Balts

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For more information on Germans inhabiting the shores of the Baltic Sea see Baltic Germans

Image:Baltic sea map.jpg

The Balts or Baltic peoples (Latvian: balti, Lithuanian: baltai), defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between lower Vistula and upper Dvina and Dneper. Because of geographical isolation, the Baltic languages retain a number of conservative or archaic features. Among the Baltic peoples are modern Lithuanians and Latvians as well as the Prussians, Yotvingians and Curonians, whose languages were extinct in the Middle Ages.

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History

The prehistoric cradle of the Baltic peoples according to archeogenetic research and archaeological studies was the area near the Baltic sea and central Europe at the end of ice age and beginning of the Mesolithic period. They spread in the area from Baltic sea in the west to the Volga in the east. Slavic cradle was in Danubian - Krakowian region close to Baltic. Slavs entered the Dnepr region in the VI a. after Avar invasion into Europe conquerring and assimilating eastern Balts. According to some false old theories the cradle area was very late near the upper and middle Dnepr river in modern Ukraine settled by a hypothetical Balto-Slavic community; that is, a population ancestral to the modern Balts and Slavs. In the early 1st millennium BC several groups of people migrated from the area to the shores of the Baltic Sea, where they settled between the rivers Pasłęka and Neman. It is not probable that this migration gave birth to the Baltic tribes.

Image:Balt vietovard.png Several scholars, such as Buga, Vasmer, Toporov and Trubachov, in conducting etymological studies of eastern European river names, were able to identify certain regions of specifically Baltic provenience, which most likely indicate where the Balts lived in prehistoric times. This information is summarized and synthesized by Gimbutas in The Balts (1963) to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland. Its borders are approximately: from a line on the Pomeranian coast eastward to include or nearly include the present-day sites of Warsaw, Kiev, and Kursk, northward through Moscow to the River Berzha, westward in an irregular line to the coast of the Gulf of Riga, north of Riga. This homeland includes all historical Balts and every location where Balts have been said or implied to be at different periods of time. The Baltic occupation of Western Russia, for instance, may be dated to the 4th century AD.

In the first centuries of 1st millennium, the Baltic tribes settled the area between Vistula and Daugava. Their culture is easily recognizable and most probably they were the ancestors of the tribes of Western Balts (Prussians, Yotvingians and Galindians), as well as Eastern Balts (Lithuanians, Curonians and Latvians), notable during the Middle Ages. In 98 AD Tacitus described one of the tribes leaving near the Baltic Sea (Mare Svebicum) as Aestiorum gentes, or amber gatherers. It is believed that these peoples were inhabitants of the Sambian peninsula, although no other contemporary sources exist.

The Baltic culture that remained in the Dneper area, although bore significant resemblance to its Baltic counterpart, was also similar to culture of other peoples inhabitating the forests of Eastern Europe and became almost completely Slavicised between 7th and 10th centuries.

In 12th and 13th centuries, internal struggles, as well as invasions of Ruthenians and Poles and later the expansion of the Teutonic Order resulted in almost complete annihilation of the Galindians, Curonians and Yotvingians. The last of the Prussians became Germanized some time in 16th century, after the Reformation in Prussia. Remaining cultures of Lithuanians and Latvians survived and became the ancestors of modern countries of Latvia and Lithuania.

In addition, and to great extent in contradiction to research on the basis of linguist analysis, genetics-related data has started to emerge in recent years. According to Finnish research (Laitinen et al, 2001) and Richard Villems (2001, Estonia) who have carried out principal component analysis of some major genetic lines, the closest genetic relatives of modern Balts (Lithuanians and Latvians) appear to be modern Estonians and Mari people (autonomous republic of Mari-El in Russia) while Russians and Polish have considerably lesser genetic similarity. This lead some scientists to believe that the people known today as Balts were initially to great extent of Finno-Ugric origin - thus, the language spoken today by them is a takeover. Finns (genetic haplogroup N3) entered the Baltic area very late - in the middle Neolithic after sharp climate change in upper Ural and made the little influence to the baltic Nemunas and Narva neolithic archaeological cultures, but inhabited Estonian area.

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Baltic peoples and tribes

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External links

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References

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| work=Encyklopedia Internetowa PWN
| url=http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/5504_1.html
| accessdate=May 25 | accessyear=2005
}}
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| title=Bałtowie zachodni w V w. p. n. e. - V w. n. e. : terytorium, podstawy gospodarcze i społeczne plemion prusko-jaćwieskich i letto-litewskich
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| id=ISBN 8370020011
}}

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| location = Warsaw
| publisher = Książka i Wiedza
| year=1981
}}
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}}

| first = Łucja | last = Okulicz-Kozaryn
| authorlink = Lucja Okulicz-Kozaryn
| title=Życie codzienne Prusów i Jaćwięgów w wiekach średnich
| location = Warsaw
| publisher = Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy
| year=1983
}}
  • {{Citeencyclopedia 
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| edition=1
| year=1911
| article=Lithuanians
}}
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| edition=1
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| article=Bałtowie
}}de:Balten

es:Baltos it:Balti ko:발트족 lt:Baltai lv:Balti nn:baltarar no:Baltiske folkegruppe pl:Bałtowie ru:Балты sl:Balti

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