Settlements of the Khazar Period in the Volga Delta (following the 2023 research results)

Abstract

In 2023, as a result of survey works in the Volga delta, six new archaeological resources of the Early Middle Ages were identified. Based on the analysis of their pottery assemblage, the monuments are classified into three chronological groups. The earliest monuments – Maly Kostyube 2 and Bikhtobe 1 – are characterized by the presence of fragments of cooking and transport ware decorated with linear-wavy ornaments and close to the ceramics of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture. An intermediate position is occupied by the settlements of Maly Kostyube 3 and 4, which are dominated by thick-walled red clay vessels similar to the materials of the upper layers of the previously identified settlement of Baraniy Bugor. The upper chronological horizon is represented by the settlements of Maly Kostyube 1 and Kinelle 1. The main part of the finds on these sites were fragments of thin-walled red clay jugs, the analogies of which are known at the Samosdelka settlement. The available data allow us to preliminarily identify several stages of development of the Early medieval monuments of the Volga Delta. The earliest horizon is represented by the lower layers of the Baraniy Bugor settlement, the pottery assemblage of which is typical of the Saltovo-Mayaki monuments in the Don basin. The next stage is recorded in the middle and upper horizons of the Baraniy Bugor settlement, Semibugry 1, Maly Kostyube 2 and Bikhtobe 1 sites. Here, the amphoric material gradually disappears and the table gray clay vessels are replaced by similar-shaped red clay ones. At the third stage, stationary settlements are replaced by cattle-breeding campsites, where pottery, that resemble ware of the Khazar period, is replaced by thin-walled jugs of a "samosdelka" appearance.