Археология евразийских степей (Jun 2021)
The Dating Issue of Ostolopovo Ancient Village in Tatarstan
Abstract
The paper addresses the issues of dating of Ostolopovо village in the Republic of Tatarstan. The settlement was located in the central part of the Volga Bolgaria and was connected with the large cities of this state. Since 1955 it is destroyed by the Kuibyshev reservoir. The settlement was investigated in 1969 by Kazan archaeologist T.A. Khlebnikova. She was convinced that the settlement arose in the 10th century, possibly at the end of the 9th century, and existed until the 12th century. In 1991, E.P. Kazakov expressed an opinion that this settlement originated not earlier than the second half of the 10th century. The purpose of this paper is to draw a conclusion about the time of emergence of this settlement. For this, artifacts were used, collected from the 1980s to the 2000s from the destroyed cultural layer, and the excavations at the settlement, carried out in 1997–2017 by K.A. Rudenko. Artifacts of several categories have been studied. These are products made of glass, stone, iron and non-ferrous metals. Of interest are the glass beads made in the Middle East, which were widespread in Volga Bolgaria in the 11th – 12th centuries. Very rare items discovered on the settlement include a glass ring and bracelet made in Byzantium dated the 11th century, a miniature lapis lazuli pendant of the same time period, and fragments of a glass lamp and a perfume glass bottle made in Syria or Egypt in the 11–12th centuries. Items related to the population of the Kama region – the ancient Mari and Udmurts – were revealed. These are personal hygiene items and jewelry. Other discovered items are Arab coins of the Buwaihids (Buyids) issued in the late 10th – early 11th centuries. In addition, a large number of iron artifacts associated with the Askiz archaeological culture of Southern Siberia were found. They were dated from the second half of the 11th century to the first half of the 12th century. Thus, an analysis of the artifacts revealed that Ostolopovo settlement did not appear earlier than the end of the 10th century. It actively developed in the 11th – early 12th centuries.
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