The tribes of Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, and Torks roamed the Donetsk steppes.
The main occupation of the nomadic tribes is cattle breeding and military raids. Some of the nomadic peoples were engaged in primitive agriculture. Nomads - moved from place to place several times a year, as the animals constantly needed new pastures. Therefore, the most common type of dwellings among nomads were collapsible, easily portable structures covered with wool or leather (yurt, tent or tent). Household utensils and dishes were most often made of unbreakable materials (wood, leather, metal). Clothes and footwear were made, as a rule, of leather, wool and fur.
The nomads moved on horses, they were excellent riders. In all nomadic tribes, all men were warriors and from early childhood mastered the art of war. Some tribes also had women as warriors. The core of the troops was cavalry. The nomads used their traditional tactics of surprise attacks, false retreats and ambushes. The riders' weapons were spears, bows and darts , as well as daggers, swords and axes. The Scythians have already mastered some siege machines, primarily the ram. The Polovtsians acquired heavily armed cavalry, as well as heavy crossbows and "liquid fire".
All nomads were pagans. The burials of the deceased were most often carried out in barrows. Clothes, weapons, jewelry, dishes were put into the grave, often the remains of a horse were left on the grave or in the grave.
1. Huns (Xiongnu)- Turkic-speaking tribes who came from the East from Central Asia. A large number of gold and silver jewelry, belt sets, diadems, saddles, horse harness, weapons, hats, buckles, pendants, falars (phalar is a large convex round plaque with embossed ornament) and onlays were placed in the graves of the noble Huns. A stone stele from the Novoazovsky region dates back to the Hunnic time.
2. Bulgars - Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes that inhabited the Black Sea and Azov steppes in the 7th century. Great Bulgaria (Bulgaria) with its capital in Phanagoria was created in the Azov region. Part of the population was engaged in agriculture, and the traditional occupation of the steppe inhabitants, cattle breeding, developed. As a result of pressure from the Khazars, part of the Bulgars went to Asia Minor, to Arabia, where over time they assimilated among the local population, part moved to the Caucasus (in particular, to Armenia), part of the Bulgars went to Europe and created a new state - Bulgaria on the Danube, part of the Bulgars remained on their lands and became part of the Khazar Kaganate.
3. Khazars - Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes. The Khazars conquered the Azov Bulgarians and created a strong, prosperous state - the Khazar Kaganate, headed by the ruler - the Kagan and the capital in the city of Itil. For a long time, both Byzantium and Russia paid tribute to the Khazars for maintaining peaceful relations. Before the founding of the state, they were nomads, and then began to lead a semi-nomadic lifestyle, staying in cities for the winter. They were actively engaged in trade, although the Khazars did not have their own coins. The Khazar army was numerous and consisted of a permanent detachment and militia. The decisive blow to the kaganate was dealt by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav. After that, the Khazar Kaganate was never able to recover and soon ceased to exist. Near the Seversky Donets, scientists have discovered a large settlement from the times of the Khazar Kaganate. A set of jewelry, a mirror and coins were found in the burial of a Khazar woman in Mariupol. During excavations, archaeologists found a set of pincers, tongs, stirrups, buckles, weapons, as well as the remains of the Khazar nomads, in which traces of round dwellings - yurts - are preserved.
4. Torquay - tribes of Turkic-speaking nomads related to the Pechenegs. The main nomad camps of the Torks were located in the Donetsk region in the basin of the Kazenny Torets River. A whole series comes from them hydronyms (river names) - Kazenny Butt, Crooked Butt, Sukhoi Butt, Torskie lakes
and toponyms(name of the area) - Bolshoi Tor, Toretskoye settlement and the city of Tor (modern Slavyansk), the villages of Toretskoye and Torskoye in the Konstantinovsky and Krasnolimansky districts, Kramatorovka (modern Kramatorsk). It was in this steppe microdistrict that a few burials of torks were found: near the village of Torskoye in the Krasnolimansky district and the city of Yasinovataya, Donetsk region. In many ways, they are similar to the Pechenezh ones. The Torks, like the Pechenegs, buried their relatives in barrows in pits with wooden flooring. A horse's head and legs were placed on top of the deck. The relatives ate the horse itself during the funeral feast (funeral feast). The horse was an indispensable element of the burial. The nomads believed that the deceased entered paradise on horseback.
