Petr Petrovich Efimenko

Abstract

The process by which Soviet archeology came into being was complex and difficult, particularly because the prerevolutionary heritage in archeology was extremely imperfect. We are speaking not only of the degree to which monuments of antiquity had been studied, and of the fact that more than three-fourths of the country's territory was an absolute "archeological desert," but primarily of the low level of technique and general approach characteristic of prerevolutionary Russian archeology. It is not without reason that the archeology of prerevolutionary Russia is described as "oriented toward the nobility and capitalist class" or simply "oriented toward the nobility," thus emphasizing its pronounced backwardness.