The material culture of the Bashkirs in the second half of the 18th century (according to some written and archaeological materials)

The object of the study is the material culture of the Bashkir population of the Southern Urals in the second half of the XVIII century. The subject is its economic and household components. The purpose of the work is to expand knowledge about the Bashkir material culture in the second half of the 18th century by integrating existing written sources and archaeological materials. The research source base is represented by the works of scientists and travelers from the middle to the third third of the XVIII century. who personally visited the South Ural region – P. I. Rychkov, P. S. Pallas, I. I. Lepekhin, I. P. Falk, I. G. Georgi and N. P. Rychkov, who paid great attention to the daily life, economic activities and culture of the Bashkir people, as well as archaeological materials obtained as a result of the study of Bashkir settlement complexes of the XVII–XVIII centuries.  When writing the work, an integrated approach was used based on the correlation of these written sources with archaeological materials. The novelty of the presented work consists in a comparative analysis of two relatively heterogeneous groups of sources. The first group – written sources indicate that the development of Bashkir material culture in the second half of the XVIII century. It was largely determined by the traditional semi-nomadic way of life, an integral part of which were seasonal migrations from place to place. At the same time, they provide only general information about certain sectors of the economy, practically without affecting related household items, a tool kit, etc. In this situation, the second group of sources, represented by archaeological materials obtained as a result of excavations of Bashkir settlement complexes of Modern times, allows to deepen and expand knowledge about the material culture of the Bashkirs at this time.

Archaeology of Modern times, Bashkirs, material culture, Bashkortostan, written sources, archaeological sources, economy, Academic expeditions, interdisciplinary research, cultural layer