Message to the reader
We offer our readers the next issue of the journal «History Studies». It’s dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of History, Moscow State University which was celebrated in 2014. Founded in 1939 by an outstanding Russian archaeologist Artemiy Vladimirovich Artsikhovskiy the Department of Archeology has come a long way of educational and research work, has formed a number of authoritative scientific schools, has excavated many important archaeological sites in the territory of Russia and former Soviet Union, has got the recognition of the scientific community as an important element of Russian archeology and the «source of manpower».
The articles included in this issue cover the main historical and cultural periods, themes and problems with which scientific and educational work of the Department of Archeology is related. This issue was prepared by the members, postgraduates and graduates of the Department of Archaeology.
The article of V.L. Yanin and A.R. Kantorovich which was written based on a number of archival materials, provides a review of the prehistory and history of the Department of Archeology, its major scientific achievements, educational process, the main results of the expeditions and laboratories of the Department of Archaeology.
The article of N.B. Leonova, E.A. Vinogradova, S.P. Medvedev and B.G. Plokhenko is devoted to the ancient period of human history - the Paleolithic. The article discusses the main results of the work in the Upper Paleolithic site Kamennaya Balka which is located on the Low Don-river - a unique monument of that era. Due to fifty years of detailed archaeological research of the monument big areas of settlements were explored and a huge archaeological material which helps to reconstruct the various aspects of life of the ancient population was collected.
The following two articles are devoted to a later period - Antiquity and the early Iron Age. The article of E.A. Popova, D.V. Pezhemskiy and N.I. Belovintseva highlights the results and prospects of research of the site of Chaika in Crimea (at the outskirt of Evpatoria), as well as a necropolis and quarries that make up a single set of monuments with the site of Chaika. The article of A.R. Kantorovich characterizes syncretic motives of Scythian animal style of the VIIth - the beginning of the IIIrd B.C. within its Eastern European local variant. The article presents the main results of the classification, typology, chronology, iconographic and statistical analysis of the mega-form of syncretic (fantastic) animals and on this basis a thematic and iconographic dynamics of this mega-form was reconstructed.
Four articles of this issue are related to the archeology of the Middle Ages. The article of E.A. Rybina on the basis of archeological materials gives the general characteristics of the important components of the economy of Novgorod - fishing, hunting and bee-keeping. The author provides information of birch-bark documents that mention fishes and fur-bearing animals. The article of A.N. Sorokin analyzes the the features of ancient Russian mortuary ceremony during emergencies - famine, pestilence, etc. on the example of ancient Novgorod (the XIIIth–XVIIth centuries) and on the base of a wide range of written and archaeological sources. The article of L.V. Pokrovskaya, V.K. Singkh and A.M, Stepanov is devoted to the analysis of the dynamics of the construction of two households of the Xth - the first half of the XIVth centuries located at the Lyudin end of the medieval Novgorod. E.A. Tyanina in her article provides topography and chronology of the ritual spherical wooden «knobs» of the medieval Novgorod, as well as reconstructs their semantics and principles of usage.
A special section of «Theory and Methods of Archaeology» contains an article of N.V. Ryndina, N.V. Eniosova and V.K. Singkh which provides a detailed review of the researches carried out in the laboratories of the Department of Archaeology and devoted to the problems of the ancient and medieval metalworking.
The section «Scientific Life» summarizes the main results of archaeological expeditions of the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of History, Moscow State University in 2015, exploring the monuments in chronological range from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages, in the geographic range from Novgorod in the north to Ciscaucasia in the south and from Smolensk in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east.
Finally the section «Reviews» contains L.V. Baibakova’s review of the book written by A.Y. Salomatin «Presidential power in the United States and its representatives (comparative political science and constitutional law essays)» and G.Ch. Moiseev’s review of the book «Olympic movement and new media» written by A. Miah, L.Belousov and A. Zolotarev.
(c) 2015 Исторические Исследования
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