No 1 (2024)

Archaeological sites identified by studies of 2010–2021 on the territory of Nakhchivan made it possible to supply the gap between the Late Neolithic and Eneolithic Chalcolithic periods. The presence of ancient Eastern features – Halaf and Obeid ones – is noted in the materials of Nakhchivan Tepe, Uçan-Ağıl, Bulovkaya and Uzunoba. It can be assumed that the settlements of Nakhchivan Tepe and Bulovkaya were strongholds or colonies of newcomers – bearers of Middle Eastern cultural traditions.

Circular in plan fortified settlements, or ring settlements, were an ideal type of lowland fortifications. One of their prototypes is unfortified settlements with a closed layout of dwellings in a circle and an oval. In the north of Eurasia, ring fortifications emerged in the Neolithic (6th–4th millennia BC), in the fisher-hunter-gatherers’ communities in the taiga area of the Ob’ River Basin and the mountain-forest Trans-Urals, during the mass settlement of these territories in the context of global warming. In the Bronze Age (late 3rd – early 1st millennium BC), such fortified settlements, as well as promontory and riverside fortified settlements, disappeared in the taiga giving way to large earth-timber fortified dwellings. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, during the next xerotherm, in the steppes of the Trans-Urals, pastoralists who migrated from South-Eastern Europe erected circular fortresses (the Sintashta culture of the 21st–18th centuries BC). Probably, the construction of circular in plan unfortified settlements of the Tashkovo culture in the forests of the Lower Tobol region in the 21st/20th – 16th centuries BC was influenced by the steppe defensive architecture. The earliest taiga fortified settlements were developing independently of the forest-steppe and steppe settlements. The former and the latter alike were economic, industrial, social and, possibly, cult centres of communities. A new mass distribution of ring settlements in the forest-steppe area of the Tobol-Irtysh region, and later in the taiga area of the Surgut and Lower Ob’ River region, took place at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age (8th/7th centuries BC – 3rd/4th centuries AD). In the 6^th/5^th centuries BC – 3rd/4th centuries AD, the defensive systems of some West Siberian fortifications were supplemented with bastion-tower elements borrowed from the Saka people of the Aral Sea region.

The article is focused on the study of the alloy composition and the peculiarities of the manufacturing technique of metal objects uncovered during the excavation in the crypt in the northern part of the Panticapaeum necropolis. Based on the results of research on the details of funeral wreaths with natural science methods, it was established that they were made of gold of a fairly high standard. The use of such an alloy in the Roman period was recorded for items from the excavations at the Panticapaeum and Phanagoria necropolises. Bosporan jewellers made parts of funeral wreaths by mechanical processing: in the beginning, a metal sheet was forged, after that they cut out items of the required shape from it and applied an embossed ornament. Bronze objects found in the crypt, which were used by their owner during his lifetime, are mostly cast. They are made of pure copper, brass, tin-lead and lead-tin bronzes.

Traditionally, charcoal from archaeological sites was considered an unsuitable material for dendrochronological dating. The authors examined 23 coal samples from the Kara-Dyt II site (Republic of Tyva, Russia). An analysis of existing solutions for sample preparation of such material showed their low speed and efficiency. This article uses the approach developed by the authors, which allows for quick and high-quality sample preparation of a large number of charcoals with minimal labour costs. As a result, it was possible to construct a 138-year tree-ring chronology using archaeological charcoal. Further work in this direction will make it possible to solve the problem of constructing a long-term tree-ring chronology in the arid zone of South Siberia. This chronology provides a unique tool for determining the calendar age of wood from numerous burial mounds in Tuva and for an in-depth study of the relationship between climate and society over the past two millennia.

In 2022, archaeological activities were conducted to clarify the boundaries of the multilayer Unkhrug 1 site located on Olkhon Island (Lake Baikal). In the lowest layer of one of the test pits, a burial of an ancient dog in an artificial pit was found with the remains of a red deer. This find is very rare for the Neolithic of the Baikal region. A morphometric study of bone remains, a comparative analysis with other skeletal materials, and radiocarbon and isotope analyzes were conducted. The data obtained made it possible to establish the individual characteristics of the buried dog and its possible diet. An individual burial with a ritual meat part of a red deer carcass inside indicates the special significance of this individual for the Neolithic inhabitants of Olkhon Island.

The article considers a round openwork clasp from a hoard of ornaments of the Volga-Finnish women’s attire found in 2021 in the village of Abakumlevo 3 (Suzdal District of Vladimir Region). Currently, the clasp as the entire complex of hoard items is not a typical find on the territory of Suzdal Opolye. The authors conducted a technological analysis of the ornament and made a review of items similar in appearance from the Volga-Finnish sites. The features of the formation of a wax model were studied and the composition of the metal in the clasp was determined. The review of openwork clasps with a similar design and individual ornamental elements showed that the formation of the appearance of the clasp from the Abakumlevo Hoard dates back to the late 4th – early 5th century AD, and all structural elements find analogies, first of all, in the ornamentation of the Ryazan-Oka archaeological culture. Breast clasps recorded to the north and northeast of the main area of the above culture can be considered as markers of the migration directions of the Middle Oka region’s population, actively influencing the surrounding Volga-Finnish population related to the former.

The article introduces the hoard of silver coins found in 2016 on the territory of the Bolgar fortified settlement in excavation site CXCII, square 75, and establishes the concealment time of the find. In total, the hoard contained 11 dirhams of Bolgar coinage. A metrological analysis of coins of types С/180 and С/197 with the involvement of the author’s photo archive is given. Based on the depth of the hoard and other coins (pools of the 14th century) in square 75, the author concludes that the hoard was hidden in the late 1320s. Taking into account the previously published materials, the newly found hoard was assigned number 33 A in the order of hoards recorded. The paper also gives information about the topography of single finds of C/180 type and the hoard of 14th century AD dirhams from southern mints.

B.S. Zhukov is one of the key figures in Russian archaeology of the 1920s. Palaeoethnological field of research at Moscow University was established by D.N. Anuchin who suggested his famous triad, a synthesis of prehistoric archaeology, anthropology and ethnography. In the early 1920s, Zhukov, his disciple, went further and put the teacher’s ideas into practice by proposing a research programme and building a team of young researchers – archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnologists, and experts in other areas. The leader of the palaeoethnological school, B.S. Zhukov did not only absorbed Anuchin’s idea of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of humans in their past and present development, but also implemented it in the course of large-scale complex expeditions and in-depth research. Zhukov’s school as a special research direction was developing for a short period in the mid and second half of the 1920s. However, it raised a generation of archaeologists, anthropologists and ethnologists, who made an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian and world science.