Localization of Russian Complexes of the 15th Century at the Vodyanskoe Settlement
Abstract
The Vodyanskoye settlement is located on the right bank of the Volga near the town of Dubovka, Volgograd region. It has been attracting researchers’ attention for more than 100 years. After many years of excavations it was found out, that it was founded in the early 1320s by the Russians, who were resettled there from the southern regions of Rus on Uzbek khan administration’s orders. In the early days, the settlement was located at the riverside of the monument and looked like a big village with sparse non-regular housing. There is a Russian cemetery on the south-eastern outskirts of the settlement. During excavations, it has been found out that the southern and northern parts of the cemetery were defined as referring to different cultural and ethnic groups of people living there at different times. These findings are proved by anthropological and stratigraphic data and mortuary rite peculiarities as well. In the middle of the 1330s, the early Russian settlement was destroyed and replaced with Muslims’ brick houses, with the Russian population moving to the southern outskirts and founding a detached Russian residential area. On the basis of a ceramic material statistical analysis and numismatology data comparison we can come to conclusion that events in the early Russian settlement and the Russian residential area in the Vodyanskoe settlement happened at different times. In the absence of Tokhtamysh’s coins or fire traces or material and coin troves, we can justify that the Russian residential area was left by the inhabitants in a relatively quiet atmosphere. The residential area existed for only 30 years and was deserted because of the distemper in the Golden Horde.
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