The name Vyatichi, in all likelihood, comes from the Proto-Slavic vęt- “big”, like the names “Venedi” and “Vandals”. According to The Tale of Bygone Years, the Vyatichi descended "from the kind of Poles", that is, from the Western Slavs. The resettlement of the Vyatichi went from the territory of the Dnieper left bank and even from the upper reaches of the Dniester.

In the Oka River basin, they founded their own "state" - Vantit, which is mentioned in the works of the Arab historian Gardizi.

The Vyatichi were extremely freedom-loving people: the Kiev princes had to capture them at least four times.

The last time the Vyatichi as a separate tribe was mentioned in the annals was in 1197, but the legacy of the Vyatichi can be traced back to the 17th century. Many historians consider the Vyatichi the ancestors of modern Muscovites.

It is known that the Vyatichi tribes adhered to the pagan faith for a very long time. The chronicler Nestor mentions that this union of tribes had polygamy in the order of things. In the 12th century, the Vyatichi Christian missionary Kuksha Pechersky was killed, and only by the 15th century did the Vyatichi tribes finally accept Orthodoxy.

Krivichi

For the first time, the Krivichi were mentioned in the chronicle in 856, although archaeological finds indicate the emergence of the Krivichi as a separate tribe as early as the 6th century. The Krivichi were one of the largest East Slavic tribes and lived on the territory of modern Belarus, as well as in the regions of the Dvina and Dnieper regions. The main cities of the Krivichi were Smolensk, Polotsk and Izborsk.

The name of the tribal union comes from the name of the pagan high priest krive-krivaytis. Krive meant "curved", which could equally indicate the advanced years of the priest, as well as his ritual staff.

According to the legends, when the high priest could no longer perform his duties, he committed self-immolation. The main task of krive-krivaitis were sacrifices. Usually goats were sacrificed, but sometimes the animal could be replaced by a man.

The last tribal prince of the Krivichi Rogvolod was killed in 980 by the Novgorod prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, who married his daughter. In the annals, the Krivichi are mentioned until 1162. Subsequently, they mixed with other tribes and became the ancestors of modern Lithuanians, Russians and Belarusians.

Glade

The glades lived along the Dnieper and had nothing to do with Poland. It is the meadows that are the founders of Kiev and the main ancestors of modern Ukrainians.

According to legend, three brothers Kyi, Shchek and Khoriv with their sister Lybid lived in the Polyan tribe. The brothers built a city on the banks of the Dnieper and named it Kiev, in honor of their elder brother. These brothers laid the foundation for the first princely family. When the Khazars imposed tribute on the fields, they paid them the first with double-edged swords.

The legend can explain to us the origin of the meadows. It is known that the Slavs, who lived in the wooded and swampy regions from the Vistula to the Carpathians, “like spores” settled throughout Europe. Cheek could become the personification of the Czechs, Khoriv - the Croats, and Kiy - the people of Kiev, that is, glades.

Initially, the meadows were in a losing position, from all sides they were squeezed by more numerous and powerful neighbors, and the Khazars forced the glades to pay tribute to them. But by the middle of the 8th century, thanks to the economic and cultural upsurge, the meadows moved from waiting to offensive tactics. Having seized many of the lands of their neighbors, in 882 the meadows themselves were under attack. Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized their lands, and declared Kiev the capital of his new state.

The glade was last mentioned in chronicles in 944 in connection with Prince Igor's campaign against Byzantium.

White Croats

Little is known about white Croats. They came from the upper reaches of the Vistula River and settled on the Danube and along the Morava River. It is believed that Great (White) Croatia, which was located on the spurs of the Carpathian Mountains, was their homeland. From here, Europe was settled by red, black and white Croats. The first went south, the second went west, and the third went east. The struggle against the Avars, Germans and other Slavs made everyone look for their own way.

According to The Tale of Bygone Years, White Croats participated in Oleg's campaign against Constantinople in 907. But the chronicles also testify that Prince Vladimir in 992 "went against the Croats." So the free tribe became part of Kievan Rus.

It is believed that the White Croats are the ancestors of the Carpathian Rusyns.

