The Early Iron Age in the Forest Zone of Eastern Europe

Abstract

In the first phase of the Early Iron Age (9th/8th–3rd centuries BC), three cultural units stood out in the forest zone of Eastern Europe: western, central, and eastern. The western block included the Dnieper-Dvinsk, Yukhnov and Upper Oka archaeological cultures. The culture with “textile” ceramics, and the Dyakovo and Gorodets cultures that grew from it, formed the central block. The cultures of the eastern block were combined into the vast Ananyino cultural and historical region. The development and historical trajectory of these three cultural units were different. It is assumed that the western cultural block was connected with the Proto-Balts, the central block with the ancestors of the Baltic and Volga Finns, and the eastern block with the ancestors of the Perm and Volga-Finnish peoples. In the second phase of the Early Iron Age (3rd/2nd century BC–4th/5th century AD), noticeable changes took place in the cultures of the western and central block due to the spread of the Zarubinets culture on the Upper Dnieper and the Sarmatian culture on the Upper Don. In the north, differentiation and regrouping of production processes took shape on the eve of an exacerbation of cultural development, which demarcated the cultures of the Volga-Kama and the extreme North-East of Europe on the one hand, and the Volga-Oka interfluve, the Upper Volga, Zaonezhye, Belozerye, Karelia and Finland on the other side.