The Forest Zone of East Europe During the Transition Period From the Roman Times to the Early Middle Ages

This entry describes the evolution of material culture in the forest zone of East Europe from the Urals in the east to Belarus in the west. We distinguish three main phases of cultural development in the area: the 2nd to 5th centuries CE, the 5th to 7th centuries, and the last one, dated from the 7th to 10th centuries, simultaneous to the Pre-Viking Age and the Viking Age in Northern Europe. The starting point of each of these three phases correlates with the collapse of the cultural pattern of the earlier period in the North-West and in the Center of the East European Plain. To the east of the Volga, the local cultures evolved continuously during the first millennium, and the formation of new cultural traditions happened gradually without sharp changes but generally followed the trends of the western regions.