Pages: 393-405 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp264393405

The article addresses key issues concerning the Middle Iron Age in Ladoga Karelia in light of new finds dating to the 5th–7th centuries. These data may now be interpreted as evidence for the movement of groups into the region from both the Baltic area and the Upper Volga region, and possibly even from the Cis-Urals, before the beginning of the Viking Age. This movement was connected with the emerging demand for furs. The region under study may be regarded as a developing trade zone with an established system of local water communications and a stable population, part of which was oriented towards economic interaction with international markets. The economic preconditions for the rapid growth in the number and diversity of archaeological sites in the 9th–10th centuries, following the inflow of coin silver into the region, had been formed considerably earlier, no later than the 6th–7th centuries AD.

Keywords: Middle Iron Age, burials, fibulae, Ladoga Karelia

Information about author:

Stanislav Belskiy (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Universitetskaya Emb., 3, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0001-8364-1281