Pages: 129-136

This paper discusses the accepted scientific views on the primary penetration of the Slavs to the Ilmen and Volkhov regions which started in the 5th and first half of the 6th century AD. In the opinion of some of the leading historians, the beginning of the development of the Ladoga settlement was synchronous with the establishment of sea trade communications in the western Baltic area in the 6th and 7th centuries. During that period, propitious conditions were enabled for the progress of seaports, maritime settlements and rise of activities of industrious and military/merchant populations in Western and Northern Europe. Impulses induced by these processes reached the regions of the Neva River and North-Eastern Ladoga Lake region including the Ladoga centre. Interdisciplinary analysis of archaeological materials from the Zemlyanoye Gorodishche (Earthen Hillfort) in Staraya Ladoga conducted during recent years has discovered and confirmed the appearance of the early Slavs on the Lower Volkhov River in as early as the middle of the I Millennium AD.

Keywords: Northern Rus, Volkhov River, Early Medieval Age, ancient Ladoga settlement, migrations of Slavs

Information about authors:

Anatoliy Kirpichnikov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Nab., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
Alexandr Kurbatov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Nab., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]