HABITATIONS OF RUDKIVTSI SETTLEMENT (According to Research Materials of 1972—1974)

Abstract

The settlement of pre-Scythian times is located near the Rudkivtsi village, Novoushitsky District, Khmelnytsky Region. The site occupies large area on the plateau (about 115 hectares) which rises 150 m above the level of the Dniester and a steep slope (about 6 hectares) which departs from the plateau and descends rapidly to the water. The settlement has the complex system of artificial fortifications that protect it from the most vulnerable areas.
 The part of settlement that occupied the slope was inhabited. Here in the seventees of the previous century the author conducted the research by the expedition of the Kamyanets-Podilsky Pedagogical Institute. This article deals with residential objects, were discovered on the settlement during 1972—1974.
 Residential buildings are mostly above ground or slightly deepened by 0.5—1 m with clay pear-shaped or oval in plan furnaces and hearths. For example, dwelling 5 was lowered into the ground by 0.7 m. Dimensions — 8.5 Ч 6.5 m. In housing had functioned an clay oven and three hearths. The furnace, pear-shaped in plan, was sunk into the mainland by about half near the western wall and rose 0.3 m above the general level. Length — 2.3 m, width — 1.4 m, and width of the outfall — 0.35 m. The stove had a domed ceiling, which had fell on the bottom and covered the entire area of the latter with a layer (up to 3—4 cm thick) of small fragments of burnt plaster. In some places, along the perimeter of the furnace, survived to a height of 3 cm sides of the arch, 4 cm thick. On both sides of the estuary there were stone slabs across, which strengthened the outfall and prevented its premature destruction.The 3 cm thick clay bottom was smeared on a base of carefully laid stone tiles. In addition to the stove, there were three other fires inside the house.
 The results of the excavations are important, first of all, because it was possible to open residential buildings with heating devices of satisfactory safety and to establish their arrangement. In the construction of buildings used traditional materials for the time: clay, wood and stone. This technology is typical for the whole of Transnistria and neighboring regions.
 Studies have shown that the territory of the settlement was very densely populated. The collected materials allow to determine the time of functioning of the monument within the end of the 10th first half of the 7th century BC.