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Baltic States (Northern & Eastern Europe)

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The European region which today is known as the Baltic States sits at the junction in Eastern Europe with Northern Europe. While the southern two states of Lithuania and Latvia are counted as Eastern European, Estonia is more typically grouped with its Northern European cousins.

The first inhabitants of the Early Baltics arrived between about 10,000-9000 BC. They were following the migrating reindeer after the continental glacier had retreated northwards. The ethnic origin of the first settlers has not yet been established but they were most likely the immediate descendants of pockets of humans who had survived the recent ice age by taking refuge in Southern Europe.

At the beginning of the third millennium BC, tribes of Ugric-speaking people migrated from the east and soon became dominant. These peoples originated in Uralic-speakers around the Ural Mountains, but groups had been slowly migrating outwards for centuries. Their southern component became the ancestors of the Eesti tribes.

Between around 3000-2500 BC, another new wave of migrant tribes arrived in the Baltics, generally buffering the Estonians to their south. They were the ancestors of tribes of Balts, bringing with them cattle-breeding and tillage skills. These groups together with the Eesti formed the ethnic basis of the majority of today's Baltic peoples.

Increasing activity by increasingly powerful Baltic groups in the ninth to eleventh centuries AD eventually prompted increasing interest by even more powerful and more cohesive states to their west. Bishop Albert from Bremen in Germany landed in the Baltics with his followers at the mouth of the River Väina in AD 1201 to found the Livonian town of Riga (in modern Latvia).

Europeans were becoming hungry for land at this point, and others followed the lead set by the German bishops in invading the pagan Baltic territories. The scene was set for a Germanic invasion and takeover of the region, while the Danes piled in too. Both soon occupied large swathes of territory to start off a series of colonial occupation formations.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Gediminas Kiveris and Merit Pai, from Life in Estonia, from The History of the Baltic Countries, Zigmantas Kiaupa, Ain Mäesalu, Ago Pajur, & Gvido Straube (Eds, Estonia 2008), from Eric's Chronicle, from the 15th Yearbook of the Estonian Learned Society in Sweden, 2010-2014 (Eesti Teadusliku Seltsi Rootsis aastaraamat XV. 2010-2014), Ants Anderson (Ed, Stockholm, 2015), from Guide to Castles in Estonia, Mart Helme (Kunst, Estonia, 2003), from The Four Oldest Churches of Tallinn (Morgan Studio, Estonia, 2006), from Hammond's Historical Atlas (C S Hammond & Co, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the World, R R Palmer (Ed, Rand McNally & Company, 1963), from Oxford Atlas of World History, Patrick K O'Brien (Ed, Oxford University Press, 1999), and from External Links: Archaeology: The First Vikings, and The Balts, Marija Gimbutas (1963, previously available online thanks to Gabriella at Vaidilute, but still available as a PDF - click or tap on link to download or access it), and Rurik of Novgorod and the Varangian DNA, and History of Estonia (Country Studies), and The Missionary Man: Archbishop Anders Sunesen and the Baltic Crusade, 1206-21, Torben K Nielsen (Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150-1500, Routledge, 2001, available via Taylor Francis).)