Cultures of the Slavs (Sclavinians and Antes) V-VII centuries. Prague culture What will we do with the received material?

Prague culture is the archaeological culture of the ancient Slavs (V-VII centuries), in Central and Eastern Europe (from the Elbe to the Danube and the middle Dnieper). Named after the characteristic molded ceramics first discovered near Prague by the Czech archaeologist I. Borkovsky. The researcher noted that similar pottery is also known in Poland and Germany, and proposed calling it Prague, believing that it developed autochthonously from the ceramics of the urn culture and the Celtic [source not specified 376 days]. In some works this culture is combined with the Korczak culture and is called the Prague-Korchak culture

The main monuments of Prague culture are unfortified settlements - settlements. They were usually located along the banks of rivers and other bodies of water, often on the slopes of terraces above the floodplain. Occasionally they were found in open areas of the plateau. The villages were mostly small in size and consisted of an average of 8-20 farms. The Prague culture is represented by unfortified settlements with semi-dugout dwellings with stoves, fields of funeral urns, and ground burial grounds without mounds and burial mounds with corpses burned. The basis of Prague ceramics are tall pots with a slightly narrowed neck and a short rim. Their greatest expansion occurs in the upper third of the height. The surface of the vessels is usually brownish, occasionally somewhat smoothed. Most of them are devoid of ornamentation; only occasionally there are pots with oblique notches along the upper edge of the rim. All this ceramics was made without the help of a potter's wheel, the technology of which was known earlier (Przeworsk culture), but was lost due to the great migration of peoples.

Initially, Prague culture was widespread in southern Poland, Czechoslovakia and northwestern Ukraine (Shumskoye fortification). Later, its range expanded to the northern part of Poland, the eastern regions of Germany, Belarus (two groups are distinguished - Polesie and Verhnedvinsk), the middle part of Right Bank Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. This led to the mixing of Prague culture with local, earlier cultures and the emergence of local variants. According to other versions, the earliest settlements of the Prague culture should be sought in the Pripyat River basin (Southern Belarus), where traces of the culture date back to the 4th century

The main monuments of Prague culture are unfortified settlements - settlements. They were usually located along the banks of rivers and other bodies of water, often on the slopes of terraces above the floodplain. Occasionally they were found in open areas of the plateau. The villages were mostly small in size and consisted of an average of 8-20 farms. The Prague culture is represented by unfortified settlements with semi-dugout dwellings with stoves, fields of funeral urns, and ground burial grounds without mounds and burial mounds with corpses burned. The basis of Prague ceramics are tall pots with a slightly narrowed neck and a short rim. Their greatest expansion occurs in the upper third of the height. The surface of the vessels is usually brownish, occasionally somewhat smoothed. Most of them are devoid of ornamentation; only occasionally there are pots with oblique notches along the upper edge of the rim. All this ceramics was made without the help of a potter's wheel, the technology of which was known earlier (Przeworsk culture), but was lost due to the great migration of peoples. Economy: agriculture, cattle breeding.

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Prague-Korczak culture

What are the main Slavomorphic cultures?

- are identical to each other in structure, and the differences are observed only in the predominance of certain forms of pots: float-sided (a kind of “matryoshka without a head”) in the Prague-Korchak pottery, biconical in the Penkovo ​​pottery and cylindrical-conical in the Kolochin pottery.

In the latter there is also a difference in the arrangement of housing. Instead of square semi-dugouts with a stove in the corner, there are more semi-dugouts heated by open fireplaces.

Researchers studying the Slavic antiquities of the Dnieper Left Bank practically agree that both the Kolochin and Penkovo ​​cultures developed on the basis of the previous Kyiv culture. Only her different groups. As the prominent Russian historian M.B. Shchukin writes, -

- the similarity of the monuments is so great that terminological disputes arise: whether, say, the settlement of Ulyanovka should be attributed to the Kiev culture or already to the Kolochin culture, and the settlement of Roishche to the Kiev or Penkovo ​​culture.

The main Slavic cultures of the beginning of the medieval period are the Prague-Korchak, Sukovsko-Dziedzicka, Penkovskaya, Ipotesti-Kyndeshti, Imenkovskaya, Pskov long barrows and bearers of bracelet-shaped temple rings.

As for the Penkov-Ants, I would leave the question open. There is no doubt that this culture is a continuation of the culture of the Wends of Kiev. Neither sources nor archeology allow us to doubt that the Antes were very close to the Slavs in their way of life. But still, when neither they themselves nor the ancient authors confused them with the Slavs, then I would suggest refraining from such confusion.

