The process of urbanization as the creation of a network of permanent settlements, a significant part of whose population is employed in the non-agricultural sector, belongs to one of the basic characteristics of social transformations that took place in Eastern and Northern Europe during the 9th and 13th centuries. This process was asynchronous. In Eastern Europe in the first half of the 11th century, ancient Rus’ cities were already a fully formed socio-economic and political-administrative phenomenon. In the territory of "historical Lithuania" the processes of urbanization in its initial stage are not recorded in written sources. We have recollections of most political and administrative centers in "historical Lithuania" only from the end of the 14th century - in ancient Ruthenian and German Order narrative sources.

But archaeological research over the past 20 years in the territory of "eastern Lithuania" (historical Vilnia / Vilnius Voivodeship) has made a real breakthrough in the study of non-agrarian settlements. Taking into account the characteristics of the material culture and the fortification features of the settlement, it can be argued that the original Kreva has the features of an early urban type settlement. Another hypothesis can be formulated - - the early urbanization in Eastern Lithuania is associated with the process of expanding the Slavic trade and craft presence in these centers.

It is worth considering the introduction / return of the definition of the Proto-city in relation to the earliest stage of formation of administrative and organizational centers of Eastern Lithuania in the tenth and twelfth centuries.