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The aim of this work was to study the remains of plants from Olbia and to compare them with ones from similar ancient Greek towns and nearby tribes.Until recently such large center of Greek colonization as Olbia has been characterized by insignificant quantity of the palaeoethnobotanical material, unlike the centers in Bosporus and Chersonesos. The collection of samples of plant material has been formed by means of flotation during archaeological excavation. The selection of samples was made from basement of buildings, cellars, storage pits, and amphorae. Then they were analyzed at the Archeology Institute of the Academy of Science of Ukraine.The excavations of Olbia were concentrated in three locations: lower town (NGS) which covers the period from 6th – 5th centuries B.C. to the 3rd – 4th centuries A.D.; dig N.25 (3rd – 4th centuries A.D.) and dig T-3 (6th – 5th centuries B.C.). The materials from chora of Olbia are also used to characterize earlier stages of existence of the Greek town. Basically, all samples contained charred grains and seeds of cultivated plants and weeds. The other parts of plants, as straw, spikelet forks, rachis fragments were found, first of all, in storage pits. The results were recorded in the palaeoethnobotany data base /PEB/. Olbia was one of the big towns on the Northern coast of the Black Sea in Classical period. It is Olbia, about 35 km of Nikolaev (Ukraine), situated on the right bank of the South Bug river. It was founded by Greek colonists in 6th century B.C. and existed for almost a millennium. The naked wheat Triticum aestivum s.l. and hulled barley Hordeum vulgare have been the most important plants. Panicum miliaceum, Secale cereale, Hordeum vulgare var.coeleste are found also. Besides, the grains of hulled wheats: emmer Triticum dicoccon, eincorn Triticum monococcum and spelt wheat Triticum spelta are submitted. in early materials from settlements of Kozyrka 9, Beykush, Adzhigol. Other crops are pulses: Pisum sativum, Vicia ervilia, Lens culinaris. The occurrence of grapes is fixed since the first centuries AD.The finds of Ficus carica, Prunus persica, Juglans regia show importance of fruits for nutrition. Changes in assortment during the whole period of existence of Olbia were insignificant. It is obvious that from the beginning of occupation of the new territory the Greeks used known assortment instead of borrowing it from local tribes.At the same time, there is a significant difference from crops used by the neighboring tribes. Hulled barley and common millet prevailed in composition of early Scythian tribes in Lower Dnieper region. Hulled wheat, mainly emmer, were typical crops also. Properties of these plants corresponded to requirements of half-nomadic way of life very well. Gradually, probably as results of contacts with the adjacent Greek polises and transition to settled life the assortment becomes more various and in the beginning of the new millennium there are unknown earlier naked wheat and rye. The large palaeoethnobotanical material received as a result of long-term researches of the last years shows that during a millennium hulled wheats were the prevailing crop in the economy of various subsequent tribes on the territory of modern Ukraine. Naked wheats occurred only with arrival of the Greeks, first in the south and then gradually spread to the north.
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The article treats the early period of silver minting in the Ancient Greek Panticapaeum before a combination of letters signifying the town’s name first appeared on coins. First issues of these silver coins are dated by the middle – second half of the 6th c. B.C. The Panticapaeum coinage is supposed to have appeared as a means to pay for grain brought from the Asian part of Bosporus (the Taman peninsula). In its turn, this enables us to raise the question of a possible union of Panticapaeum and polises on the Taman peninsula in as early as the middle 6th c. B.C.
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The issue of autochthonous origin of the Getians in the Dniester-Prut interfluve’s area and the whole Eastern Carpathian region was not debatable until 1994, when M. Tkachuk published his article on cultural manifestations in 5th – 1st c. B.C. in the known Romanian journal “TRACO-DACICA”. Tkachuk wrote about the Getians that their motherland was in Southern Dobrudja, while their first incursions in Eastern-Carpathian lands are dated by the late 6th – early 5th c. B.C. Our excavations during many years on a fortified Getian settlement “Saharna – La Revechin” enabled us to go back to the issue raised in the cited article and establish that massive migration of the Getians to the lands north of the Danube was connected with the raid by the Persian king Darius I against the Scythians. The event took place either in 514 or in 512 B.C.
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The article examines the issues connected with development of the urban area of Tyra - the largest Classical Ancient center in the Low Dniester area. The beginnings of this city dates back to a colonial settlement on the top of the promontory point in late 6th – early 5th cc. B.C. In 4th – 3rd cc. the area under urban construction reaches its maximum. In this connection, a new section of the defensive wall was built in 3rd c. B.C. The defensive system was redesigned in the Roman time. Nothing has been known so far about the southern limit of the urban area in the first centuries A.D.
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The occupation of the steppe region north of the Black Sea by farming or herding groups in the fifth and fourth millennia BC has been a controversial question. At the core of the problem is the changing relationship between Cucuteni-Tripolye farming groups in the forest-steppe zone and their neighbours in the true steppe zone. Three phases of this relationship are discussed, in the Early Copper Age, Late Copper Age and Early Bronze Age (c. 5000-3000 BC), during which different forms of exchange and acculturation took place, each with its own social and economic characteristics. The role of environmental change, and the significance of burial monuments in the process of cultural convergence, are evaluated. The process is discussed both in terms of general models of social transformation, and by comparison with other areas of Europe where similar processes of interaction were taking place.