For the same reason, I will refrain from classifying other cultures as Slavic. For only one of them was classified by contemporary authors as Slavic (see Fig. 36).

Rice. 36. Areas of the main Slavic cultures of the early Middle Ages: a - Prague-Korchak; b - Sukovsko-Dziedzicka; c - Penkovskaya; d - Ipoteshti-Kyndeshti: d - Pskov long mounds; e - bracelet-shaped closed temporal rings; f - Imenkovskaya

Therefore, let us formulate it more carefully. In general, we have several similar, even to the point of feeling homogeneous, cultures of the 6th–7th centuries. A number of these common qualities lead us to conclude that they have at least one common root. And it generally grows out of Kyiv antiquities. For this reason, I agree with those who use the term “post-Kiev cultures.” And we will clarify which of them corresponds to which historical community separately. Maybe none.

So far, with a high degree of probability, we can only say that the historical Antes correspond to the archaeological Penkovites.

The rest will be discussed later. And first of all, about the one that - also with a very high degree of probability - can be correlated with the historical Slavs.

Ancient sources called these people "Sklavens". For example, for the 6th century historian Jordan and the Byzantine authors of the 6th–7th centuries this is -

- Sclaveni.

In a broad sense, the Slavs are all archaeological cultures similar to the Prague-Korchak culture. But just as in the history of Ancient Rus' there are “Slavic tribes” in general, and there are “Novgorod Slovenians” separately, so it is here. At least in this book. For in a strictly historical sense, the original Slavs are those who are recorded as such in authentic sources.

So I propose to call this particular group Slavs from now on. Moreover, -

- in contrast to the name “Veneti”, the name “Sclaveni” spread to all Slavic tribes only after the 6th century, and in the 6th century. had only private meaning.

So, it is these historical Slavic Slavs that modern archeology sees in the Prague-Korchak culture.

For a long time it was considered the most ancient authentically Slavic community. It was because of this that the discussion spears were broken, on the one hand, by enthusiasts of pre-Slavic continuity almost from the “ancient pitmen”, and on the other, by “purists” who had not seen the Slavs at point-blank range before the Prague-Korchak culture appeared. As we see, both camps were right. There really is genetic continuity. But it is precisely genetic, in a purely biological sense, and not in the way archaeologists use this term. But historical and cultural - no. And there is a ladder of different cultures and peoples who mixed and diverged, arose and dissolved, changed and were destroyed. What does it matter if in terms of genetics I am similar to the Aryans and Hittites, when in terms of culture neither one nor the other is related to me, and I don’t see them as my ancestors?

So, the first authentically Slavic culture.

Back in 1971, Munich researcher Joachim Werner stated that the early Slavic cultures were closest to the early cultures of the forest zone of Eastern Europe. Such as the Dnieper-Dvina and Tushemlinskaya, as well as the culture of hatched ceramics in Belarus and Eastern Lithuania:

Archaeologists note here -

- “another world”, somewhere more patriarchal, if not stagnant, not striving for external showiness and comfort. Numerous settlements, each village in itself; very simple, if not primitive, utensils. The rarity of metal finds and the absence of burial grounds (obviously, rituals were used that did not leave traces for archaeologists) do not make it possible to trace the dynamics of cultural development and establish any, even approximate, chronology.

The connection of this world with Kyiv culture can be traced, although not powerfully, but clearly. As M.V. Shchukin points out, -

- first of all, these are finds at the Chernyakhov settlement of Lepesovka in the upper reaches of the Goryn, quite far from the western border of the Kyiv culture. It turned out that about 10% of the molded ceramics available here are Kiev, with typical “combs”. Including two intact vessels, they were discovered under such stratigraphic circumstances that there is no doubt that they were in use at the time of the fire of the long Chernyakhov house. Moreover, if one of the pots resembles Penkov’s ceramics in its biconicality, then the second, of course, is one of the most expressive prototypes of the Prague type.<…>

Secondly, in the “white spot” zone, on the Styri River near Pinsk, a settlement was discovered with the remains of three half-dugouts, with ceramics of the “Pre-Prague” appearance, covered with “Kiev combs”. The discovery of a fibula from the late Roman period at this settlement in the Marfinets tract allows us to suspect a date no later than the end of the 4th century. n. e.

