I. Tribal Times
The territory of Belarus was inhabited by humans no later than 25 thousand years B.C. However, the start of its political history may be traced back to the Migration Period (4–7th centuries A.D.). By that time the territory in the basins of the Daugava (Western Dvina), Dnieper and Pripyat rivers was largely populated by Baltic tribes, related to the modern-day Lithuanians and Latvians. In 5–6th centuries, the Slavic tribes started infiltrating the area from West, South and South-East. It is remarkable that they opted to move northwards into the heavily forested areas with a cold and humid climate, generally unfavorable for agriculture, while other Slavic tribes at the same colonized the Balkan lands of the Eastern Roman Empire by moving south and crossing the Danube. This seems to have been a conscious choice to escape submission to the Huns and other nomadic peoples, which dominated the steppes of the Central and Southeastern Europe at the time and employed the Slavic and Germanic peoples as their auxiliaries in the wars against the Roman Empire.
This strategy proved generally successful. The Slavs were lightly armed and used primitive tactics. They could launch a quick raid on the periphery of the Eastern Roman Empire across the Danube, but they were no match for the Romans or Huns in a pitched battle. By moving northwards and using the forests and swamps as natural protective barriers against excellent nomadic cavalry and keeping their possessions in hillforts in the times of emergency, they were able to ensure some degree of military and political security and economic sustainability.
However, nomadic raids continued sporadically. In the late 7th century a huge invasion of nomads (either the Pannonian Avars or, possibly, Khazars) devastated the lands of the Eastern Belarus in the basin of Dnieper. The mighty hillforts of Tušemlia, Nikadzimava and Kaločyn were totally destroyed. The lands of the Central and Southern Belarus protected by the marshy banks of the Berezina and Pripyat fared better and were spared the horrors of invasion. The persistent danger of invasions demonstrated a need for a more sophisticated political and military organization. Responding to the challenge, the native Baltic and migrant Slavic tribes would form tribal unions that were able to raise larger armies, or rather militias, and organize resistance to the nomadic invasions. Historical sources mention the tribal unions of the Krivichs (Kryvičy), Dregoviches (Dryhavičy) and Radimichs (Radzimičy), among which the Krivich union located in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, Dnieper and Volga was the strongest one. These unions proved to be fragile. As the military threat from the steppe started fading by the early 9th century, their unity was fractured by the conflicts between the tribes as well as those between old family aristocracy and new military aristocracy within each tribe. As a result, the local communities struggled to make a transition from the tribal society to the statehood.
The tribal period produced the first signs of what would later become Belarus. Folk tradition and written sources show the emergence of the political and cultural identity of the sedentary Slavic and Baltic tribes, sharply distinct from and hostile to the nomadic Huns, Avars and Khazars. Geographically, this identity was based on a peripheral location of the Krivich, Dregovich and Radimich tribal unions and a difference of the local forest landscape from the open steppe, and ultimately resulted in shaping an isolationist world view among the local populations.
