A History of Central Eastern Europe

9,000 B.C.E. THROUGH 500 C.E.
Admittedly, covering a period of 9,500 years in the space of a single page means that many
details are doomed to remain unmentioned. All-in-all, this is a “good thing” as it turns out since
virtually all of those unmentioned details on this page are, quite by happenstance, also
unmentioned in every written record available to us! So, with a broad and sweeping stroke, a
little opinion-forming and brevity unheard of even in Cliff’s Notes © - a quick trip over 10
millennia wait!
The land that we know as Central Eastern Europe was not a forested, depopulated region before
the Slavic tribes emerged from the east during the 1 st half of the 1 st millennium of the current era
(C.E.). Evidence of habitation exists as far back as the Neolithic Age (~9000 B.C.E.). The first
mention of the earliest recorded tribe referred to the Kotiner, a tribe traced to the “Iberian”
people. Unfortunately this source failed to expand on the Kotiner in ways that will shortly
become quite clear.(1) When one hears “Iberia” a vision of Spain (or James Michener) comes to
mind (or at least it should be one). And rightfully so as it was the Iberians that populated the
Mediterranean coast of today’s Spain. In certain parts of the world, notably the country of
GEORGIA, a very different image may come to mind – that of the ancient Georgian kingdom of
KARTLI (4 th c B.C.E.), covering roughly the southern and eastern parts of today’s GEORGIA.
Why? Because the extant Greek and Roman writings name the subjects of that kingdom Iberians
as well; specifically Caucasian Iberians so as to not get confused (Personally, I would have
chosen a completely different word, say, Kartlians, but that’s just me). The two are very
different people that lived in two very different places. This same source assumed a Spanish
Iberian definition was the right one for reasons not shared but a semi-close look indicates that the
better choice of Grandma and Grandpa may be to the East with the Caucasian Iberians.
Following this conclusion, an even closer look led me to chuck the whole Iberian premise
completely – no other source mentions a Kotiner tribe – ever.
But many sources mention a Cotini tribe and given a Celtic origin which jives with the known
Celtic expansion in this area from the 5 th c B.C.E forward. This tribe was the driving force
behind the development of the PÚCHOV culture in northern and central SLOVAKIA between the
2 nd c B.C.E. and the 1 st c C.E. Centered on HAVRÁNOK, where a wooden hill fort was built in the
1 st c B.C.E. was uncovered by archeologists in the 1960s, the Cotini makes much more sense.
Following the Celts came Germanic tribes – first the smaller Sidonian, Naristian and Buren
tribes in the 1 st c B.C.E. which were followed by the larger Quaden and Markomannen tribes.
This German domination lasted until the 4 th c C.E. and many are thought to have joined their
kinsmen, the Lombards, as they journeyed down the Apennine Peninsula and became the
Longobardos of the KINGDOM OF SICILY.
2b