Svetlana I. Kochkurkina

Institute of Linguistics, History and Literature of the Karelian Research Centre of RAS, Petrozavodsk (babkin@karelia.ru)

Key words: territory, peoples, archaeological sites, dating, scientific methods in archaeology, Christianization.

Northern-West Ladoga (Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, Lakhdenpokhsky and Sortavalsky Districts of the Republic of Karelia), a territory of the chronicle korela, the ancestor of the Karelian people, has been studied by Finnish and Russian researchers for more than a century. Based on fundamental sources (medieval barrows, hoards, ancient settlements, sacrificial stones and etc.) it has become possible to define some important scientific problems in the treatment of ancient history of the Karelian people: the origin of ancient Karelians, borders, chronology and periodization, use of scientific methods, paganism and Orthodoxy. However, for some objective reasons and established traditions in historiography some principal problems of the ethno-cultural history of the people are disputable and demand further examinations.