The Penkovka culture (Ukrainian: Пеньківська культура, romanized: Penkivska kultura; also called Pen'kivka culture or Penkivska culture) is an archaeological culture in Ukraine, Moldova and reaching into Romania. Its western boundary is usually taken to at the middle Prut and Dniester rivers, where contact with the Korchak culture occurs. Its bearers are commonly identified as the Antes people of 6th-century Byzantine historiography.
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The Antes or Antae (Greek: Ἄνται) were an early Slavic tribal polity of the 6th century CE. They lived on the lower Danube River, in the northwestern Black Sea region (present-day Moldova and central Ukraine), and in the regions around the Don River (in Middle and Southern Russia). Scholars commonly associate the Antes with the archaeological Penkovka culture.
First mentioned in the historical record in 518, the Antes invaded the Eastern Roman Empire in the area of the Diocese of Thrace sometime between the years of 533 and 545. Thereafter, they became Byzantine foederati and received gold payments and a fort (named "Turris" – the Latin word turris means 'tower') somewhere north of the Danube at a strategically important location to prevent hostile barbarians from invading Roman lands. Thus from 545 to the 580s, Antean soldiers fought in various Byzantine campaigns. The Pannonian Avars, the Bulgars and the Khazars attacked the Antes in the 7th century, causing disappearance of the Antes as a group and of the Penkovka culture phenomenon.
The Chernyakhov culture, Cherniakhiv culture or Sântana de Mureș—Chernyakhov culture was an archaeological culture that flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what is now Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and parts of Belarus. The culture is thought to be the result of a multiethnic cultural mix of the Gothic, Geto-Dacian, and Sarmatian populations in the area at that time. "In the past, the association of this Chernyakhov culture with the Goths was highly contentious, but important methodological advances have made it irresistible."
The Chernyakhov culture territorially replaced its predecessor, the Zarubintsy culture. Both cultures were discovered by the Czech-Russian archaeologist Vikentiy Khvoyka, who conducted numerous excavations around Kyiv and its vicinity. With the invasion of Huns, the culture declined and was replaced with the Penkovka culture (or the culture of the Antes).
The White Croats (Croatian: Bijeli Hrvati; Polish: Biali Chorwaci; Slovak: Bieli Chorváti; Ukrainian: Білі хорвати, romanized: Bili khorvaty), also known simply as Croats, were a group of Early Slavic tribes that lived between East Slavic and West Slavic tribes in the historical region of Galicia north of the Carpathian Mountains (in modern Western Ukraine and Southeastern-Southern Poland), and in Northeastern Bohemia.
Debates continue over the origin of the Croats and related topics. Their ethnonym is usually considered to be of Iranian origin, and historians regard them one of the oldest Slavic tribes or tribal alliances that formed prior to the 6th century CE. They were an East Slavic tribe, but bordered both East Slavic groups (Dulebes and their related Buzhans and Volhynians, Tivertsi, and Ulichs) in Western Ukraine; and West Slavic tribes (Lendians and Vistulans) in southeastern Poland, controlling an important trade route from East to Central Europe. Archaeologically the Croats were mostly related to the Korchak and Luka-Raikovetska cultures identified with the Sclaveni (while their connection to the Antes and to the Penkovka culture remains a matter of dispute). Their area is characterized by use of stone defenses, tiled tombs (and kurgan-like tombs), stone ovens, and many large, fortified settlements and cult buildings. They practiced Slavic paganism. Foreign medieval authors documented the Croats in historical sources and legends, and had their own origo gentis.
The Dulebes, Dulebs, Dudlebi or Dulibyh (Ukrainian: Дуліби) were one of the tribal unions of Early Slavs between the 6th and the 10th centuries. According to medieval sources they lived in Western Volhynia, as well as southern parts of the Duchy of Bohemia and the Middle Danube between Lake Balaton and the Mur River (a tributary of the Drava) in the Principality of Hungary, probably implying migrations from a single region.
The Korchak culture is an archaeological culture of the sixth and seventh century East Slavs who settled along the southern tributaries of the Pripyat River and from the Dnieper River to the Southern Bug and Dniester rivers, throughout modern-day northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus.
It forms the eastern part of the so-called Prague-Korchak cultural horizon, a term used to encompass the entirety of postulated early Slavic cultures from the Elbe to the Dniester, as opposed to the eastern Penkovka culture.