Chronograph Русский Open the atlasAtlas

Kyiv culture

The forest and forest-steppe culture of the Dnieper basin in the 3rd to early 5th centuries, widely regarded as the first archaeological culture that can be linked with the early Slavs.

Date
c. 200 – between 400 and 430start: year known, approximate; end: exact date unknown: an interval is given · duration: ≈ 215 years
Place
Kyivtoday: Kyiv, Ukraine · Eastern Europe
Participants
East Slavs, Goths
Threads
Eastern Europe and Rus’ before the Baptism (1st–10th c.)
Also known as
Kiev culture; Kyivan culture; Киевская археологическая культура

The culture was defined after excavations of the 1940s and 1950s in and around Kyiv, which revealed sites similar to Zarubintsy ones but later. It took shape at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries from late Zarubintsy traditions, with a contribution from Przeworsk groups and from the forest cultures of the upper Dnieper. Its people lived in small riverside villages of square semi-sunken houses, just north of the Chernyakhov zone, and traded with their southern neighbours: in one village antler blanks were prepared for the “Gothic” combs made in a nearby Chernyakhov settlement.

In the 4th century Chernyakhov groups pressed into its southern areas; many scholars connect this with Jordanes’ story of Ermanaric’s conquest of the Venethi and identify the Kyiv culture with the Venethi. The migrations set off by the Hunnic invasion broke the culture up in the late 4th and early 5th centuries; its heirs were the Kolochin and Penkovka cultures. The dates are archaeological.

Open in the interactive atlas

Connections

Causes and preconditions

Consequences

Related events

Same participants

Same place

Adjacent events in the thread

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within a year of this event

Western and Central Europe

+ 5 events

Balkans and Anatolia

+ 2 events

Africa

The same period

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Kiev culture
  2. Wikipedia (Russian): Киевская археологическая культура
  3. Седов В. В. Славяне в раннем средневековье. — М.: Фонд археологии, 1995.
  4. Wikidata: Q2732554