5. Pechenegs -nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples. The Pechenegs were in constant motion and moved across the steppe with their herds. The basis of the herd were horses and sheep. They did not have long-term camps; light yurts served as their dwellings. A yurt is a round dwelling made of felt and animal skins on a frame made of wooden poles. An open hearth was always set up in the center of the yurt. Predatory wars were an important way of getting rich. The Pechenegs constantly attacked their neighbors, seized people for ransom, and took away livestock. Neighboring states sought to conclude peace with them and pay off with tribute. On the borders of the Russian principalities, the Pechenegs first appeared in 915. Prince Igor immediately concluded a peace treaty with them. Later, a long bloody struggle between Russia and the Pechenegs began, and only in 1036 Yaroslav the Wise managed to defeat a large Pecheneg army near Kiev and put an end to their raids.
6. Polovtsi -another name for komana (or Kumans), Kipchaks (or Kipchaks). The entire Polovtsian land was named Desht-i-Kipchak. The center of the Polovtsian land was in the Northern Azov region. Russian chronicles call these lands Lukomorye. A large center of the Polovtsians from the Don were fortified settlements on the Seversky Donets near the villages of Bogorodichnoye, Sidorov and Mayaki in the Slavyansky district of the Donetsk region, the cities of Sharukan, Sugrov, Cheshuev are mentioned in their lands.
The Kipchaks were typical nomadic herders. They bred horses, camels, goats and sheep, buffaloes and cows; in the warm season, the Polovtsy roamed the steppe. Winter huts were arranged in cold weather. They consisted of yurts and wagons. A small part of the Polovtsians settled on the ground and engaged in primitive agriculture. The main food products were animal meat and cow's milk, kumis (processed horse milk), millet and wheat cereals. The clothes were well adapted for riding.
The life of the Polovtsians, like all nomads, was inextricably linked with the horse. All young and old were excellent riders. after death, as a rule, a whole horse, a bridle set, stirrups, and sometimes a saddle were placed in the graves of men and women. Weapons were placed on the men, jewelry on the women. The dead were buried in already existing mounds or a new earthen mound was poured over their graves.
The Kipchaks developed a custom to install stone (very rarely wooden) images of deceased ancestors on mounds and high places. These sculptures are called "stone women". The sculptures are made of gray sandstone and are 1 to 4 meters high. "Baba" is a distorted "balbal", "babay" (in Turkic - strong, respected, warrior-hero). Polovtsian stone sculpture (Polovtsian woman) is a statue symbolizing an ancestor. Gifts were brought to stone "women", they were asked for protection and patronage.
Polovtsian warriors were considered excellent warriors.
1. In the Polovtsian army, all men capable of carrying weapons were obliged to serve. Polovtsian warriors fought with bows, javelins and crooked sabers, lassos and spears. The main force of the nomads, like any steppe dwellers, was the detachments of light cavalry, armed with bows. Later, squads with heavy weapons appeared in the troops of the Polovtsian khans. Heavily armed warriors wore chain mail, shells, and helmets with iron or bronze masks.
2. It is also known about the use of heavy crossbows and "liquid fire" by the Polovtsians, possibly borrowed from China or from the Byzantines (Greek fire). Using this technique, the Polovtsians were able to take well-fortified cities.
3. Polovtsian troops were distinguished by their maneuverability. Some carts were equipped with crossbows and were suitable for defense during enemy attacks. During surprise attacks of the enemy, the Polovtsians knew how to defend themselves staunchly, surrounding their camp with carts.
