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All materials connected with the name of the outstanding archaeologist-Slavicist, doctor of history Ivan Ivanovich Lyapushkin are present in two funds within the Institute of History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS IHMC): the fund of the Institute of History of Material Culture of the USSR AS and the fund of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Archaeology of the USSR AS. I. Lyapushkin’s activities were connected with the IHMC since 1935, the year when he entered a doctoral course at the Institute and where he worked till the end of his days. Years of activity enabled I.I. Lyapushkin to contribute a significant quantity of photo-documents of his theoretical and field research to the Institute’s photoarchive. These photo documents fall into the following groups: personalia, field research, materials for scientific papers.A few photos and negatives in the photo-archive are I.I. Lyapushkin’s own image. Some of them are portraits photographed and printed by the Institute’s photolab (pictures of each researchers were regularly taken), and only a few photos show I.I. Lyapushkin during his work in expeditions. His earliest portrait is dated by 1939, taken on the dig at Tsimlyanskoe storage pond. I.I. Lyapushkin’s field research stuff, similarly to the stuff of other researchers of the Institute, were rendered to the RAS IHMC’s photoarchive regularly upon the end of each year of excavation, where they were subject of further scientific processing. His first photo-documents were accepted to the photo-archive in 1937, the last ones – in 1968. These photo-documents reflect stages in archaeological research process, schemes, finds, etc. At this moment, I.I. Lyapushkin’s field research materials are represented in 54 albums stored in the photo-archive. Materials for the papers contain negatives and prints made by the Institute’s lab on I.I. Lyapushkin’s order for his dissertation research, as well as for his monographs and articles.Overall, the RAS IHMC’s photo-archive contains I.I. Lyapushkin’s research materials including 2,711 negatives, 3,141 prints and 60 roll films and is an inalienable part of his scientific heritage and invaluable complex of photo-documents for contemporary researchers of Slavic archaeology.
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The monograph is an attempt to publish the results of archaeological research carried out in 1987-1999 at the Gorodishche village on the Syasi River (South-East Ladoga Region). The site yielded a unique for this region and quite rare for the South-West Russia existence on a small territory of a large quantity of different archaeological objects sharing some common features in their development. The researchers’ special attention was always focused on burial sites. The works carried out in 1987-1999 aimed at making some precisions to the research data obtained in late 19th – early 20th cc. as well as receiving new data about the burial rite.The author maintains that the unique nature of this site is determined not only by the system of already known burial antiquities but also by remains of medieval settlements present there. Settlements in other places of the South-East Ladoga region are not studied and are practically unknown. Research revealed remains of several settlements in this region. Works on the dig south to the Syasi Gorodishche documented its rather pronounced industrial and commercial activities. New evidence revealed on this site proves existence of a chronological proximity between the Syasi Gorodishche and Staraya Ladoga settlements, which are likely to have followed similar ways of development until the mid 10th c.
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The article offers to scientific discussion some materials of archaeological research on the settlement Vasilievskoe. It is the only ordinary unfortified settlement that has been studied in Novgorod area. The settlement is situated between the lake Ilmen’ and the Veryazha river. The Ilmen’ basin was one of the most populated and agriculturally developed areas in the Old Novgorod land. Excavation has yielded various industrial and dwelling constructions – debrises, a stone oven, remains of open hearths, pillar and household pits, as well as massive stuff, pottery and other stuff. Pottery, other stuff of the site and radio-carbon test results enable us dating most of Vasilievskoe complexes by 10th c. Digging conducted over several years on the Vasilievskoe settlement enable the authors to infer that the studied area was peripheral on this settlement and occupied under industrial and household complexes.
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The paper is an attempt to analyze archaeological, ethnographic and various written evidence which can serve for a reconstruction of leather trade with the early Slavs. Reconstruction is suggested for the stages in the development of forms of footwear in Eastern Europe, change of constructions and styles in its design. Scarce archaeological finds and written accounts have made the researcher involve evaluation of a wide range of analogues known across the Eurasian continent. For the Bronze Age, for instance, petroglyphs are a source to reconstruct footwear. These include sites found in the North-West of Russia - the rock “Shcheglets” in Novgorod oblast’ and the recently discovered rock with petroglyphs in Tver. Their similarity with the North-European petroglyphs, almost the same natural and geographic environment, similar dynamic changes of material culture enable one considering development of footwear forms and methods of leather processing in clan communities in the northern part of Western Europe analogous to the processes that took place with the earliest Slavs who later spread in the forest region of Eastern Europe. Groups of Eastern Slavs populating forest-steppe territories must have borrowed traditions of the nomadic population of the steppe region of Eastern Europe. This nomadic population kept changing across millennia, but preserved traditional nomadic economy and life. Moreover, one must take into account the influence of the Greek-Roman civilization upon the early Slavs; it pronounced itself both in development of the national forms of clothes and in technical organization of the trade in the late Roman and early medieval period. The meaning of these three factors playing a role in development of the traditional leather trade with the Slavs will most likely be defined more specifically, based, primarily, on new archaeological data.
