25 Facts About Early Slavs

1.

Early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies who lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages in Central and Eastern Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages.

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2.

Early Slavs were known to the Roman writers of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD under the name of Veneti.

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3.

Later, having split into three groups during the migration period, the early Slavs were known to the Byzantine writers as Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni.

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4.

The Milograd culture hypothesis posits that the pre-Proto-Early Slavs originated in the 7th century BC–1st century AD culture of northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus.

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5.

Early Slavs used additional sources: books, maps or oral tradition.

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6.

Early Slavs's claim was accepted more than a millennium later by Wawrzyniec Surowiecki, Pavel Jozef Safarik and other historians, who searched the Slavic Urheimat in the lands that the Venethi lived during the last decades of the 1st century AD.

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7.

Early Slavs Slavic society was a typical decentralised tribal society of Iron Age Europe and was organised into local chiefdoms.

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8.

The 6th-century Strategikon of Maurice is considered an eyewitness of the Early Slavs and recommended the Roman generals to use any possible means to prevent the Sclaveni from uniting "under one ruler" and added that "the Sclaveni and Antes were both independent, absolutely refused to be enslaved or governed, least of all in their own land".

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9.

Early Slavs built underground shelters roofed with wood to keep out the cold during winter.

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10.

The South Early Slavs did not form enclosed strongholds but lived in open, rural settlements that were adopted from the social models of the indigenous populations they encountered.

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11.

The early Slavs had knowledge of crop rotation and developed a new sort of plow known as the moldboard plow, this plough was very efficient in breaking up the clay full soil of northern Europe, and it helped drastically increase the Slavic population.

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12.

Ancient Early Slavs knew human anatomy well, which is evident from the existence of numerous old names for body parts.

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13.

Wood, leather, metal and ceramic work were all skillfully practiced by the Early Slavs Pottery was made by craftsmen, or women, possibly in domestic workshops.

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14.

Early Slavs had many musical instruments as recorded in historical chronicles:.

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15.

However the Early Slavs did not have written laws, but relied on customs that dictated what was acceptable and not.

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16.

The East Early Slavs did not have written law until the rule of Yaroslav the Wise.

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17.

The Early Slavs favoured ambush and guerrilla tactics, preferring to fight in dense woodland or marsh.

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18.

The Early Slavs used siege engines, such as siege towers and ladders as described by Procopius and St Demetrius.

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19.

Menander Protector mentions a Slavic chief Dobret who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Early Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Dobret declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons".

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20.

The Early Slavs passed down their stories and legends orally like most other tribal peoples in Europe.

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21.

The Early Slavs developed cults around natural objects, such as springs, trees or stones, out of respect for the spirit within.

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22.

Linguistic evidence indicates that part of Slavic paganism developed when the Balts and Early Slavs shared a common language since pre-Christian Slavic beliefs contained elements found in Baltic religions.

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23.

Demons and spirits were good or evil, which suggests that the Early Slavs had a dualistic cosmology and are known to have revered them with sacrifices and gifts.

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24.

The West Early Slavs were distributed in Samo's Empire, which was the first Slavic state to form in the west, followed by the Great Moravia and, after its decline, the Kingdom of Poland, the Obotritic confederation the Principality of Nitra a vassal of the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Duchy of Bohemia.

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25.

Historians such as George Vernadsky, Florin Curta and Michael Karpovich have questioned how, why and to what degree, the Early Slavs were a cohesive society between the 6th and the 9th centuries.

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