The Roman imports in southern Belarus. An investigation against the background of cultural developments in the 1st to 4th century

Abstract

The paper deals with the Roman imports within the territory of Belarus. In  order to demonstrate the developments, at the outset a short introduction into the natural conditions and the Iron Age cultures of this region is presented. Whereas the few imports from the earlier Roman Imperial period came from the West and were introduced into the forest zone via the western Baltic circle, the Baltic and presumably also the area of the Przeworsk culture, this changed during the later Roman Imperial period, when objects mainly
from the northern Black Sea region reached the area under study. This transition runs parallel to the expansion of the Wielbark culture, which also included regions in south-western Belarus. It is very probable that the later Roman Imperial imports from the Black Sea region reached south-eastern Belarus via the Wielbark and the Chernyakhov cultures, but also via the Sarmatians.