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The author examines, mainly, the communications of the late Romanian and Byzantine literary sources concerning the ethnic realities in the Lower Danube area in the second half of the first millennium. The interest of the Byzantine authors in this geographical area is illustrated by frequent notes about different migratory populations and tribes (Gepidae, Huns, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars, etc.). This interest depended on the military and political relations of Byzantium with these ethnic groups. However, the Byzantine authors notice the existence of an ethno-linguistic background, composed of the Thraco-Daco-Roman population living on both banks of the Danube river. Sometimes this local background is represented occasionally by Roman (Byzantine) war-captives, refugees from Byzantium over the Danube, who were, often, ransomed by state or by their relatives (see: Priscus Panites, Procopius Caesariensis, Menander Protector, Theophylactus Simocatta, Pseudo-Mauricius a.o.). In De aedificiis Procopius notices many Latin and Thraco-Dacian toponyms in the 6th century. The existence of this native human and linguistic fund represents the most recent stage of the complex process which generated the Romanian people and language. In the 10th century the Byzantine sources pointed out the Greek name of Vlahoi (Walachi = Romanians). The map presents the political situation in the Danube region around the year 600 AD.
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The article restores names of various mercenaries from Northern and Eastern Europe mentioned by medieval Greek authors, particularly: Tauroscythes, Ros, Varangians, Rosovarangians etc. Special problems are Norsemen of Italian writers, Kulpings and Nemitzes.The author draws parallel between usage of these terms in different regions and countries (e.g. Varangians in Nordic records). He also infers that the medieval spoken Greek was rather receptive to foreign self-names. In time these words moved from the language of soldiers, peasants and seamen into the language of educated nobility.The author also considers history of Rosovarangians, who were a solid Slavic-Scandinavian corpus (10th c.) which later divided into the Ros and purely Scandinavian Varangians (11th c.), though they were allies regarded as closely connected in Byzantine records.
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The author studies economy of the early medieval Slavic community in Moldova, particularly, determines the character and the level of agricultural development in the Dniester-Prut interfluvial area in the last quarter of the first millennium A.D. The author analyses the entire complex of archaeological finds associated with agriculture – land-processing tools, the tools for processing of agricultural products, archaeological objects connected with production, storage and processing of agricultural products. He also studies the range of crops cultivated by the Slavs in Moldova during the mentioned period.
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The article reviews historiography concerning the study of the past of two early medieval peoples in the Eastenr Europe – the Ulichi and the Tivertsi. The historians’ interest towards the Ulichi and the Tivertsi was long ago stirred by their peculiar geographic location close to the Danube, which is known as a historical cradle of the Slavic peoples, and by reflection of their history in the early Russian chronicles.The most debatable issues are: the ethnic origin of the Tivertsi and the Ulichi; localization of the Tivertsi and the Ulichi (along with a number of related questions: the location of the first settlement of the Ulichi and the location of the Peresechen, known from the chronicles as the town of the Ulichi, which the Kiev governor Sveneld could not seize for a long time); the time when the Kiev knyazes conquered the Tivertsi and the Ulichi, etc.The author examines historiographic records about the Ulichi and the Tivertsi starting from the mid 18th century to the present day. As it turns out to be, the quality of the historiographic records of the 19th-early 20th cc. is much different compared to the modern ones. This stage in studies of the Ulichi and the Tivertsi strikes one by a variety, vividness of many ideas, numerous bright surmises and hypotheses, which unfortunately have been absolutely “forgotten” by the modern historiography.The special brightness of this pre-revolutionary period in historiography becomes even more evident when compared to the second half of the 20th c.The key difference is the extent of use of different types of evidence. Emergence of an absolutely new type of evidence – archaeological ones – has drawn professional archaeologists to the research and has reduced the role of the analysis of written records. It has also revealed the drawbacks of mixed argumentation, violation of the principle of separation, according to which every discipline must arrive at its own conclusions following strictly and owing to analysis of its own records, done by use of its own methods and approaches to the research, without attracting arguments from other disciplines as an evidence (because these disciplines also require evidence).The analysis of a two-hundred-years historiography concerning the Ulichi and the Tivertsi proves the necessity of an obligatory periodical return to and re-introduction into the scientific discourse of forgotten, but most useful for the modern research achievements of the past historiography.