4. The Polovtsi used the tactics of surprise attacks, false retreats and ambushes, traditional for the nomads.
Now, when you say "the history of Donbass," associations arise with Catherine II, with Potemkin, with the conquest of the Crimean Khanate, as if the Azov steppes were empty and had no history before that time. However, it is not. People on these lands have lived for many thousands of years. Proof of this is both the reserve and the Amvrosievskaya site.
The Amvrosievskaya site is an archeological monument, an object of cultural heritage of world significance. One of the largest monuments of the late Paleolithic in Europe. The parking area is about 6 hectares. Located near # Amvrosievka in # Donetsk region of Ukraine, on the right bank of the Krynka River, on the slope of a ravine.
The Paleolithic era is the oldest period and the largest period of time in the history of mankind. People took the very first steps towards conquering the surrounding nature: they had crude, primitive tools made of wood and stone; they began to become familiar with fire and gradually learned how to get it; began to settle outside the rather extensive zone where they were separated from the animal state. In this era, the foundation was laid for the entire later development of human culture.
The Amvrosievskaya camp is a large accumulation of animal bones, the so-called bone, and a camp located 100-70 m higher up the slope. A large accumulation of bones is a place for the slaughter and butchering of primitive bison. The parking lot, located nearby, functioned simultaneously with the place of slaughter, where hunting prey was utilized. The site, in contrast to the bone, which has been studied since 1935, was discovered in 1950, and the beginning of its full-fledged research dates back to the early 1990s.
The site was discovered in 1935 near the town of Amvrosievka in the Donetsk region, on the right bank of the Krynka river by archaeologist V.M. Evseev. Archaeologists carried out excavations in 1935, 1940, 1949 and 1950. When parked, the bone contains the bones of about 1000 bison (Bison priscus). Among the skeletons of bison on the bone, there are bone spearheads, flint inserts for them, knives made of flint plates. A total of 15,000 different flint items were found.
The hunters driven to the gully and caught here were dismantled by flint knives, and the meat was eaten 200 m from the hunting place, in the parking lot. In the cultural layer of the site, flint items were found, typical of the Black Sea epigravette with elements of the Aurignaciantraditions. Similar Amvrosievsky bones in places of collective hunting for bison are known in the prairies of North America.
Finds from the Amvrosievskaya site are kept in the Donetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. The emblem of Amvrosievka depicts a stone chopper as a symbol of the settlement of this territory since ancient times.
The age of such a "roughly worked tool" found 6 km from the village. Voykovsky, Amvrosievsky district, Donetsk region, in the Kazyonnaya gully (near the bones of bison), was identified as 100 thousand years.
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the early stage of the Late Paleolithic. Named after excavations in the Aurignac cave in the Haute-Garonne department (France). First identified at the beginning of the XX century. Aurignacian sites in Europe:
Today, archaeologists have evidence that primitive man appeared in the eastern part of the Azov Upland more than 1 million years ago. On the northern coast of the Taman Peninsula, a camp of ancient people - "Bogatyrs" was found. The site has existed from 1 to 1.2 million years ago.
Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below
Students, graduate students, young scientists using the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.
Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/
Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/
- Introduction
- 2.1 Lands of Podontsovye, Azov and Kievan Rus
- Conclusion
- Literature
Introduction
Relevance of the research topic.
Donbass is a special region. And not because the lion's share of Ukrainian industry is located here, and not because it is the most densely populated region of Ukraine. The peculiarity of Donbass lies in its special ethnic, linguistic and religious development.
Representatives of more than a hundred nationalities live in the Donbass, most of whom, by the irony of fate and the behest of the Kiev authorities, one day began to be considered a national minority in their native land and are regularly harassed because of their ethnicity.
The first large settlements on the territory of Donbass were guard posts and forts, built to protect against nomads. Only after the entry of these lands into the Russian Empire, the first industrial enterprises appeared here - the basis of the future industrial giants of the region. primitive society donbass priazovye
Donbass occupies a significant part of the plains of the southeast of the country, has an independent sea border along the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Its northern part is part of the historically formed Donbass region.
