The glaciers began to retreat from the shifting Baltic coast circa 14,000 BC, but the climate was such that the earliest human settlement did not take place for several millennia not until c. 9000 BC. The Baltic ancestors of todays Latvians and Lithuanians arrived in the area c. 2000 BC, merging with some of the Finnic peoples already living in what is now Latvia the ancestors of todays Livs, Estonians, and Finns and displacing others. [3]
The forebears of the Latvians had formed five tribes by the 3rd century AD, some of their territories extending into what are now Lithuania and Russia. One of the tribes was Finnic, speaking a language similar to Estonian: the Livs who later gave their name to Livonia (German: Livland), the medieval confederation that covered all of what is now Latvia as well as much of Estonia lived along the seashore and in the Gauja and lower Daugava valleys. Most were later assimilated by the Balts; only a very small group survives in the twelve villages of what is today called the Livonian Coast. Their now nearly extinct Livonian language, however, had a strong influence on Latvian, which is a Baltic language closely related to Lithuanian.
The four Baltic tribes were the Couronians (kuri) in the west of the country, the Semigallians in the central Lielupe river basin, the Selonians (sēļi) on the left bank of the Daugava in the southeast, and the Latgallians (latgaļi) in the east, to the north of the Daugava. Some of Latvias historical regions take their names from these tribes: Courland (Latvian: Kurzeme), Semigallia (Zemgale long joined to the Duchy of Courland) and Latgallia (Latgale). The Latgallians were pushed westward by the Slavs and expanded into Liv lands in their turn.
The period between the 9th and 11th centuries was characterized by conflict and trade with the Scandinavians and the Slavs, the Daugava becoming one of the principal trade routes from the Varangians to the Greeks. Prior to this era the peoples living along the eastern Baltic littoral were seemingly removed from the great events taking place elsewhere in Europe; the only information we have about the early Balts is archaeological or based on genetic research.
The first clear mention of a settlement now in Latvia in a surviving text is that of Saint Rimbert, whose Vita Ansgari a life of Saint Ansgar describes a Viking attack on what was then Courlands foremost seaport, Grobiņa (German: Seeburg), in 854. The Couronians had ceased to pay tribute to the Swedes under King Olof. After sacking Grobiņa, which was fiercely defended by some 7,000 warriors, the raiders attacked what is now Apuolė (Latin: Apulia) in Lithuania, where they defeated approximately 15,000 defenders. The Couronians agreed to resume paying tribute.
The Baltic tribes, particularly the Couronians, were not passive objects in the Viking era. Adam of Bremen, writing c. 1080, described them as the most merciless of tribes, possessing the best horses. All their houses are full of priests and sorcerers, Adam also wrote; they would be among the last peoples in Europe to be Christianized, pagan practices surviving into the 19th century in some parts of Courland.
The Latgallians, who responded to raids from the east with raids of their own (as the Couronians did in the west by sea, frequently raiding both Denmark and Sweden), formed by far the largest Baltic tribe. As in Courland, relations were not always marked by conflict; some Latgallians converted to Orthodoxy, which unlike Catholicism was not spread by the sword.
The socio-political structures of the proto-Latvian tribes and the Livs appear to have been multicentric chiefdoms. Though some historians continue to put forward the thesis that the tribal structures were akin to early medieval states in Western Europe, these views reflect Marxist and nationalist paradigms. Though these early societies were not stagnant, change was not necessarily developmental. Attempts were made to concentrate power, but there is no evidence that centralization was successful in the late Iron Age. Instead, chiefdom survived as an alternative to the state. [4] [5]
History 