Drevlyans

The Drevlyans have a bad reputation. The princes of Kiev twice imposed tribute on the Drevlyans for raising an uprising. The Drevlyans did not abuse mercy. Prince Igor, who decided to collect a second tribute from the tribe, was tied up and torn in two.

Prince Mal of the Drevlyans immediately wooed Princess Olga, who had just become a widow. She brutally dealt with his two embassies, and during the feast for her husband, she massacred the Drevlyans.

The princess finally subjugated the tribe in 946, when she burned their capital Iskorosten with the help of birds that lived in the city. These events went down in history as "Olga's four revenges on the Drevlyans."

The Drevlyans could be descendants of the legendary Dulebs - the tribe from which all other Slavic tribes originated. And the word "ancient" is the key here. Interestingly, along with the glades, the Drevlyans are the distant ancestors of modern Ukrainians.

Dregovichi

The name Dregovichi comes from the Baltic root "dreguva" - a swamp. Dregovichi - one of the most mysterious alliances of Slavic tribes. Almost nothing is known about them. At a time when the princes of Kiev were burning neighboring tribes, the Dregovichi "entered" into Russia without resistance.

Apparently, the Dregovichi were a very old tribe. On the island of Peloponnese in Greece, there lived a tribe with the same name, and it is quite possible that in ancient times it was one tribe. Dregovichi settled in the 9th-12th centuries on the territory of modern Belarus, it is believed that they are the ancestors of Ukrainians and Poleshchuks.

Before becoming part of Russia, they had their own reign. The capital of the Dregovichi was the city of Turov. Not far from there was the city of Khil, which was an important ritual center where sacrifices were made to pagan gods.

Radimichi

The ancestors of the Radimichi were not Slavs, but their closest relatives - the Balts. Their tribes came from the west, driven out by the Goths as early as the 3rd century, and settled in the interfluve of the upper Dnieper and Desna along the Sozh and its tributaries.

By the 8th-9th centuries, Slavic tribes were already coming from the west, which merge with them. Perhaps the chronicles are right: these few "colonists" came "from the Poles", that is, from the upper reaches of the Vistula, from where many Slavic tribes settled.

Until the 10th century, the Radimichi retained their independence, were ruled by tribal leaders and had their own army. Unlike most of their neighbors, the Radimichi never lived in dugouts - they built huts with chicken stoves.

In 885, Prince Oleg of Kiev asserted his power over them and obliged the Radimichi to pay tribute to him, which they had previously paid to the Khazars. In 907, the Radimichi army participated in Oleg's campaign against Tsargrad. Soon after this, the union of tribes was freed from the power of the Kiev princes, but already in 984 a new campaign against the Radimichi took place. Their army was defeated, and the lands were finally annexed to Kievan Rus. The last time radimichi are mentioned in the annals in 1164, but their blood still flows in modern Belarusians

Slovenia

Slovenes (or Ilmen Slovenes) are the northernmost East Slavic tribe. Slovenes lived in the basin of Lake Ilmen and the upper reaches of the Mologa. The first mention of Slovenes can be attributed to the VIII century.

Slovene can be called an example of vigorous economic and state development.

In the 8th century, they seized settlements in Ladoga, then established trade relations with Prussia, Pomerania, the islands of Rügen and Gotland, as well as with Arab merchants. After a series of civil strife, in the 9th century, the Slovenes called on the Varangians to reign. Veliky Novgorod becomes the capital. After that, Slovenes begin to be called Novgorodians, their descendants still live in the Novgorod region.

northerners

Despite the name, the northerners lived much further south than the Slovenes. The northerners inhabited the basins of the Desna, Seim, Seversky Donets and Sula rivers. The origin of the self-name is still unknown, some historians suggest Scythian-Sarmatian roots for the word, which can be translated as "black".

The northerners were different from other Slavs, they had thin bones and a narrow skull. Many anthropologists believe that the northerners belong to a branch of the Mediterranean race - the Pontic.

The tribal union of the northerners existed until the visit of Prince Oleg. Previously, the northerners paid tribute to the Khazars, but now they began to pay to Kiev. In just one century, the northerners mixed with other tribes and ceased to exist.

