North-Western Russia in the 1st Millennium AD: New challenges for a traditional archaeological panorama

Overview & Synopsis

The article revises the traditional archaeological map of North-Western Russia for the 1st Millennium AD on the basis of new stray finds, excavation results and re-examination of archaeological material from museum collections. As a conclusion, the concept of a stable and uniform cultural development of this region should be rejected, since for North-Western Russia connections to Central and Southern Europe can be identified already in the period of Roman influences (Roman Iron Age). The Material from the long barrows and from the Tarandgräberkultur of the following 6th and 7th century AD contains imports from Central Europe, probably facilitated by the Finno-Ugric tribes occupying the territory to the west and east of Lake Peipus. The early Slavic sites of the pre-sopki period are characterized by specific ceramic assemblages and their positioning in well-defined limnic landscapes. The Slavic and Scandinavian migrations of the 8th and 9th centuries into this region were preceded by a period of essential advance of exchange and resettling. The re-examination of archaeological material from Novgorod demonstrates that Scandinavians were present among the founders of the city in 930–950 AD and shows a shifting settlement topography in the region. The present autochtonistic and neoantinormanistic approaches in the archaeological field of research reflect the increased conservative tendencies in Russian society and stagnation in methodological development in archaeology.