Kiev culture

The Kiev culture is an archaeological culture dating from about the third to fifth centuries AD, named after Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is widely considered to be the first identifiable Slavic archaeological culture. It is contemporaneous to (and located mostly just to the north of) the Chernyakhov culture, which corresponds to the multi-ethnic Gothic kingdom, Oium, that was established in south-western Ukraine in the second century and ended by the invasion of the Huns in late fourth century. The Gothic historian Jordanes mentions the subjugation of the Slavic people by the Goths in The origin and deeds of the Goths: the location of the Kiev culture (which in places overlaps with the Chernyakhov culture) matches his text well.

Settlements are found mostly along river banks, frequently either on high cliffs or right by the edge of rivers. The dwellings are overwhelmingly of the semi-subterranean type (common also in later Slavic cultures and similar to earlier Germanic and Celtic types of dwellings), often square (about four by four meters), with an open hearth in a corner. Most villages consist of just a handful of dwellings. There is very little evidence of the division of labor, although in one case a village belonging to the Kiev culture was preparing thin strips of antlers to be further reworked into the well-known Gothic antler combs, in a nearby Chernyakhov culture village.

The Kiev culture ends its existence with the invasion of the Huns, and after a turbulent period in European history, its descendants—the Slavic Prague-Korchak, Penkovo and Kolochino cultures—are re-established in the sixth century in Eastern Europe. There is, however, a substantial disagreement in the scientific community over the identity of the Kiev culture's predecessors, with some historians and archaeologists tracing it directly from the Milograd culture, others, from the Chernoles culture (the Scythian farmers of Herodotus) through the Zarubintsy culture, still others (mostly Polish) through both the Przeworsk culture and the Zarubintsy culture.