Baltic migrants at the Eastern border of the Kievan Rus'. The Late Viking Age archaeological complex of Ostriv on the River Ros (Ukraine).

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Jens Schneeweiß
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology ; Medieval History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508078428

The Ostriv burial ground was discovered in 2017. It is located on the Ros', a tributary of the Dnepr, about 100 km south of Kiev. The inhumations excavated here contrast in several respects with the context of Kievan Rus' that had been Christianised since the late 10th century. They are oriented north-south with the head to the north, as is common at some necropolises of this period far away in the Baltic, and they contain grave goods that typologically clearly point to the eastern Baltic as well. This outstanding finding motivated the pilot project "Baltic Migrants in the Kievan Rus'" of the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) in Schleswig and the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (IA NAWU) in Kiev. In the framework of this pilot study more than one hundred inhumations of the 10th/11th century were excavated until 2020 in an area of 1500 m2. First comparative typological analyses of artefacts from Ostriv and the Baltic States were carried out, burial rites were examined and written sources from the 10th-12th centuries were reviewed. An essential part was the comparison of scientific analyses of skeletal remains and artefacts from Ostriv with results from Latvia, Lithuania and the Kaliningrad region. The pilot study provides the basis for the proposed research project. So far, we know that interrelations between indigenous and newly arrived groups in the Kievan Rus' are documented in written sources. The project offers the rare opportunity for the period under study to consider the evidence of those interrelations from an archaeological perspective through unequivocal find material. The relationship between immigrants and indigenous people touches on highly topical questions about forms of mobility, migration, integration and ethnicity. The discussion of these questions will receive new tangible input from the research results from Ostriv, because the project investigates the origin and cultural context of an archaeologically attested burial community. This will provide ideas for clarifying the possible background of the migration as well as the living conditions of those people. By placing extensive scientific analyses of artefacts and skeletal material alongside the archaeological-historical investigations, a broad interdisciplinary approach is pursued, taking into account contributions from the natural sciences. Within the framework of the project, own field research is carried out, archived find materials are evaluated and source studies are conducted. Beyond the Ostriv site, questions of military border protection of the Kievan Rus' against the nomadic steppe peoples form another thematic focus of the project, which can come more into focus in a next project phase with the entire fortification system at the river Ros.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Ukraine
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Matthias Hardt; Dr. Thorsten Lemm; Dr. John Meadows
• International Co-Applicant: Dr. Vsevolod Ivakin