slavic ones, and
here already occurs a very high level of probability. It
concerns so-called Zarubintsy culture (from Zarubintsy village
in the Kiev district) and Chernyakhovo culture (from
Chernyakhovo village, the same district). The tribes of the
Zarubintsy culture lived in the basin of the upper and middle
Dnieper, right at the turn of both ages; Chernyakhovo culture
is typical for the Southern Ukraine between 3rd and 5th
centuries AD. Thus emerges a picture of a quite uniform
development course, as early as at least from the 1st
millenium BC, testifying to a secular autochthonism of the
East Slavonic tribes.
It ought to
be told again, that it does not indicate any exclusivity
towards the whole area. Not all the inhabitants of East Europe
are reckoned to proto-Slavonic tribes. Some were already named,
not all though - especially in the southern steppes areas
strangers of various origins used to appear. When it comes to
them it is proper to begin from the Scythians. |