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In the article, the burial structure is considered in terms of its construction in astronomical Polar coordinates, both in Ecliptical and Equatorial. The meaning of elements of the structure concerning circumpolar constellationsof Oat-flakes and the Dragon is given. Parallels with ancient mythological and religious systems that entitle to attach a monument to an invaluable sample of theoretical and practical knowledge of ancient people on the appropriate level of development of knowledge in prehistoric epoch will be carried out.
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The article brings complex characteristics of items made of ancient faience, spread in the eastern European area in 3,000 – 500 B.C. The author infers that faiences enjoyed a sporadic popularity during the studied time period. They were manufactured as imitations of the most popular stones used in jewelry: turquoise, lapis lazuli and haemation. The range of such production was limited, as the items are represented exclusively by decorations and amulets. From the economic point of view, the value of faiences was comparable to the cost of gems, gold and silver. From the chemical and technological points of view, they represent the simplest varieties of Ĺ, F, Ń (by A. Lucas). Such items of that time period come mostly from imports, being brought from the Caucasus, Near East and Egypt. It cannot be excluded that some items of the middle Bronze Age were manufactured in “syncretistic” workshops of the Donets Basin.
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The article presents a set of objects, which come from a new settlement of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture not far from Kishinev – Truşeni III. A part of the material, including some quite rare for that period metal items is kept in a private collection in Kishinev, the rest of the material was collected from the surface of the settlement by the author in October 2005. The most significant finds are 3 metal objects – one adze-axe of the Ariuşd type and two bracelets, all of them probably made of copper. This is the first discovery of an adze-axe of such type on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The analysis of some particular traits of the ceramic complex allows this settlement to be included in the Cucuteni A-B period. The rest of the material also is characteristic of this stage. The exactly known location of the copper finds is very important, and could be very significant for solving the disputed matter about the exact dating of the adze-axes of the Ariuşd type.
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The article presents a brief information about the pre-Hellenistic sites situated at the Opuk Mountain (Black Sea coast of the Kerch Peninsula, the ancient town of Kimmerikon) and in its environs. Before the Greek colonization of the territory of European Bosporus this part of the coast was inhabited by the local semi-settled population. The author brings evidence from the Late Bronze archaeological sites of this region studied in 1900-1950 (excavations by Yu.Yu.Marti, I.B.Zeest and I.T.Kruglikova) and the results of his own research. At present, five settlements situated on maritime terraces of the Opuk, Priozernaya and Konchek Mountains, burial mounds and cysts (sometimes surrounded by cromlechs) dated by the Late Bronze Age are known at the Opuk and in its environs. Before the arrival of the first Greek colonists this population was forced out by the Scythians.
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In the review two recent books on the archaeological theory and methods are critically considered. The first of them is the book by Yu.L. Shchapova “Introduction to artefactology” (2000). The second book is “Systematic classification of archaeological science” (2000) by Yu.P. Kholyushkin and E.D. Grazhdannikov. The author finds the classification and systematization schemes presented in the books rather contradictory and insufficiently elaborated.
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The review considers main conclusions of the book by B.D. Mikhaylov devoted to the analysis of rock engravings in the ancient sanctuary “Kamennaya Mogila” (Stone Grave) located in the north Azov region. Mikhaylov’s contribution to the study of this unique archaeological site is highly appreciated. Unlike some other scholars the author of the review shares Mikhaylov’s opinion concerning the presence of depictions in Kamennaya Mogila related to different historic epochs starting from the final Palaeolithic.
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The authors introduce a classification of currently available burial facilities of the Yamnaya (Pit-Grave) culture of the Volga-Ural interfluve by labor costs — based on 394 burials of the 281 kurgans. They use data from the natural-scientific studies of the last decade. Thus, they managed to individualize constructive characteristics of burial structures depending on the age and sex structure, social status and professional activity of the buried, as well as to determine the level of development of social relations in Рit-Grave culture. Evolution of the social structure is considered in the context of modern periodization and radio-carbon chronology of the Pit-Grave culture in the Volga-Ural region.
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Earlier third millennium cal BCE is the period of development of interconnected Early Bronze Age societies in Eurasia, which economic and social structures expressed variants of pre-state political structures, named in the specialized literature tribes and chiefdoms. In this work new arguments will be added to the chiefdom model of third millennium cal BC societies of Yunatsite culture in the Central Balkans from the perspectives of the interrelations between Dubene (south central Bulgaria) and Troy (northwest Turkey) wealth expression.Possible explanations of the similarity in the wealth expression between Troy and Yunatsite chiefdoms is the direct interaction between the political elite. However, the golden and silver objects in the third millennium cal BCE in the Eastern Mediterranean are most of all an expression of economic wealth. This is the biggest difference between the early state and chiefdoms in the third millennium cal BCE in Eurasia and Africa. The literacy and the wealth expression in the early states was politically centralized, while the absence of literacy and wider distribution of the wealth expression in the chiefdoms of the eastern Mediterranean are indicators, that wider distribution of wealth and the existed stable subsistence layers prevented the formation of states and the need to regulate the political systems through literacy.