Let us turn again to the same idea - the “Kievans” fled from the Huns in different directions, where they naturally received different counter-influences, which is why they gradually transformed into a new archaeological quality.

The following passage is further proof of this:

...identification on the shores of lakes Cahul and Yalpukh, adjacent to the lower reaches of the Danube, and then in the Middle Dniester region, and in Budzhak up to Kotlabukh, settlements of the Etulia type, similar in structure to the Kievan culture, and in the forms of ceramics sometimes echoing the Zubretsky group of Volyn, and with dishes from the “Late Scythian settlements” of the Lower Dnieper...

Recently, it has also been believed that a number of recently discovered antiquities in the Pripyat Polesie region could become the “missing link” between the Kyiv and Prague-Korchak cultures. The finds are still rather vague, but they are believed to allow us to trace the route of part of the Kyiv community to the west.

Now this “other world” has settled down like a master on the deserted lands of tribes that have left or been destroyed by the Huns. On the empty ones in the literal and figurative sense (see Fig. 37).

Rice. 37. Distribution of monuments of the Prague-Korchak culture: a - the main monuments of the Prague-Korchak culture; b - area of ​​the Sukovsko-Dziedzicka culture; c - area of ​​the Penkovo ​​culture; d - area of ​​the Hypoteshti-Kindeshti culture; d - northern border of the Byzantine Empire

The Prague-Korchak culture takes shape in the southern part of the area of ​​the ancient Przeworsk culture. Of course, there is no direct continuity between them. But if we proceed from the fact that the Wends themselves originated within the Przeworsk culture, then, of course, some roots can be found.

With all its obvious post-Kiev character, however, the question of the specific genesis of the Prague-Korchak culture is not yet entirely clear.

Anthropology indicates a long heredity:

A comparison of Slavic craniological series of the Middle Ages with more ancient anthropological materials showed that the zone of relative wide-facedness lies at the junction of mesocrane and dolichocrane forms of previous eras... The dolichocrane analogue of the Slavs is the Neolithic tribes of the culture of corded pottery and battle axes, the mesocrane analogue is the Neolithic tribes of the bell-shaped beaker culture.

But, as archaeologists say, -

- the process of formation of the main early Slavic culture of Prague-Korchak remains still unrevealed. In Kievan culture you rarely see forms of vessels that are direct prototypes of the “matryoshka-shaped” pot of the “Prague type”.

The same as was said a little earlier: biological continuity is obvious, but cultural continuity is not.

Be that as it may, taking into account the latest achievements of both archeology and genetic genealogy, it becomes clear: even though we can only indicate the change of cultures with a dotted line, the general trend is clear. The Prague-Korchak culture was formed on lands deserted as a result of Hunnic raids and climate change from a population carrying the R1a1 haplogroup. That is, from the forest and forest-steppe zones of Western Russia. And its appearance seems unexpected only because the inhabitants of the forest wilds of previous centuries did not leave archaeologically clear traces. And due to the short duration of stay in one and the same place - as long as the podzol plot is able to produce a crop - and due to the fact that forest semi-dugouts and graveyards very quickly became overgrown with trees again. And only after emerging from the thickets, the descendants of the forest Wends were finally recorded for archeology.

The Prague-Korchak culture, like the Penkov culture, looked rather wretched. As the Byzantine author Procopius rightly wrote, -

- they live in miserable huts...

Or, as it is formulated today using the example of one of the settlements, -

- semi-underground square-shaped houses -

Sizes from 8 to 20 sq. m. The floors are earthen, sometimes covered with clay or lined with boards. Stoves and hearths differed depending on the region - some were clay, some were heaters. Along the walls there are couches and benches.

From such dugouts, randomly scattered over an area approximately 100 m long and 30 to 50 m wide, settlements were formed. They housed an average of 8 - 20 households.

These settlements were located, as a rule, along the banks of large and small rivers, near streams and reservoirs, often on the slopes of terraces above the floodplain. Occasionally they were found in open areas of the plateau.

It is very interesting how the settlements themselves were located. And they were located according to the cellular principle. Or nest-shaped - whichever is more convenient for you to count.

Berlin Slavic Museum-Village Duppel

Three or four hamlets, 300–500 m apart, form a basic “honeycomb”. The distances between the “cells” are already 3–5 km. And it turns out that even though the settlement is open, all the neighbors know each other very well, they certainly interact, and in case of trouble, if they don’t help each other out, they at least notify each other. But, most likely, mutual assistance was well established: too many early medieval authors highlight the solidarity features of Slavic societies.

