Salaspils

Salaspils (; Kircholm; Kirkholm) (literally: "island castle") is a town in Latvia, the administrative centre of Salaspils Municipality. The town is situated on the northern bank of the Daugava river, 18 kilometers to the south-east of the city of Riga. Salaspils is one of the oldest settlements in Latvia. Archaeological excavations of 1964–1975 (during the construction of Riga HES) in ancient settlements, burial grounds and castle mounds give evidence of very dense population of the region. At this time, the remains of 11,000-year-old reindeer hunters were found (the oldest known human settlement in all of Latvia) and 3500-year-old remains of Baltic hunters, buried in hollowed-out oak-tree trunks, were found as well. There is evidence that both Livs and Balts built hill forts in the region. At the end of the 12th century, German merchants travelled up the Daugava, establishing missionaries among the Livonian settlements. One important centre of Daugava Livonians, the small island Mārtiņsala (German:Kircholm) had a Christian church as early as 1186. So began the Christianizing and gradual subjection of the local Livonian tribes. In 1206, in the early phases of the Livonian Crusade, the Livonian chieftain Ako organized the first revolt against the German crusaders but suffered defeat. The Latvian name of the Salaspils "island castle" is probably derived from Mārtiņsala Island castle, but the Germanized name Kircholm – from the Mārtiņsala Island church. Both names were used when referring to the territory on the northern bank of the Daugava. In 1380 the Livonian Order built the castle (Neu-Kircholm) on the mainland, with St George's church by it. The castle was an important support-point outside of Riga, and a small town grew up around it. Both the castle and village were destroyed in 1577 during the Livonian War. In 1605 the village was a site of the Battle of Kircholm in which forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth defeated a much more numerous army of Sweden. This was the biggest battle of the Polish–Swedish War.