Issue 4 (65)
| “LATE ANTIQUE LITTLE ICE AGE” AND THE SPREAD OF THE SLAVS IN THE THIRD QUARTER OF THE 1ST MILLENNIUM AD | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2019 | Number | 4(65) |
| Pages | 52-63 | Type | scientific article |
| UDC | 94(367) | BBK | 63.3-01 |
| Authors | Schneeweiss Jens |
Topic | NORTHERN EURASIA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIMENSION |
| Summary | Several hundred years in the middle of the 1st millennium AD were a period of fundamental changes in a significant part of Europe. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, not later than in the 7th–8th centuries, a period of the formation of a new social system began. Part of this new social system was the Slavs’ active colonization of the territories from the Baltic to the Mediterranean seas. In the North-Western part of Europe, the Slavs moved as far as the Elbe and occupied the territories, which, before the middle of the 1st millennium AD, were inhabited by the Germanic peoples. We do not know exactly why it happened, or what factors or contacts influenced that development; this is one of the reasons why that period is often referred to as the “Dark Ages” (the 6th–7th centuries). This period coincided with the global climatic cooling after a series of volcanic eruptions, which became known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA). Its influence on the socio-cultural evolution of the Mediterranean territories is currently a subject of heated debate. Apparently, the migrations of the Slavs during that period should also be considered within the LALIA context. The negative effect of the Little Ice Age on grain crops yield in Northern Europe facilitated the development of lifestyle patterns, which were no longer exclusively dependent on crop yields and agriculture. That was what apparently happened in the forests of Eastern Europe. The population of that territory practiced a diversified economy, including swidden cultivation technique. The recovery of forests in the territories abandoned by the Germanic peoples, who practiced agriculture, expanded the habitat for the forest zone population, which the latter successively colonized. This process left practically no archaeologically identifiable traces, which could have been positively interpreted. They are practically “invisible” for archaeology. The Slavs would be identified later, after a certain social differentiation within their society and the first contacts with the neighboring cultures. | ||
| Keywords | interaction of man and the natural environment, North of Central and Eastern Europe, 1st millennium AD, Slavs, archaeological “visibility” | ||
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