The Slavic expansion. Archaeology vs. Linguistics
The Slavic expansion. Archaeology vs. Linguistics

Summary/Abstract: The recent introduction of dendrochronology to date early Slavic finds in northern Poland and Germany has led archaeologists to take the dendrodates of timbers in several wells as evidence that the Slavs settled the areas between Oder and Elbe in the 700s. But there are good reasons to assume that this region was settled much earlier, and that the earliest settlers made no use of wells. Indeed linguistic evidence points to three phases in the Slavic Expansion, reflecting modes of water procurement: settlement [i] near a stream, [ii] around a spring, and [iii] relying on a well. They reflect a logical progression in the amount of labor needed to draw water and correlate with increased population density. The secondary phase is evidenced by hundreds of Slavic econyms (settlement names) derived from words for ’spring’, and the tertiary phase, by the later, widespread semantic change of appellatives for ’spring’ to ’well’ and the codification of a new word for ‘spring’. A brief summary of data from the East Slavic region is offered. It is shown that the remarkably diverse Common Slavic words for ’spring’ reflect several language contacts in the period before the Expansion and shed light on the expansion into West and South Slavic regions.

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