Material Culture of Zhayik Settlement (Based on the results of archaeological research 2012–2015)

Abstract

The presented paper deals with the objects of material culture of the ancient settlement Zhaiyk, located in the basin of the Zhaiyk River (Ural). The described artifacts were discovered during archaeological research in 2012–2015. Based on the results of the excavations, the time of construction and operation of objects in the studied areas – burial and household structures within the beginning of the 13th–14th centuries was established. Studies have established the absence of earlier cultural strata that preceded the discovered structures. The main obtained material consists of the fragments of unglazed easel ceramics of the Golden Horde appearance, among which the increased content of vessels with impurities in the dough is of particular interest. This sign, which carries not only ethnic-cultural, but also chronological load, is usually characteristic of the sites of the first half of the Golden Horde period, covering a wide area (Central Asia, the Volga region), as well as sites of the same period in the Zhaiyk (Ural) river basin. The material obtained as a result of the study made it possible to trace the dynamics of the development of settlements in the Ural River basin in the Middle Ages. As a result of the analysis of the archaeological and numismatic collections obtained by excavations, as well as collections of lifting material, it was established that the time of construction and functioning of the studied site of the settlement, its household structures is determined within the 13th–14th cc.

Keywords

• archaeological excavations
• zhaiyk settlement
• medieval urban culture
• ceramics
• glass paste beads
• copper coin