Slavic archaeological cultures, beginning of 7th century

The Kolochin culture was an Iron Age culture which flourished in western

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from the 5th to the 7th century. It was the eastern element of the

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- Penkov-Kolochin cultural complex. The Kolochin culture is attested by a hundred sites, most of which are situated along the

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and ...

drainage. These settlements were undefended and composed of small single-roomed houses. Burials were by cremation. The culture has been identified either

Balts The Balts or Baltic peoples ( lt, baltai, lv, balti) are an ethno-linguistic group of peoples who speak the Baltic languages of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. One of the features of Baltic languages is the number ...

and Slavs. The presence of

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

river names in the area has lent support to the former theory. People living to the south of the Kolochin culture are however believed to have been Slavs. The Kolochin culture appears to have had relations with these Slavs to their south, and this may have been a source for linguistic exchanges between Baltic and

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

Source

* {{cite book , last1=Mallory , first1=J. P. , author-link1=J. P. Mallory , last2=Adams , first2=Douglas Q. , author-link2=Douglas Q. Adams , year=1997 , chapter=Kolochin culture , title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC , publisher=

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, pages=337-338 , isbn=1884964982 Archaeological cultures in Russia Baltic archaeological cultures Iron Age cultures of Europe