Uchi

The streets lived on the lands of the legendary Antes. They were called by many names - "uglichi", "improve", "ultsy" and "lutichi". Initially, they inhabited the "corner" between the mouth of the Dnieper and the Bug, due to which, perhaps, they received one of the names. Later, the nomads drove them out, and the tribes had to move in a western direction. The main "capital" city of the streets was Pereseken, located in the steppe zone.

With the coming to power of Oleg, the streets began the struggle for independence. Sveneld, the governor of the Kiev prince, had to conquer the lands of the convicted piece by piece - the tribes fought for every village and settlement. Sveneld besieged the capital for three years, until the city finally surrendered.

Even taxed, the streets tried to restore their own lands after the war, but soon a new misfortune came - the Pechenegs. The streets were forced to flee to the north, where they mingled with the Volhynians. In the 970s, the streets are mentioned in chronicles for the last time.

Volynians

Volynians lived at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th centuries in the basin of the upper reaches of the Western Bug and near the sources of the Pripyat. Archaeologists note that the Volynians were mainly engaged in agriculture and crafts, but it is known that the tribes owned more than 70 fortresses.

Volynians participated in Oleg's campaign against Tsargrad in 907, however, as translators. Unlike many other tribes captured by this time by the prince of Kiev, the Volhynians did it voluntarily.

Volynyan was captured only in 981, when the Kiev prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavich subjugated the Przemysl and Cherven lands.

They don't know what a car, electricity, a hamburger and the United Nations are. They get their food by hunting and fishing, they believe that the gods send rain, they do not know how to write and read. They may die from catching a cold or the flu. They are a godsend for anthropologists and evolutionists, but they are dying out. They are wild tribes that have preserved the way of life of their ancestors and avoid contact with the modern world.

Sometimes the meeting happens by chance, and sometimes scientists are specifically looking for them. For example, on Thursday, May 29, in the Amazon jungle near the Brazilian-Peruvian border, several huts were found surrounded by people with bows who tried to shoot at the plane with the expedition. In this case, specialists from the Peruvian Center for Indian Tribes flew around the jungle in search of savage settlements.

Although recently, scientists rarely describe new tribes: most of them have already been discovered, and there are almost no unexplored places on Earth where they could exist.

Wild tribes live in South America, Africa, Australia and Asia. According to rough estimates, there are about a hundred tribes on Earth that do not or rarely come into contact with the outside world. Many of them prefer to avoid interaction with civilization by any means, so it is quite difficult to keep an accurate record of the number of such tribes. On the other hand, tribes that willingly communicate with modern people gradually disappear or lose their identity. Their representatives gradually assimilate our way of life or even go to live "in the big world."

Another obstacle that prevents the full study of tribes is their immune system. "Modern savages" have long developed in isolation from the rest of the world. The most common diseases for most people, such as a runny nose or flu, can be fatal for them. In the body of savages there are no antibodies against many common infections. When the flu virus strikes a person from Paris or Mexico City, his immune system immediately recognizes the "attacker" because it has already met him before. Even if a person has never had the flu, immune cells "trained" for this virus enter his body from his mother. The savage is practically defenseless against the virus. As long as his body can develop an adequate "response", the virus may well kill him.

But recently the tribes have been forced to change their habitual habitats. The development of new territories by modern man and the deforestation where savages live, force them to found new settlements. In the event that they are close to the settlements of other tribes, conflicts may arise between their representatives. And again, cross-contamination with diseases typical of each tribe cannot be ruled out. Not all tribes were able to survive when faced with civilization. But some manage to maintain their numbers at a constant level and not succumb to the temptations of the "big world".

Be that as it may, anthropologists have managed to study the way of life of some tribes. Knowledge about their social structure, language, tools, creativity and beliefs helps scientists to better understand how human development went. In fact, each such tribe is a model of the ancient world, representing possible options for the evolution of culture and thinking of people.

Piraha

In the Brazilian jungle, in the valley of the Meiki River, a tribe of firah lives. There are about two hundred people in the tribe, they exist thanks to hunting and gathering and actively resist the introduction into the "society". Pirahã is distinguished by unique features of the language. First, there are no words for color shades. Secondly, the Pirahã language lacks the grammatical constructions necessary for the formation of indirect speech. Thirdly, Pirahã people do not know the numerals and the words "more", "several", "all" and "each".

