The paper attempts to approach some peculiarities of the two branches of the early Slavs (Sclaveni and Antes), as the Byzantine sources of the sixth and early seventh centuries present them as being similar. Within this context the following are examined: a) the origin and ethnic identity of the Sclaveni and the Antes, taking into account certain historiographical models on the early Slavs, as well as the controversial issue of the ethnic identity of the Antes (Slavic or Iranian) and the etymology of their name; b) the material culture: under consideration are the Prague and Penkovka cultures, identifi ed with the Sclaveni and the Antes respectively, their common elements and peculiarities, their mutual infl uences as well as infl uences from other cultures; c) the political and social organization: the internal structures of the Sclaveni and the Antes, taking into account the testimony of Jordanes, Procopius and Maurice, the references in other sources to the titles of chieftains, or a kind of genealogy into the early Slavic society, as well as the treaty of Byzantium with the tribal union of the Antes are under scrutiny. The paper draws the conclusion that the Sclaveni and the Antes shared similarities, but actually were not one and the same at all, as it appears in the Byzantine sources. Furthermore, the peculiarities that appear the political-social organization and the material culture of the Antes, due to their historical and cultural evolution, are not of a degree that could dispute their Slavic ethnic and cultural identity.

Al-Mas‘ūdī, a 10th century Arab traveller and writer spoke of a pagan custom present among the Slavs and the Rūs living in the Khazar capital, Ātil. Namely the posthumous marriage of an unmarried man. Another Arab author, Ibn Fadlān, witnessed and described in detail a burial ceremony of a Rūs chieftain, which had many elements of a wedding ritual. The two testimonies can be easily associated together. The practice of posthumously marrying an unmarried person has been present in Slavic culture for centuries. Even now some of its aspects can still be observed among Slavs, including Poles, although their true significance has long been forgotten.

The great 13th century scholar Yāqūt al-Hamawī, compiled his well-known geographical dictionary – Mucğam al-Buldān – using an incredibly vast corpus of sources that allowed him to describe the lands lying beyond the realm of Islam. The aim of this paper is to identify the sources he used to describe issues dealing with the Slavs or those peoples and areas thought by Arab writers to belong to or be connected with the Slavs. The results shed some light on the state of knowledge of this area among 13th century inhabitants of the caliphate. At the same time, the author’s analysis of the methods employed to compose the material on the Slavs that appears in the Dictionary helped determine the aim and the role of this work in the caliphate.

The purpose of the piece The Strategikon as a source — Slavs and Avars in the eyes of Pseudo- Maurice, current state of research and future research perspectives is to demonstrate what the author of Strategikon knew about the Slavs and Avars and review the state of research on the chapter of the treatise that deals with these two barbarian ethnicities. As a side note to the description of contemporary studies of Strategikon, the piece also lists promising areas of research, which have not yet received proper attention from scholars.

Geographical names are extremely helpful in giving evidence of early settlements and their inhabitants due to their solid anchorage in the landscape, even in the case of population changes. Through the investigation of these place names, information can be gathered not only on the name giver, but also on the settlers who took on the names later on. Therefore, it is considered that any linguistic investigation has to start from the river and place names of a region.

The utilization of geographical names yields the following findings:

— The centre of Old Slavic names is situated on the northern slope of the Carpathian Mountains, approximately between Bukovina and Krakow; it is based on a substrate of older, Indo-European hydronyms.

— The expansion of the East Slavic tribes bypasses the Pripyat Marshes and extends further through Central Russia and especially to the North and the East.

— West Slavic settlers reach their new settlement areas through migration from Bohemia and further on to Saxonia and Thuringia, and also through Western Poland to Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

— The migration of the South Slavs takes place in two big, yet separate flows, on the one hand through the Moravian Gate to Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia, and on the other hand on the Eastern edge of the Carpathian Mountains to Serbia and Bulgaria.