GRAIN FARMING OF THE MIDDLE DON POPULATION AT THE SCYTHIAN TIME

Abstract

For the reconstruction of ancient societiesґ farming systems it is very important to have information about their grains farming. This article is a summary of the data from the Middle Don population during the Scythian period. The materials were obtained from floating plants and fingerprint analysis of clay products, all the collections are from settlement, burial and religion monuments. The materials comprise all areas of the Middle Don and fully reflect its chronology and culture.
 The typical established compounds of cereals cultivated by tribes from the Middle Don during the early Iron Age culture in palaeoethnobotany spectrum are: millet, emmer wheat, barley and rye. The detected legumes were: peas and vetch. The statements and gathered evidences are: prints plum and blackthorn on the bottom from different pottery and fragments of hazel nut shell from the flotation samples.
 Among the prints on ceramics there are negatives of weeds growing in spring and winter crops. This combination of weed in the materials of monuments allowed the authors to suggest the presence of multi-crop farming and rather complex cropping system (two-, three-field).