What does this remind you of most? Yes, the same “zadru” that existed among the Wends, and in a certain form has actually survived to this day!

Well, the centers of attraction, as it should be, are the ancient settlements. These fortifications, located on the high banks of rivers in relatively inaccessible places, range from 1000 to 3000 square meters. m are always surrounded by open-type settlements:

Surrounding it (the fortified settlement), open settlements of varying sizes, but of a uniform structure, were located not far from each other.

In the upper and middle Oder basin, these associations usually occupied an area of ​​20 to 70 square kilometers, but sometimes their area reached 150 square kilometers.

These cities are also very similar to Penkov’s. Of course, due to the fact that they had the same functions:

...Fortification near the village. Winter in Volyn... built on a cape on the high bank of the river. Meadow, the right tributary of the Western Bug. The settlement occupies the middle part of the cape, bounded by deep ditches. Its dimensions are 135 x 14 m. Excavations of the settlement showed that its southwestern edge was fortified with a wall of wooden risers and horizontal logs fixed in them, as well as a palisade. On the opposite side, the fort had a steep slope, inaccessible to the enemy. In its southwestern part, excavations uncovered 13 fire pits built on clay pavements. Most likely, these are the remains of a large above-ground building, perhaps divided into separate chambers and structurally connected to the defensive wall.

This is the same trade and craft center. Numerous tools, household items, clothing accessories and jewelry were found here. And most importantly - foundry molds and crucibles.

It is possible, and most likely even certain, that these settlements were also administrative centers:

Usually, public institutions were located in hill fortifications and representatives of the nobility lived, in whose hands funds, military and administrative power were concentrated.

Eg, -

- excavations carried out from 1954 to the present day in the area adjacent to the Morava River make it possible to restore details of the early history of the settlement in Mikulčice and the initial stage of the development of the Moravian state until the beginning of the 7th century. During the 7th and 8th centuries, the settlement was located on an area exceeding 50 hectares. In the center of this square a castle was built, fortified with wooden walls.

Near the wall, traces of workshops producing items made of gold, bronze, iron and glass were discovered. A characteristic feature of this settlement are the finds of iron and bronze spurs with hooks, indicating the deployment of military units there.

True, no traces of Turkic/Hunnic permanent presence were noted in them. But it is absolutely clear: where there are defensive structures, there are also those who organized their construction. And if necessary, he will organize defense. Yes, we know in our place and time: the very place of administration is where it is rich and protected. This is the law. And there is, of course, no reason to believe that the “Prago-Korchak people,” in particular, had an administration located somewhere other than behind reliable walls and next to the jewelry production...

Ceramics match the living conditions. The dishes are made by hand. These are also mostly pots. The only decoration is shallow indentations on the rim. Or a series of dots marked on the neck. These, apparently, were aesthetes who sculpted.

In general, the same approach as the Penkovites.

But the funeral rite differs noticeably from Penkov’s. No biritualism. Mostly corpse burning, carried out on the side. The cremation remains were placed in small holes. Often the ashes were collected in urns - actually, in pots.

Later, however, in the 6th–7th centuries, for some unknown reason, the kurgan burial rite became widespread in the Prague-Korchak culture. He even distinguishes this group from other cultures close to the Slavic. However, inside the mounds there were still the same remains of corpses burned in pots. Perhaps, according to Valdemarus, this kurgan ritual began to spread after the meeting and mixing of the “Prago-Korchak people” with the carriers of the Carpathian kurgan culture.

But no matter how pathetic it all looked in our eyes, contemporaries were far from contemptuous assessments. On the contrary, the 6th century Byzantine author Mauritius the Strategist reports, for example, that the Slavs -

- had a large number of different livestock, and their houses were filled with grain, mainly wheat and millet.

For the geographic localization of the Slavs, we have a reliable marker - ceramics of the Prague-Korchak type. So, at the turn of the 5th–6th centuries, the borders of this culture ran from the Upper and Middle Elbe in the west to Pripyat Polesie in the east and beyond. The eastern border is determined by finds in the Teterev River basin around the city of Zhitomir.

The fact that this area of ​​culture corresponds to the area of ​​the Slavs is shown by the descriptions of this tribe by contemporary “Prago-Korchak” authors.

Thus, Jordan points out:

The Sklavens live from the city of Novietuna and the lake called Mursinsky, to Danastra, and to the north - to Wiskla...