One word, but pronounced with different intonation, serves to denote the numbers "one" and "two". It can also mean "about one" and "not very many". Due to the lack of words for numbers, Pirahãs cannot count and cannot solve simple mathematical problems. They are unable to estimate the number of objects if there are more than three. At the same time, there are no signs of a decrease in intelligence in the Piraha. According to linguists and psychologists, their thinking is artificially limited by the peculiarities of the language.

Pirahãs have no creation myths, and a strict taboo forbids them from talking about things that are not part of their own experience. Despite this, Pirahas are quite sociable and capable of organized activities in small groups.

Sinta larga

The Sinta Larga tribe also lives in Brazil. Once the number of the tribe exceeded five thousand people, but now it has decreased to one and a half thousand. The minimum social unit of the Sinta Larga is the family: a man, several of his wives and their children. They can move freely from one settlement to another, but more often establish their own home. Sinta larga are engaged in hunting, fishing and farming. When the land where their house stands becomes less fertile or game leaves the forests, the Sinta spotted seals move out and look for a new site for the house.

Each Sinta Larga has several names. One - "real name" - each member of the tribe keeps a secret, only the closest relatives know it. During the life of the Sinta Larga, they receive several more names, depending on their individual characteristics or important events that happened to them. The Sinta Larga society is patriarchal, male polygamy is widespread in it.

Sinta larga have suffered greatly due to contact with the outside world. In the jungle where the tribe lives, many rubber trees grow. Rubber collectors systematically exterminated the Indians, claiming that they interfere with their work. Later, diamond deposits were discovered in the territory where the tribe lived, and several thousand miners from all over the world rushed to develop the land of Sinta Larga, which is illegal. The members of the tribe themselves also tried to mine diamonds. Conflicts often arose between savages and diamond lovers. In 2004, 29 miners were killed by Sinta Larga people. After that, the government allocated $810,000 to the tribe in exchange for a promise to close the mines, allow police cordons to be set up near them and not to mine stones on their own.

Tribes of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands

The group of Nicobar and Andaman Islands is located 1400 kilometers from the coast of India. Six primitive tribes lived in complete isolation on the outlying islands: the great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, the Shompens, the Sentinelese, and the Negrito. After the devastating 2004 tsunami, many feared that the tribes had disappeared forever. However, later it turned out that most of them, to the great joy of anthropologists, escaped.

The tribes of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands are in the Stone Age in their development. Representatives of one of them - Negrito - are considered the most ancient inhabitants of the planet, preserved to this day. The average height of a Negrito is about 150 centimeters, and even Marco Polo wrote about them as "cannibals with dog muzzles."

Korubo

Cannibalism is a fairly common practice among primitive tribes. And although most of them prefer to find other sources of food, some have retained this tradition. For example, Korubo living in the western part of the Amazon Valley. The Korubo are an extremely aggressive tribe. Hunting and raiding neighboring settlements are their main means of subsistence. The korubo's weapons are heavy clubs and poison darts. Korubo do not practice religious rites, but they have a widespread practice of killing their own children. Korubo women have equal rights with men.

Cannibals from Papua New Guinea

The most famous cannibals are perhaps the tribes of Papua New Guinea and Borneo. Cannibals of Borneo are cruel and promiscuous: they eat both their enemies and tourists or old people from their tribe. The last surge of cannibalism was noted in Borneo at the end of the past - the beginning of this century. This happened when the Indonesian government tried to colonize some areas of the island.

In New Guinea, especially in its eastern part, cases of cannibalism are observed much less frequently. Of the primitive tribes living there, only three - the Yali, the Vanuatu and the Carafai - still practice cannibalism. The most cruel is the Carafai tribe, while the Yali and Vanuatu eat someone on rare solemn occasions or out of necessity. The Yalis are also famous for their festival of death, when the men and women of the tribe paint themselves in the form of skeletons and try to appease Death. Previously, for fidelity, they killed the shaman, whose brain was eaten by the leader of the tribe.

