Corded Ware and Ananyino Type Hybrid Ceramics from the Vyoksa I Settlement on the Upper Sukhona

Abstract

The article presents for the first time the materials with comb-corded, corded and hybrid ware of the Early Iron Age settlements on the Upper Sukhona basin. By the middle of the I millennium BC this territory was part of the contact zone between the cultural and historical communities of textile ceramics and the Ananyino one. Usually textile ceramic assemblages were related to the Late Kargopol culture. Combed and corded ceramics were considered within the textile assemblages. As a result of active archaeological studies on the territory of the Upper Sukhona in recent decades the source base for the period of the Early Iron Age has been significantly enlarged. The ceramic assemblages of the Vyoksa–I reference settlement were taken as the basis. Excavations of the Vyoksa–I reference settlement made it possible to reveal the entire cultural and chronological scale of the antiquities of the Upper Sukhona basin, Lake Kubenskoye. Ceramics of the Ananyino appearance and hybrid ones were singled out from the assemblages of textile ware. Comparison of ceramic assemblages of the Early Iron Age settlement with settlement materials of other regions ACHA (Ananyino Cultural and Historical Area) made it possible to outline the ways of penetration of the bearers of the Ananyino comb-corded ceramic tradition into the Upper Sukhona basin. Changes of the cultural traditions in the settlements of the Early Iron Age region have been fixed since the VI century BC, when the settlements with a mixed Ananyino and textile ceramics appeared. The movement of the population was connected with the southeast direction from the Kostroma Volga region. Since V century BC the population, in whose material culture hybrid collared ceramics appeared, was formed. The settling process of the Ananyino comb-corded ceramics tradition bearer groups happened more than once. A later direction was linked with the Vyatka River basin. Hybrid ceramic assemblages can be considered within the Late Kargopol culture.

Keywords

• archaeology
• early iron age
• ananyino cultural and historical area
• comb-corded ware
• corded ware
• hybrid ceramics
• collared ceramics