There are many rivers with a slow current flowing between the banks, cut by countless ravines. Some of these rivers dry up in the summer. Mixed forests grow along the largest river - the Seversky Donets, the most important source of fresh water in eastern Ukraine, and in the Donetsk ridge there are oak groves and ravine broad-leaved forests growing along the bottom and slopes of gullies, here called bays.
Donbass is the land of steppes that have been plowed up long ago: natural steppe vegetation has been preserved mainly in protected areas.
The main wealth of the region is minerals, first of all, coal. During the Carboniferous and Permian geological periods, many meters of coal and salt accumulated here.
The first people appeared on the territory of the present Donetsk region in the Paleolithic, about 30 thousand years ago. When the era of nomads came, the masses of whom moved across the steppe expanses, from the 3rd century. BC e. and up to the middle of the III century. here the Sarmatian tribes dominated. Subsequently, they were replaced by the Pechenegs and Polovtsians in this area of \u200b\u200bthe Northern Azov region. Tatar-Mongol invasion of the XIII century devastated this region, and the Azov steppe became depopulated. For several centuries to come, all this turned into a wild field, where only in some places, along river valleys, pastoral tribes roamed.
Two significant events in Russian history are associated with the lands of the Donetsk region: in 1223 the Battle of the Kalka took place here (today it is the Kalchik river, a tributary of the Kalmius) - the first major military clash of the united army of the Russians and Polovtsians with the Mongol hordes; and here in 1380 the battle between Mamai and Tokhtamysh took place.
Since the XVI century. Russian watchmen (wooden fortresses), Cossack winter quarters and peasant farms are being built on all the steppes. During the XVI-XVIII centuries. the north of the future Donetsk region was part of the historical region Slobozhanshchina, divided into the Don Cossack Region and the Wild Field, where the Nogai nomads lived, subordinate to the Crimean Khan.
Russian-Turkish war of 1735-1739 subjugated the Crimean Khanate to Russia, and according to the peace treaty of 1774 the Azov region became Russian land. Only from this time began the settlement of the steppe organized by the imperial power. Mainly Russians from central Russia, Crimean Greeks, German colonists and Jews from the western provinces settled here. But let us turn our attention to the stay of nomads on the territory of our region.
The degree of scientific research of the topic.
Perhaps there is no person who is completely indifferent to the history of his Land. History has always aroused and continues to arouse great interest among readers of Donbass. In past years, the history of Donbass as a science was largely politicized and many of its pages were reflected in the literature one-sidedly. Today we have the opportunity to study the true history of our region. The book "Donbass: Ukraine and Rus" shows how modern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, together constituting a single Donbass region, are an integral part of the East Slavic civilization, a special area of \u200b\u200bthe Russian-Ukrainian borderland.
Donbass is organically included in a single cultural space, which is an indisputable historical heritage of the region. Since the early Middle Ages, the territory of Donbass was part of the area of \u200b\u200bthe Old Russian state - Russia, was located on the outskirts of the Russian land, and was often the object of expansion of other tribes and peoples. Wild Field, on the territory of which the modern Donbass arose in the 17th - 19th centuries, was the periphery of Russia during the period of feudal fragmentation and the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Since the 16th century, the industrial development of Donbass began. In the second half of the 19th century, Donbass became one of the leading industrial regions of the Russian Empire; by the beginning of the 20th century, the Donetsk Territory played an extremely important role in the all-Russian market of coal and metal. The basis of the modern industry of Donbass is being formed.
Donbass has become a region of close interaction between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, its characteristic feature is the Russian-Ukrainian cultural and historical dualism, with an admixture of other ethnocultural enzymes. As a result, by the beginning of the twentieth century, a special multinational community was formed in Donbass, the basis of which was the Russian-Ukrainian population, and the Russian language became the means of communication. Thus, by the time of the proclamation of independence of Ukraine in 1991, a special historical, national, cultural, social and economic specificity of the Donetsk region had already taken shape, its regional identity had been formed.
