ARCHITECTURAL TRADITIONS OF THE TRANS-URALS FOREST-STEPPE POPULATION IN THE EARLY IRON AGE

Abstract

By the beginning of the Early Iron Age, under the influence of climatic and socio-political factors, the population of the forest-steppe had several traditions of housing construction. First of all, they were expressed in the variety of types of dwellings and techniques of their construction. During the Transition period from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the population of the Itkul culture had small above-ground framed buildings. The Baitovo population that replaced them at the beginning of the Early Iron Age has already recorded two types of buildings — above-ground framed buildings and and dwellings with cribbed walls. In the Gorokhovo-Sargat time, an unprecedented flourishing of house construction is marked. The Gorokhovo population has buildings with the ‘zaplot’ walls (i.e., built using vertical wooden posts with a lengthwise recess in which timber logs or panels are inserted), and dwellings with cribbed walls, frame-and-pillar structure are widely distributed. The presence of certain standards and traditions in architecture can be traced. The population of the Sargat culture built at least five types of dwellings: insulated and light cone-shaped, those built in the frame-and-pillar technique, dwellings with ‘zaplot’ walls, and cribbed dwellings. A feature that has clearly manifested itself in Sargat housing construction is the articulation of several chambers, different in structure and functions, into one household complex.

Keywords

• western siberia
• early iron age
• dwelling
• itkul culture
• baitovo culture
• gorokhovo culture