THE CURRENT STATE OF THE STUDY OF VOLYNTSEVO CULTURE SITES

Abstract

The presented publication of the manuscript of Oleg Sukhobokov (1937—2008), a famous Ukrainian archaeologist-Slavist, Doctor of historical sciences, Chief Research Fellow of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is an important contribution to the historiography of Volyntsevo sites. Relying on his own extensive experience in scientific and field research of Slavic sites of the Left Bank of Ukraine, the author presents his vision of the most important and debatable problems of the study of Volyntsevo sites: the origin and ethnic attribution, dating and chronology, their place in the cultural-stratigraphic column of a sites of the Dnieper Left Bank of the middle to the late 1st millennium. During the more than 40-year period of field archaeological work, the scholar discovered and studied a number of important archaeological sires of the Dnieper Left Bank, in particular, the unique early Siveryans settlement Bytytsia on the Psel River (1984—1991, 1993).
 The Bytytsia hill-fort takes a special place among the Volyntsevo settlements: its topography (on a cape), considerable size (ca. 11 ha), wood and earth fortifications, a large number (up to 60 %) of pottery, together with an unprecedented number for early Slavic sites of agricultural implements, craft tools and weapons, two hoards, etc. All of this allowed Dr. Sukhobokov to raise issues on the social and ethnocultural content of this site, which is different from that of most Volyntsevo sites, to consider the Bytytsia hill-fort the administrative, trade and craft center of the Siverians tribal union.
 In the presented material the considerable attention is paid to the substantiated, based on a wide source base refutation of the hypothesis by V. V. Sedov that the population of the Imenkovo culture of the Middle Volga region became the substratum of the Volyntsevo culture of the Middle Dnieper region. At the same time, the author emphasizes the influence of the «alien cultural impulse» from the Turkic or Iranian-speaking peoples who were the part of the Khazar Khaganate and were quickly assimilated by the Slavic (Severians) environment, which manifested itself in the originality of the ceramic complex of the Volyntsevo people, who considered by Dr. Sukhobokov as early stage of the chronicled Siverians.