Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
The archaeological remains of the Early Slav Culture (ESC), which dates to the 6th and 7th centuries AD, cover a substantial area of Europe ranging from eastern Byelorussia and the Ukraine to central Germany and Lower Austria, and from the Baltic to the Adriatic and Aegean. The Polish area is crucial for the clarification of the extremely unclear origins of the Slav ethnic group and the circumstances of its expansion around the middle of the 1st millennium AD. Traditionally, Polish scholars have viewed the lands lying athwart the basins of the Odra and Vistula rivers as the cradle of Slavia. This belief has to be subjected to closer scrutiny.