Almost until the end of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion among Russian scientists was that Donbass was inhabited only in the 16th century. This conviction was shaken by the findings of Vasily Fedorovich Spesivtsev, a resident of the village of Raygorodok (now the Slavyansk region). An energetic and inquisitive man, carried away by antiquities, he began to look for them in his native land. And he found on the outskirts of his native village. Already about his first finds in 1891, VF Spesivtsev wrote: "The mentioned shards and flint fragments can be collected, perhaps, whole carts." In subsequent years, he went from Slavyansk to Yampol, surveyed Shchurovo, Stary Karavan, Brusovka, the banks of the Zherebets River. The collection collected by V.F. Among the many flint products one could discern leather scrapers, knives, very elegant arrowheads, and polished stone hammers.
The findings of VF Spesivtsev aroused interest primarily among the specialists of Kharkov - the nearest large scientific center, where members of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society were studying the antiquities of the region. It was at this time that preparations were under way for the XII Congress of Russian archaeologists, which was to take place in Kharkov at the very beginning of the new, XX century. The upcoming events were thoroughly discussed at the meetings of the Provisional Committee, and the report of V.F. Spesivtsev on the monuments discovered by him in the last decade was also heard. By the decision of the committee, in the summer of 1900, Professor N.A.Fyodorovsky went to the place of the finds. After the trip, he reported that the area he had examined was "an extremely interesting phenomenon." The committee soon adopted a resolution: "... to pay attention to the sites of the Stone Age, especially in the Izyum district, and, if possible, to examine them." A new stage began in the history of the archaeological study of Donbass. Specialists came to the aid of inquisitive enthusiasts, collectives began to work in place of single individuals.
In 1901, an expedition headed by Vasily Alekseevich Gorodtsov, at that time already a recognized scientist, arrived in the Izyumsky district.
Gorodtsov's expedition worked in Izium for four months. During this time, one hundred barrows were opened, three settlements were studied and five sites of the Neolithic era were discovered: near Khailovka. (now Ilyichevka, Krasnolimansky district), Raygorodok, Kamenka, Dolgen'ky and Velikaya Kamyshevakha.
At the XII Congress of archaeologists held in 1902, V.F. Spesivtsev and V.A.Gorodtsov reported on the results of work in the Izium region. Particular attention was paid to the parking lot and workshop opened in Khailovka. Along with finished tools and fragments of earthen vessels, large piles of flint wastes were found there. This made it possible to assume that about 7 thousand years ago, products from flint were made here for a very long time. Thus, already at the beginning of the 20th century, it was indisputably proven that the Donbass was inhabited about 7 thousand years ago.
Stories about the Stone Age of Donbass should be preceded by several remarks regarding the periodization and chronology of this longest period in the history of mankind.
Thanks to the findings of recent decades, the age of human society is now estimated at almost three million years. For the convenience of studying such a long period, it was conditionally divided into a number of eras, distinguished by phenomena in nature, in the appearance of man himself, in the economic and social life of primitive people. A very important role in the periodization of the Stone Age is played by the technique of processing stone raw materials, the typology of products made from it, and statistical indicators.
The subject of the research is the nomadic tribes that stayed in the territory of Donbass from ancient times to the Middle Ages. Influence and Consequences of the Era of Migration of Peoples to the Donbass.
Goals and objectives of the study. In accordance with the subject of the study, the goal is set: to show, based on the well-known works of historians of Russia and Ukraine, as well as historical finds in the territory of Donbass, to identify all nomadic tribes that were in the Donbass and what are the reasons for the frequent change of some tribes by others.
1. "The Azov and Don regions in antiquity (from ancient times to the 5th century AD)
1.1 Development of a primitive society. Ancient nomadic tribes on the territory of Donbass (Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.)
Archaeological data indicate, for example, the intensive settlement of the Donetsk region, in particular, the middle reaches of the Seversky Donets, 40 millennia ago, in the era of stone and bronze. Unique finds of a silicon hack in the territory of Amvrosievka, Makeevka, Artemovsk (the city of Donetsk region) testify to the emergence of the first settlements here about 150 thousand years ago. These unnamed settlements and tribes, designated only by archaeological cultures, have come a long way in their development.