According to E. Ch. Skarzhinskaya, the city of Novietun is Novetun on Sava, and Lake Mursia is a reservoir near the city of Mursa (Osijek). Some express the opinion that Lake Balaton could rather be called Lake Mursien, the path to which also began from the city of Mursa. Others dispute this. But it doesn’t matter to us here - in principle, there is only one region. Only Jordan designated the “Prago-Korchak people” at a time when they began to expand their borders - they just went down along the Danube to the Dniester, bypassing Gepidia - the former Dacia and forming a striped strip with Antes between the Dniester and the Lower Danube.

The only thing that Jordan did not indicate was the continuation of the Prague-Korchak culture from its northern side almost to the Dnieper. What is understandable and excusable is that he had no informants at such a distance. Moreover: in his time, the “Prago-Korchak people”, it seems, had not yet reached the Dnieper region:

I. P. Rusanova, who paid a lot of attention to the chronology of these antiquities, identifies the earliest Prague-Korchak monuments of the Dnieper region in the 6th century. In all likelihood, at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 6th century. Due to excessive moisture, these lands were unsuitable for farming and were not inhabited at all.<…>Investigating the water names of Right Bank Ukraine, O. N. Trubachev came to the conclusion that “a significant part of the ancient purely Slavic hydronyms is concentrated on the right bank of Pripyat.” This, apparently, is also one of the indicators of the unpopulation of these lands before the migration of the Slavs.

In a word, the new culture settled down and then began to spread in those places where the Celts, Goths, Gepids, Lombards, Vandals, Rugs and other peoples who participated in the Great Migration once ruled. Indeed: “there are no others, and those are far away...”

The Boian Celts, who gave their name to Bohemia, perished in the darkness of time. The Gepids reached Dacia and tried to build their kingdom there - but they were left alone. They too disappeared from history. Offended by everyone and everyone, the Heruls returned to the bosom of their ancestors from the Jastorf culture - to Jutland. Where they were also erased from the pages of time. The Lombards fought with everyone for a long time - one by one and at once, they reached Italy, where they also gave the name to the province of Lombardy... and also dissolved into new peoples. The vandals went the furthest, they went all the way to Africa. They made several expeditions to Italy, plundered Rome in the most vandalistic manner, but after a couple of generations they too perished under the swords of the Byzantine legions of Belisarius.

The Goths did the most. They liquidated the Western Roman Empire and sent imperial insignia to Constantinople, Emperor of the Eastern Romans. No one, of course, then understood the historicity of this event - it was simply that the Goths and their followers decided that they could not afford to maintain the empire. But your barbarian kingdom on Italian and nearby lands - please. Rugs, however, will disappear into it almost immediately, leaving only a few toponyms like Ruzaramarcha on the territory of what is now Austria and Bavaria. Yes, there is a strong tradition of calling future Rus’s “rugs”. And the Goths will fight hard against the Byzantines when Emperor Justinian is tempted to restore the former Roman Empire. In the twenty-year wars, both enemies would completely devastate Italy, so that the history of the Roman Empire would truly be closed then. Rome will become a small provincial town. On the Capitol - at last, rejoice, Sabines and Italics! - the wolves will howl. But the Goths - the Ostrogoths - will end their earthly path in this struggle.

And in Volyn the Wielbark-Chernyakhov settlements will end their lives. Just as on the way to the Danube the remnants of the “Chernyakhovites” erased the antes, so here other people settled in the place of the ancient Goths. Heirs of the Wends.

No, but whatever you say, it’s a pity I’m still ready! There were a lot of people. Sweeping. Great in a good way. However, in a bad way too. But… -

- and they will wipe it away like a tear is wiped away...

But the Slavs remained.

SO:

VI century. The Wends and all sorts of fragments of ethnic groups mixed by the Huns occupied the space empty after the resettlement of peoples and, in fact, the world war of that time in southern Poland, the Czech Republic, Volyn and Podolia, and formed the Prague-Korchak culture. It began to attract population moving from the border of the forest-steppe with the steppe, where chaos was raging as a result of the disintegration into fragments of the Hunnic state warring with each other and with everyone. As a result, in the space from approximately Zhitomir to approximately Prague, a cultural and historical community very similar to Penkov’s, but separate, began to develop. She is rightly associated with the historical Slavs. At the same time, archaeologically and genetically, the Prague-Korchak population as a whole came out of the Kyiv culture and belonged to haplogroup R1a1 (see Fig. 38).

Rice. 38. Family tree

This text is an introductory fragment.