Emergency ration

The dilemma of primitive tribes is that attempts to study them often lead to their destruction. Anthropologists and travelers alike find it hard to give up the prospect of going back to the Stone Age. In addition, the habitat of modern people is constantly expanding. Primitive tribes managed to carry their way of life through many millennia, however, it seems that in the end, savages will join the list of those who could not stand the meeting with modern man.

Crimea is one of the amazing corners of the Earth. Due to its geographical position, it was at the junction of different peoples, stood in the way of their historical movements. The interests of many countries and entire civilizations collided in such a small area. The Crimean peninsula has repeatedly become the scene of bloody wars and battles, was part of several states and empires.

A variety of natural conditions attracted peoples of various cultures and traditions to the Crimea. For nomads, there were vast pastures, for farmers - fertile lands, for hunters - forests with a lot of game, for sailors - convenient bays and bays, a lot of fish. Therefore, many peoples settled here, becoming part of the Crimean ethnic conglomerate and participants in all historical events on the peninsula. In the neighborhood lived people whose traditions, customs, religions, way of life were different. This led to misunderstandings and even bloody clashes. Civil strife stopped when it was understood that it was possible to live well and prosper only in peace, harmony and mutual respect.

Who inhabited the territory of the Orenburg region in antiquity and the Middle Ages?

History of geographical research and development of the territory of the region

When did the first information about the territory of the region appear?

The most ancient information about the territory of our region is given by the Greek historian and traveler Herodotus. In the "History", written by Herodotus in the middle of the 5th century. BC, the Caspian Sea is described, behind which there is a “plain in the boundless space”, beyond which “stony and uneven land” begins, and behind it “high impenetrable mountains stand”. In the description of Herodotus, one can guess the boundless plains of the Caspian lowland, the "stony and uneven" Common Syrt and the "high and impassable" Ural Mountains.

The first map with the image of the river. Urals and mountains of the Southern Urals in the II century. AD compiled by the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy. On the map of Asia, he showed the river. Daiks (Ural), in the upper reaches of which were the Rimmikai (Ural) mountains.

But neither Herodotus nor Ptolemy were on the territory of our region. The first famous traveler who visited our region was the Arab writer Ibn Fadlan. In 921-922. he, as part of an embassy heading to the Volga Bulgaria (the territory of modern Tatarstan), crossed the western regions of the current Orenburg region.

In the X-XII centuries. the Arabs were already well aware of the river. Ruza (Ural) and r. Magra (Sakmara). Western merchants and missionaries also repeatedly crossed the South Ural steppes. Among them - the ambassador of the Pope Palacio Carpini (1246), the ambassador of the French king Willem Rubruck (1253), the Italian brothers Nicolo and Mateo Polo (1265) - the father and uncle of the famous Marco Polo.

At the end of the XVI century. the famous "Big Drawing" appeared - a huge road map of the Moscow state and the adjacent lands of the Volga and Trans-Urals. Unfortunately, the map itself has not survived. Only the description of the map has survived to this day - “The Book of the Big Drawing” (1627). It says: “The Yaik River flowed out on a par with Oraltova Gora (Southern Urals) against the headwaters of the Tobol River. The Yaik River flowed into the Khvalynsk Sea, and the channels of the Yaik River to the sea are 1050 versts ... The Yuryuk Samar (Sakmara) River ... fell into Yaik against the Aralt Mountains on the right side ... fell into Yaik, from the left sides of Yaik, Ilez- the river, below Mount Tustebi, in our opinion that Salt Mountain, they break salt in it ... "

Who inhabited the territory of the Orenburg region in antiquity and the Middle Ages?

In the ancient and Middle Ages, the expanses of the southern Urals and Trans-Urals served as a habitat, nomads and an arena for the movement of various tribes and peoples (Appendix 1). The abundance of pastures and fertile lands, rivers and lakes rich in fish, deposits of copper and iron ores have long contributed to the development of our region. By the 2nd century BC e. in the steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan, an economic structure has developed that combines nomadic cattle breeding, primitive agriculture and metallurgy, as well as commodity exchange with neighbors.