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The article substantiates the possibility of adapting the concept of a frontier for the interpretation of archaeological data on a concrete example of a stateless society. The historiographic analysis of the evolution of the concept has been carried out, the author’s understanding of this phenomenon has been formulated; its archeological criteria have been also proposed: locality, brevity of functioning, cultural variability, migration origin, military character of the elite, traces of conflicts, long translation of frontier traditions after the functioning of the frontier. This list corresponds to the main traits of the Sintashta sites (the Bronze Age in the Southern Urals). The only exception is the absence of traces of conflict. Probably, migrants occupied a sparsely populated or unsettled territory. As a result, a gradual refusal of fortifications and high concentration of population came; elite (primarily military) paraphernalia disappeared from funerary rites. The main features of cultural “heirs” (economy, technology, etc.) demonstrate continuity with Sintashta traditions and the tendency to multiple territorial expansions.
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The collection of the settlements of the Linear Pottery Culture (5670—5050 calBC) in Brunn-am-Gerbirge on the outskirts of Vienna (Austria) includes categories of finds that are not usual for this culture (figurines, musical instruments, amulets, numerous amphorae). They allow us an interpretation of Brunn as a central settlement, which existed during some phases of the Pre-Note period of the Linear Pottery Culture, where residents of peripheral settlements gathered for religious ceremonies. The most ancient site of this group was Brunn 2, which is almost completely excavated. Its materials show that all the unique finds are concentrated in a few houses, which can be considered as houses of the leader of the community, who also performed cult functions.
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The formation of social complexity often unfolded in non-unilineal ways in those regions of the world where the surplus product remained low enough to support institutionalized power and state bureaucracy. The Bronze Age of Northern Eurasia is a vivid example where social complexity arose based on herding economy, while population density remained low enough not to form territorially separate competing groups. Studying of such societies sheds light on how and under what conditions the social elite emerged. The undertaken analysis suggests that the formation, development, and decline of social complexity in the Bronze Age steppe societies were directly related to the intensification of subsistence practices and colonization of new territories. At the same time, some members of the society took upon themselves the role of community life’s managers, and, in return, received privileged statuses. The environment and the economy changing, the need for such functions disappeared. As a result, the Bronze Age social elites dissolved in the mass and lost their privileged statuses.
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Study of the Chalcolithic Leila-Tepe culture discovered in Azerbaijan gave strong evidence for Caucasian migration of ancient agriculturists from the Northern Mesopotamia starting from the end of the 5th mill. BC. Burial sites of the culture were mainly connected with infant burials in vessels inside multilayered settlements (tells). Our study was devoted to description of three burials from excavations of the settlement Galaeri (Beta 330265: 5060±30 BP or 3940—3800 BC, Museibli, 2013). All infants were buried in vessels of the same type made of rough ceramics. Studying skeletons, we estimated biological age, as well as parameters of physical development and palaeopathological features. Digital microfocus X-ray was used. Pilot study of strontium isotopes ratio by mass-spectrometry was provided (values 0.708618—0.708785), which indicated the growth of infants in common geochemical conditions. It should be stressed that the only control sample of soil from Galaeri settlement shows a little different signal (0.709389). That means, further research of control samples could support hypothesis of local/nonlocal origin of infants buried in these vessels. Two youngest infants (##3 and 6) died at 4—6 months. But their sizes were close to modern newborns. The third child, who demonstrated dental age about 4—5 years, was also retarded by 2—3,5 years. All infants from Galaeri site showed symptoms of chronical vitamin C deficiency. The data indicates the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables in diet of little children and their mothers.Study of the Chalcolithic Leila-Tepe culture discovered in Azerbaijan gave strong evidence for Caucasian migration of ancient agriculturists from the Northern Mesopotamia starting from the end of the 5th — late 4th mill. BC. Burial sites of the culture were mainly connected with infant burials in vessels inside multilayered settlements (tells). Our study was devoted to description of three burials from excavations of the settlement Galaeri (Beta 330265: 5060±30 BP or 3940—3800 BC, Museibli, 2013). All infants were buried in vessels of the same type made of rough ceramics. Studying skeletons, we estimated biological age, as well as parameters of physical development and palaeopathological features. Digital microfocus X-ray was used. Pilot study of strontium isotopes ratio by mass-spectrometry was provided (values 0.708618—0.708785), which indicated the growth of infants in common geochemical conditions. It should be stressed that the only control sample of soil from Galaeri settlement shows a little different signal (0.709389). That means, further research of control samples could support hypothesis of local/nonlocal origin of infants buried in these vessels. Two youngest infants (##3 and 6) died at 4—6 months. But their sizes were close to modern newborns. The third child, who demonstrated dental age about 4—5 years, was also retarded by 2—3,5 years. All infants from Galaeri site showed symptoms of chronical vitamin C deficiency. The data indicates the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables in diet of little children and their mothers.
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