Objects of Antique and Medieval Cultural Heritage as a resource of the geoecosystems of the Northern Black Sea Coast and of the Black Sea Shelf in the area of the Bug Estuary

Abstract

This article is a continuation of the author’s series of publications devoted to the study of the resource potential of archaeological artifacts — sites of ancient and medieval heritage as anthropogenic components of modern geoecosystems of the Northern Black Sea coast (GESNBSC) and the nearby Black Sea shelf including the estuaries. These sites are currently partially or fully located in the transitional part of the Black Sea Geoecosystem (BSG) space and associated geoecological subsystems of estuaries, where modern natural aerial, aquatic and geological environmental subsystems interface with each other. The article presents the results of research, characterization and typification of archaeological sites of the cultural heritage of ancient and medieval times, which are located in the space of geoecosystems that were formed in this region. Among them are the underwater archaeological sites dis- covered in the space of ancient coastal and littoral paleogeoecosystems of the Bug Estuary, their connection with the most significant archaeological sites that were once formed as part of geoecosystems of the land. A preliminary reconstruction of the borders of the Bug Estuary in ancient and medieval times is made; there is demonstrated the resource archaeological potential of GESNBSC spaces and the adjacent zone of the Black Sea shelf with estuaries, including the ancient and medieval archaeo- logical sites of cultural heritage, which were created and for some time belonged to the spaces of cer- tain paleo-GESNBSC, but are now located in the space of modern geoecosystem of the Bug Estuary. The article gives a brief description of the already known archaeological, partially submerged sites of ancient and medieval cultural heritage, some other interesting underwater archaeological artifacts, and shows the feasibility of expanding their study with reference to bathymetric and geomorphological features of the boundaries between modern natural BSG environmental subsystems. Such knowledge is important both for solving the issues related to a more profound understanding of the causes and consequences of changes in the paleogeoecological and modern geoecological conditions of the shelf of Azov-Black Sea basin and GESNBSC, predicting their dynamics and directions of development, and for historical and archaeological reconstructions, in particular, to identify new cultural heritage sites. The results of geoarchaeological (that is, a complex of geoecological and archaeological) studies published in the article are important not only for understanding the formation and functioning of transitional geoecosystems with their resources, which include archaeological artifacts as anthropogenic components, but also for the development of public culture, historical memory population and expansion of its historical consciousness. In addition, such knowledge is necessary to consciously and competently address a number of economic problems in the development of communities in the Northern Black Sea region. In particular, to attract investment in the development of coastal and underwater tourism, to predict the impact of many geo-environmental processes inherent in the research region under specific conditions of the search, identification, use and preservation of the historical and archaeological potential of ancient and medieval cultural heritage located in the space of modern GESNBSC and BSG as their components. These anthropogenic components are objective evidence of the impact of natural geo-environ- mental conditions and their dynamics on the peculiarities of life and migration of the region’s inhabitants from ancient times up to the present.

Keywords

• sea level
• geoecology
• geoecosystems
• underwater archaeology
• antiquity
• cultural heritage