In the area of modern Moscow, the first Slavic settlers appear, apparently, not earlier than the 8th-9th centuries. Of course, before their arrival, these places with tracts of fertile land in the floodplains, with forests rich in game, were not an uninhabited desert. Long before the Slavs, various peoples lived here, the later ones of which can even be quite reliably identified ethnically. The pre-Slavic population is evidenced by the dominant hydronymics (river names) of the Moscow region. Moreover, to the west of Moscow and partly to the east, these names are mostly Baltic (Protva, Nara, Pakhra, Lama, Shosha, Dubna, Yakhroma, Sestra, Istra, Ruza, Yauza, Klyazma, Drezna, Gzhel, apparently Moscow itself) … Finnish names begin to prevail in the eastern part of the Moscow region (Vorya, Polya, Vondiga, Voimiga, Shatura, Chashchur; apparently,Oka - from the common Finnish root Yoki - "river").
Finally, there are also Slavic river names in the region. Moreover, they, reflecting various waves of Slavic colonization, stratify into very ancient in form (Desna, Tsna, Ozerna, Sherna, Mocha, Ponor, Sturgeon - more precisely, Oster), middle (Lopasnya, Skhodnya) and later (Neglinnaya, Kolomenka, Severka, Rozhaika, Dunno, Gray, Nerskaya - or rather Vile). For a long time, the population of the region was multi-ethnic. So, to the south-west of Moscow, in the upper reaches of Protva and Nara, even the documents of the 12th century mention the Golyad people of Baltic origin. In the remote places of Meshchera, settlements of the eponymous people of Finnish origin, closely related to the Mordovians, apparently survived until the 18th century.
The first agricultural culture on the territory of Moscow is Fatyanovskaya. Her settlement was discovered in Tsaritsyno. This culture existed from about the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 2nd millennia BC. (synchronous with the end of the Old Kingdom and the era of the Middle Kingdom in Ancient Egypt!) and was a local version of the Corded Ware culture (or battle axes), widespread from the Volga to the Rhine. The very territory of the Fatyanovo culture covered the Volga-Oka basin from the Valdai Upland to the middle course of the Kama. The Fatyanovites are most often seen as representatives of the still undivided northern Indo-European community, from which the Germans, Slavs and Balts later emerged. Thus, the Indo-European population became the first known carrier of a productive economy (agriculture and cattle breeding) in the Moscow region.
The Fatyanovo culture is replaced in the regions of Central Russia by the Pozdnyakov culture, and some researchers consider the latter to be a local version of a more extensive logging cultural and historical community, to which the famous Arkaim in the Urals belongs. There is no doubt that this population also belonged to the Indo-European family, although, perhaps, there were more elements in it, from which the Iranians (Scythians) later emerged. No settlements of the Pozdnyakovsk culture have yet been found on the territory of the Moscow region.
Regular migrations of the population (possibly associated with a cold snap) led to the fact that the territory of the Moscow region was inhabited by representatives of the Dyakovo culture, in which most researchers see the Finnish tribes who had mastered agriculture and cattle breeding by that time. The culture itself got its name from a settlement located in the village of Dyakovo near Kolomenskoye in the present-day Moscow area. The Dyakovo culture existed from about the 7th century BC. to the 5th century A. D. However, on the territory of the Moscow region already in the III-IV centuries. there is a powerful infiltration of the supposedly Baltic population. Here, at this time, the culture of the Moskvoretsky settlements was formed (the late layers of the Dyakovsky settlement, the oldest known settlement on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin, the Kuntsevo settlement). It is characterized, apparently, by a mixed population. At the same time, in the south-west and the Upper Oka, the Moschinskaya culture of the Baltic ethnicity was formed, which will last until the 7th century.
At the same time, further to the south, in the Desna (Dnieper) basin and partly on the Upper Dnieper, there is the Kolochin culture, the carriers of which were the Slavs who came from the Middle Dnieper. Another Slavic culture, whose representatives came from the shores of the Baltic Sea, took shape in the 5th century in the modern Pskov and Novgorod lands up to the Valdai Upland. This is the culture of the Pskov long mounds. Thus, the waves of Slavic colonization penetrated into the territory of the Moscow region from two sides - from the north-west and from the south-west. Moreover, their original origin also lay thousands of kilometers from each other. Therefore, the ancient Slavic names of the rivers in the Moscow region are so different from each other - they were really given by bearers of very different ancient Slavic dialects. But numerically prevailed, obviouslystream from the southwest.
Meanwhile, the later descendants of the Dyakovites created at this time to the northeast of Moscow a powerful proto-state union, known in the ancient Russian chronicles of the 9th century under the name Merya. Its center was located in present-day Rostov Veliky, where a proto-city settlement existed at least since 700 (similar settlements found on the territory of Novgorod Veliky, for example, are younger). Merya apparently inhabited part of the present-day Moscow region. Already since the 6th century such a characteristic element of Slavic material culture as women's temporal ornaments (rings) has been spreading among the Merya, but this is hardly a reason to believe that the Merya was "Slavicized" already at that time. The fashion of the time played an important role in the distribution of such items. But apparentlythe main ethnic element in the area of the future Moscow before the mass arrival of the Slavs in the VIII-IX centuries. the Balts remained.
The main Slavic tribe inhabiting these lands were the Vyatichi, who moved from the southwest. The Krivichi partly penetrated here from the northwest. It is characteristic that the first Slavic colonists occupied settlements founded by the former inhabitants of the region, as evidenced by the absence of Slavic names of the cities proper. So, Ruza, Istra, Moscow itself are named after the Baltic names of the rivers. The name Kolomna was borrowed from the Finnish inhabitants of the region. The only ancient name of the Moscow region, which testifies to some kind of colonization of the region organized by the Kiev princes (which Russian historians of the 19th century loved, but it is completely unfounded to say), is Zvenigorod. This name was transferred from Galician Rus. The names of two other ancient cities of the Moscow region have already formed on the spot - these are Volokolamsk (the etymology is transparent) and Dmitrov (in honor of the prince's son).
Promotional video:
Yaroslav Butakov