Table of Contents

The Slavs and archaeology in Russia; geographical setting - geology and landforms, hydrology, climate, vegetation and soils, population and ethnic groups; the initial settlement - palaeolithic beginnings, the last Ice Age, the mousterian, the upper palaeolothic, the late glacial, early languages; postglacial farmers and hunters - the holocene, the mesolithic, early neolithic, middle neolithic; the Beaker folks - the post-optimum, the corded ware, the steppe groups, the Bronze Age; the age of change - the Iron Age, the northern hill-forts, the Cimmmerians, SCythians, Greeks and...; the Slavs, Balts and Finns; the Slavs in Europe - Pax Romana, the Zarybintsy and Chernyakhovian, the rise of the Slavs, the Slavs in the North; the Varangians and the Rus - the Vikings in Europe, the Scandinavians and the Slavs, beginnings of Russian statehood.