PER ASPERA AD ASTRA: СТВОРЕННЯ ЛАБОРАТОРІЇ ПРИРОДНИЧОНАУКОВИХ МЕТОДІВ У ІНСТИТУТІ АРХЕОЛОГІЇ АН УРСР У 1960-І РР.

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the process of establishing of the laboratory of natural science methods at the Institute of archaeology AS of the UkrSSR in the 1960s basing on archival sources from the Scientific archive of the Institute of archaeology NAS of Ukraine. The Research Methodology. Both general research methods and special methods of humanitarian and historical researches as the historiographic analysis, source critique and problem chronological method were applied by the author. The scientific novelty of the article consists in the fact that there are no publications on this topic and an initial period of the laboratory activity of natural science methods of the IA AS of the UkrSSR is unexplored. The Conclusions. In contrast to central archaeological research establishments of the USSR where forming of research infrastructure for applying methods of natural science in archaeology started in the 1950s, in Kyiv at the IA AS of UkrSSR this process began only in the middle of the 1960s despite an announce of the plans in 1956. Although the administrations of AS of the UkrSSR and the Institute supported the work in this field, but the laboratory of spectral analysis could not get things going for more than five years. The main technical equipment was bought by the IA AS of the UkrSSR as far back as in 1964 but because of the lack of free rooms, the need for qualified staff and bureaucratic delays of that period, which did not make it possible to solve problems rapidly, which appeared during the installation of new devices, researches did not start until the end of the decade. This situation changed only in the middle of the 1970s when the Institute of archaeology AS of the UkrSSR moved to a new building. But it was much better with applying geophysical methods in the survey of archaeological sites. Owing to V. P. Dudkin’s activity, who tested new equipment in the second half of the 1960s, a magnetic survey of the Trypillian settlement Maidanetske was completed in the first half of the next decade. In some period of time, despite the initial delay, the IA AS of the UkrSSR made progress in the use of research methods of natural science in archaeology. Keywords: history of archaeology, the Soviet archaeology, methods of natural science in archaeology, laboratory of natural science methods, Institute of archaeology AS of the UkrSSR.