ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with some general observations concerning the medieval rural landscape of the Russian plain. The chapter elucidates settlement patterns in one of the areas — in Beloozero region, northern Russia —. It discusses connections between cultural landscape-formation in the remote rural territories lying deep inside the continental mass and the development of long-distance trade in Viking-age and later medieval Europe; between urban growth and the exploitation of the forest periphery. An important general aspect of settlement history that was revealed by the recent land surveys is the spatial distribution of prehistoric and medieval sites in relation to the areas with a high concentration of monuments and the areas of sparse settlement. The chapter seeks to the landscape to make a more thorough examination of later settlement development in the local areas where clusters of settlements formed in the Late Viking Period.
