Pages: 379-392 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp264379392

This article examines antiquities from the mid-1st millennium AD in the forest zone of the western half of Eastern Europe. The aim was to identify correlations between the social structures of Eastern Europe and trends in historical development in Central and Western Europe during the Migration Period. Rich burials and hoards, settlement structures and a dichotomy between wealthy settlements with residences and poor, unfortified settlements are considered indicators of the presence of “kingdoms.” The article hypothesizes that early state associations of the “small kingdom” type may have existed in the western part of the region — on the Sambia Peninsula, in Lithuania, in the western Smolensk region, and in the lower Oka River valley — in the mid-1st millennium AD. Such social structures were not observed in the neighboring territories to the north and east, and they were particularly vulnerable to external influences.

Keywords: weapons, burials of nobles, residential houses, 5th century, Eastern Europe

Information about author:

Nikolay Krenke (Moscow, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Staromonetniy Lane, 29, Moscow, 119017, Russian Federation; Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0009-0006-4838-7242