In the eastern part of the Orenburg region (Kvarkensky district), the remains of ancient cities of the Bronze Age, covering the III-II millennium BC, were found. e. It is believed that these cities were built by the ancient Aryans, who then moved from the South Ural steppes to the west and became the basis for the formation of many peoples of foreign Europe.

For many centuries, the Ural-Caspian region was the gateway to the great migrations. Waves of peoples, one after another, rolled onto the Orenburg steppes, crowding out each other, leaving traces of their stay in archaeological sites and geographical names. In the 1st century BC e. The Orenburg region was the place of a thousand-year stay of the tribes of the Sarmatians, who were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding. From the 4th to the 13th centuries our region was inhabited by Huns, Avars, Guzes, Pechenegs, Bulgars, Polovtsy, Mongols-Tatars.

During this period, various parts of the territory of the region were part of the state formations that existed in the Middle Ages. In the ninth century the southwestern Orenburg region was the northeastern outskirts of the Khazar Khaganate. In the XII century. the northwestern part of the region was part of the Volga Bulgaria. Over the next two centuries, the entire territory of the Orenburg region was within the Golden Horde. In the 15th-17th centuries, after the collapse of the Mongol-Tatar state, the northern part of the region became a place of nomadic Bashkirs, the uluses of the Nogai Horde were located in the interfluve of the Volga and the Urals, and the lands of the Kazakh zhuzes stretched along the left bank of the Urals and to the south.

About 200 peoples live on the territory of Russia. The history of some of them goes back to distant millennia BC. We found out which indigenous peoples of Russia are the most ancient and from whom they originated.

Slavs

There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Slavs - someone refers them to the Scythian tribes from Central Asia, someone to the mysterious Aryans, someone to the Germanic peoples. Hence the different ideas about the age of the ethnos, to which it is customary to add a couple of extra millennia “for solidity”.

The first who tried to determine the age of the Slavic people was the monk Nestor, taking the biblical tradition as a basis, he began the history of the Slavs with the Babylonian pandemonium, which divided humanity into 72 peoples: “From now 70 and 2 languages ​​were the language of Slovenesk ...”.

From the point of view of archeology, the first culture that can be called Proto-Slavic was the so-called culture of podkloshy burials, which got its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel, in Polish “flare”, that is, “upside down”. It originated between the Vistula and the Dnieper in the 5th century BC. To some extent, we can assume that its representatives were Proto-Slavs.

Bashkirs

The Southern Urals and the adjacent steppes, the territories where the Bashkir ethnos was formed, have been an important center for the interaction of cultures since ancient times. The archaeological diversity of the region confuses researchers and writes down the question of the origin of the people in a long list of "mysteries of history".

To date, there are three main versions of the origin of the Bashkir people. The most "archaic" - Indo-Iranian says that the main element in the formation of the ethnos were the Indo-Iranian Sako-Sarmatian, Dakho-Massaget tribes of the early Iron Age (III-IV centuries BC), the place of settlement of which was the Southern Urals. According to another, Finno-Ugric version, the Bashkirs are the "siblings" of the current Hungarians, since they together descended from the Magyars and the Yeni tribe (in Hungary - the Eno). This is supported by the Hungarian tradition, recorded in the 13th century, about the path of the Magyars from the East to Pannonia (modern Hungary), which they did in order to seize the inheritance of Attila.

Based on medieval sources, in which Arab and Central Asian authors equate Bashkirs and Turks, a number of historians believe that these peoples are related.

According to the historian G. Kuzeev, the ancient Bashkir tribes (Burzyan, Usergan, Bailar, Surash and others) emerged on the basis of the Turkic early medieval communities in the 7th century AD and subsequently mixed with the Finno-Ugric tribes and tribal groups of Sarmatian origin. In the XIII century, nomadic Kypchakized tribes invaded Historical Bashkortostan, which formed the appearance of modern Bashkirs.

The versions of the origin of the Bashkir people are not limited to this. Fascinated by philology and archeology, public figure Salavat Gallyamov put forward a hypothesis according to which the ancestors of the Bashkirs once left ancient Mesopotamia and reached the Southern Urals through Turkmenistan. However, in the scientific community, this version is considered a "fairy tale."

