Balts

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The Balts or Baltic peoples (

The Balts are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers, and which over time became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century CE parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts, whereas the East Balts lived in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. In the first millennium CE, large migrations of the Balts occurred. By the 13th and 14th centuries, the East Balts shrank to the general area that the present-day Balts and Belarusians inhabit.

Baltic languages belong to the

Etymology

Medieval German chronicler Adam of Bremen in the latter part of the 11th century AD was the first writer to use the term "Baltic" in reference to the sea of that name.^[6][7] Before him various ancient places names, such as Balcia,^[8] were used in reference to a supposed island in the Baltic Sea.^[6]

Adam, a speaker of German, connected Balt- with belt, a word with which he was familiar.

In Germanic languages there was some form of the toponym East Sea until after about the year 1600, when maps in English began to label it as the Baltic Sea. By 1840, German nobles of the Governorate of Livonia adopted the term "Balts" to distinguish themselves from Germans of Germany. They spoke an exclusive dialect, Baltic German, which was regarded by many as the language of the Balts until 1919.^[9][10]

In 1845,

The Balts or Baltic peoples, 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 the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers. Because the thousands of lakes and swamps in this area contributed to the Balts' geographical isolation, the Baltic languages retain a number of conservative or archaic features.^{[citation needed]}

Some of the major authorities on Balts, such as Kazimieras Būga, Max Vasmer, Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov,^{[citation needed]} in conducting etymological studies of eastern European river names, were able to identify in certain regions names of specifically Baltic provenance, which most likely indicate where the Balts lived in prehistoric times. According to Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov, the eastern boundary of the Balts in the prehistoric times were the upper reaches of the Volga, Moskva, and Oka rivers, while the southern border was the Seym river.^[13] This information is summarized and synthesized by Marija 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 Berlin, Warsaw, Kyiv, 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.^{[citation needed]}

However, other scholars such as Endre Bojt (1999) reject the presumption that there ever was such a thing as a clear, single "Baltic

The area of Baltic habitation shrank due to assimilation by other groups, and invasions. According to one of the theories which has gained considerable traction over the years, one of the western Baltic tribes, the Galindians, Galindae, or Goliad, migrated to the area around modern-day Moscow, Russia around the fourth century AD.^[15]

Over time the Balts became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century AD parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts:

In the 12th and 13th centuries, internal struggles and invasions by

]

Culture

Part of Baltic religion

Mythology Prussian Lithuanian Latvian Indo-European

Deities Panbaltic Perkūnas Velnias Dievas Saulė Mėnulis Prussian Patollo Peckols Potrimpo Swayxtix Autrimps Aušlavis Bardoayts Kurka Pilnytis Puszajtis Latvian Ūsiņš Ceroklis Jumis Auseklis Laima Dēkla Kārta Lauma Māra Mahte Lithuanian Gabija Žemyna Laima Medeina/Žvorūna Laumė/Ragana Aušrinė Bangpūtys/Vėjopatis Rūgutis Miscellaneous Aitvaras Kaukai Barstukai Žemėpačiai

Festivals Užgavėnės/Meteņi Jorė/Ūsiņi Lieldienas Joninės/Jāņi Žolinė/Māras Ilgės/Veļu diena Apjumības Apkūlības Kūčios/Bluķa vakars Kalėdos/Ziemassvētki

Concepts Alka Romuva Sovij Sacred grove Kriwe Waidelotte

Contemporary Baltic neopaganism Romuva Vydūnas Jonas Trinkūnas Inija Trinkūnienė Dievturība Ernests Brastiņš Valdis Celms

Religion portal   Mythology portal

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The Balts originally practiced

Baltic hunter-gatherers still displayed a slightly larger amount of WHG ancestry than Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers (SHGs). WHG ancestry in the Baltic was particularly high among hunter-gatherers in Latvia and Lithuania.^[25] Unlike other parts of Europe, the hunter-gatherers of the eastern Baltic do not appear to have mixed much with Early European Farmers (EEFs) arriving from Anatolia.^[26]

During the Neolithic, increasing admixture from Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs) is detected. The paternal haplogroups of EHGs was mostly types of R1a, while their maternal haplogroups appears to have been almost exclusively types of U5, U4, and U2.^{[citation needed]}

The rise of the

Haplogroup N reached the eastern Baltic only in the Late Bronze Age, probably with the speakers of the Uralic languages.^[25]

Modern-day Balts have a lower amount of EEF ancestry, and a higher amount of WHG ancestry, than any other population in Europe.^[28][a]

List of Baltic peoples

Modern-day Baltic peoples

• East Baltic peoples^[29]
  • Latvians
    • Latgalians
  • Lithuanians
    • Aukštaitija ("highlanders")
    • Samogitians ("lowlanders")

See also

• East Baltic languages
• West Baltic languages

Notes

References