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In 2011, during excavation of a tumulus at the cemetery of Shekshovo-9 near Suzdal, there was found an iron war hatchet inlayed with silver. Along with a geometric motif, the incrustation included representations of two princely signs — a bident and a trident. N.A. Makarov, I.E. Zaytseva and A.M. Krasnikova who published this find have convincingly identified this hatchet as a “symbol of power”.The bident is an ordinary type of a familial two-pronged battle fork sign of the Rurik princes; it was consequently used by representatives of the senior branch of the dynasty. The trident belonged to one of the junior sons of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. A contemporary of Vladimir Svyatoslavich’s sons among the princes who used the family bident of the Rurik dynasty was represented by Svyatopolk Yaropolchich — the posthumous son of Yaropolk Svyatoslavich adopted by Vladimir. He used the bident in the years of the Turov princedom. The trident on the hatchet can have belonged (and, most probably, indeed belonged) to Vsevolod Vladimirovich who reigned in Volhynia.Svyatopolk Yaropolchich considered himself as a legal pretender to the Kievan throne “lawlessly” occupied by Vladimir Svyatoslavich who had killed his elder brother, Kievan Grand Prince Yaropolk. The frondeur opposition resulted in Svyatopolk being arrested and imprisoned in a dungeon on charges of conspiracy. Possibly, Vsevolod took Svyatopolk’s side in the confrontation with Kiev and became a participant of the plot.
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The article describes the finds of rider and horse equipment from sites of Pskov long barrow culture: typology, chronology, composition of the complexes. Pskov long barrows yielded bits (two- or three-piece), spurs with hooks and conical spike, a fragment of lash, elements of bridle. Most items are dated to a wide span within the middle — third quarter of the I Millennium. Horse burials in Pskov long barrows are quite numerous, they yield two types of bridle: 1) bridle with metal parts, 2) set of bit and a small bronze buckle. Horse burials and finds from them are similar to Balt antiquities. Possible relationship between Pskov long barrows and Baltic cultures requires further detailed study.
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History of military forces in the Crimea in 550 — early 7th centuries has been seldom subject of special research. Now we have sufficient sources, particularly archaeological evidence, which require study and analysis. Along with written accounts, these materials provide background for a new concept of Taurica's history in the early Byzantine period. The main postulate of this new concept consists in rejection of the fact that Byzantium lost its authority in the Crimean region in the mentioned period, when an Imperial Province appeared on the territory between the Crimean Peninsula between Chersonesos and Bosporus. It was divided into archontates, with Chersonesos as the main center. Mangoup was another large political center — the capital of “Dori country”.The armed forces of this province consisted of Chersonesos militia, irregular military units and allies of the Empire, their total number being 3000—4000 people. The core consisted of federates-espondoi — free wealthy landlords, peasants-soldiers from among the local population, the Alani and the Goths. They were under political and fiscal control of the central Byzantine authorities after 575, the lands of the Tauric province were transferred by the local archontes to the administration of the supreme military and civil governor, who was called 'dux'. Chersonesos and Bosporus transform into a Ducat structure.
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The ethnonym Rus’ is included by Khaburgaev into the group of ethnonyms of finnophone origin (like Sum’, Yam’, Ves’, Vod’, Liv’ etc.) that are formed as monosyllable collective nouns ending with -ь (from Finnish -i, -e). The peoples so denoted populated a strict area on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and adjacent territories. These were names of finnophone tribes (peoples) and of their neighbours, Rus' belongs to the latter: it is the name still used by the Finns and Estonians to call the Swedes. Consequently, this term is of northern, finnophone origin, and from finnophone population it came to Slavs, and the latter started using it to call newcomers from Scandinavia, i.e. the Normans. It still does not explain why the Finns gave this name to their neighbors, but it does not cancel the northern, finnophone origin of the term.
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It is the first publication of findings of Serbian medieval coins in the Prut-Dniester region. Fifteen silver coins and imitations are presented in the paper. They were unearthed in Moldova (in Costesti settlement and near some villages in the south of the country), as well as in Orlovka (Odessa region, Ukraine). Most coins relate to issues of Stefan Uros IV Dusan (1331—1355). The author suggests that the Serbian coins entered in the Golden Horde settlements in this region from Dobrogea and circulated here together with the Bulgarian coins in 30—50s of the 14th century. This publication will serve as an additional source of information for reconstruction of historical context in the western periphery of the Golden Horde.
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