Mari or Cheremis

The history of the Finno-Ugric people of the Mari begins at the beginning of the first millennium BC, along with the formation of the so-called Ananyin archaeological culture in the Volga-Kama region (VIII-II centuries BC).

Some historians identify them with the semi-legendary Fissagetes, an ancient people who, according to Herodotus, lived near the Scythian lands. Of these, the Mari subsequently stood out, settled from the right bank of the Volga to the mouths of the Sura and Tsivil.

During the early Middle Ages, they were in close interaction with the Gothic, Khazar tribes and Volga Bulgaria. The Mari were annexed to Russia in 1552, after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate.

Saami

The ancestors of the northern Saami people, the Komsa culture, came north in the Neolithic era, when these lands were freed from the glacier. The Saami ethnos, whose name is translated as "land" itself, has its roots in the carriers of the ancient Volga culture and the Dauphine Caucasoid population. The latter, known in the scientific world as the culture of reticulated ceramics, inhabited in the II-I millennium BC a wide territory from the middle Volga region to the north of Fennoscandia, including Karelia.

According to the historian I. Manyukhin, having mixed with the Volga tribes, they formed an ancient Sami historical community from three related cultures: late Kargopol in Belozerye, Kargopol and Southeast Karelia, Luukonsaari in Eastern Finland and Western Karelia, Kjelmo and "Arctic", in northern Karelia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Kola Peninsula.

Along with this, the Sami language arises and the physical appearance of the Lapps (the Russian designation of the Sami) is formed, which is inherent in these peoples today - short stature, wide-set blue eyes and blond hair.

Probably, the first written mention of the Saami dates back to 325 BC and is found in the ancient Greek historian Pytheas, who mentioned a certain people "Fenni" (finoi). Subsequently, Tacitus wrote about them in the 1st century AD, talking about the wild people of the Fenians living in the region of Lake Ladoga. Today, the Saami live in Russia on the territory of the Murmansk region in the status of the indigenous population.

Peoples of Dagestan

On the territory of Dagestan, where the remains of a human settlement dating back to the 6th millennium BC are found, many peoples can boast of their ancient origin. This is especially true for the peoples of the Caucasian type - the Dargins, the Laks. According to the historian V. Alekseev, the Caucasian group was formed on the same territory that it now occupies on the basis of the most ancient local population of the Late Stone Age.

Vainakhi

The Vainakh peoples, which include the Chechens (“Nokhchi”) and the Ingush (“Galgai”), as well as many peoples of Dagestan, belong to the ancient Caucasian anthropological types, as the Soviet anthropologist prof. Debets, "the most Caucasian of all Caucasians." Their roots should be sought in the Kuro-Araks archaeological culture that lived in the territory of the North Caucasus in the 4th and early 3rd millennium BC, as well as in the Maikop culture, which settled in the foothills of the North Caucasus in the same period.

Mentions of the Vainakhs in written sources are found for the first time by Strabo, who in his "Geography" mentions certain "Gargarei" living in the small foothills and plains of the Central Caucasus.

In the Middle Ages, the formation of the Vainakh peoples was strongly influenced by the state of Alania in the foothills of the North Caucasus, which fell in the 13th century under the hooves of the Mongol cavalry.

Yukagirs

The small Siberian people of the Yukaghirs ("people of the Mezloty" or "distant people") can be called the most ancient people in Russia. According to the historian A. Okladnikov, this ethnos stood out in the Stone Age, approximately in the 7th millennium BC, east of the Yenisei.

Anthropologists believe that this people, genetically isolated from their closest neighbors - the Tungus, is the oldest layer of the autochthonous population of polar Siberia. Their archaism is also evidenced by the long-preserved custom of matrilocal marriage, when, after marriage, the husband lives on the territory of his wife.

Until the 19th century, numerous Yukaghir tribes (Alai, Anaul, Kogime, Lavrentsy and others) occupied a vast territory from the Lena River to the mouth of the Anadyr River. In the 19th century, their numbers began to decline significantly as a result of epidemics and civil strife. Some of the tribes were assimilated by the Yakuts, Evens and Russians. According to the 2002 census, the number of Yukagirs was reduced to 1509 people.