2500 BC to 1235

The Balts and the name Lithuania

Baltic-speaking peoples have lived along the Neman and the Baltic coast for thousands of years, trading amber with the Roman world. The name Lithuania first appears in 1009, in the Annals of Quedlinburg, which record the killing of the missionary Bruno of Querfurt on the border of Rus' and Lithuania. Its tribes, among them the Samogitians, remain pagan.