Starting from the 1st millennium BC, the tribes already receive their names: Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns. Moving from East to West through the territory of Donbass, they settled here for centuries, exerting a significant influence on the culture and life of the indigenous population.The tribes inhabiting Southeastern Europe underwent fundamental changes associated primarily with the discovery of iron and the development of the technology of its manufacture. Traces of the earliest iron production have been discovered, for example, in the settlements of the early Timber culture near Kapitanovo (Luhansk region) and Voronezh (1500-1400 BC).
The mastery of the technology of making iron and tools coincided with another no less important event - the separation of cattle breeding from agriculture and the transition to nomadic cattle breeding. This was also largely due to climate change, which became drier and hotter. In the 9th century BC. the drying up of the climate has reached its climax. In this regard, the Eurasian steppes stretched for almost 6 thousand km, however, the most fertile and fertile part of them was in the territory of Donbass, which played a decisive role in the formation of a certain type of culture, psychology and civilization here, especially in its southeast. Asian nomads began to move here, colliding with the local population - the ants, as the Byzantine sources called them, whose economy was associated with agriculture in river valleys and forests. However, the clashes soon developed into ever-increasing examples of cultural and economic symbiosis. Yes, it could not be otherwise, since a nomadic economy could not exist without connection with agricultural, and the trade union constantly grew not only into a military, but also a family one. For example, that many Russian princes, including Alexander Nevsky, had Polovtsian wives. At the same time, it is true, "... throughout the Middle Ages, the southern Russian steppes were not only a separate natural-geographical, but ethnopolitical system, which, although it interacted with the forest-steppe agricultural system, never made up a single economic whole" [PL. Tolochko, s. 7].
Climatic changes significantly influenced the settlement of the territory of the Donetsk region, which for almost 15 centuries was under the predominant influence of the culture of nomads. This culture was provoked by the movement of the Turkic tribes of the Huns from east to west in the III-VII centuries. AD, known as the Great Nations Migration.
The constant concern for the preservation of pastures, as well as the desire to seize the livestock, property and land of neighbors, determined the military way of life. The nomads were in a state of constant hostilities, uniting for the purpose of attack or defense. In this way of life, warriors and leaders were put forward in the first place in the social hierarchy, relying on priests and tribal nobility, which created the preconditions for the emergence of ancient states on the territory of Donbass.
The culture of nomads for the majority of the inhabitants of the Wild Field from ancient times to the end of the 18th century was traditional and natural. The presence of islets of a sedentary population here in no way meant that, unlike the constantly rolling Asian tribes and peoples, it was one hundred percent sedentary and only agricultural, like, say, the Western or northern Slavs living in the Forest zone. “The enclosing landscape of the ancient Russians was not so much forest tracts as forest-steppe, opolye and river valleys. With an extremely rare population of Russia in the 12th century (about 5.5 million), it was practiced transitional farming systems that required incomplete settled life; semi-nomadism based on cattle breeding, especially in the steppe zone "[L.N. Gumilyov, p. 172].
Nomadic tribes, constantly conquering and dissolving either in what came before them, or in the local linguistic and cultural substratum, ensured the "similarity" of seemingly different peoples and civilizations, remote from each other in time and space.
The most powerful peoples of the early Iron Age, living in the territory of the Wild Field and personifying the civilization of the nomads, were the Cimmerians and Scythians.
The oldest known peoples who came to the Steppe from Asia at the end of the Late Bronze Age - the Early Iron Age (I millennium BC) to replace more or less sedentary pastoralists-farmers were the Cimmerians - representatives of the Iranian-speaking ethnos. We find written references to them even in Homer and the ancient geographer Strabo.
The nomadic way of life of the Cimmerians and the cohesion during the war in the formed pre-state alliances gave them an unconditional advantage over peoples living in a tribal system, or states during the period of their loss of unity. Progressive for that time nomadic cattle breeding (mainly horse breeding, allowing to provide high mobility and at the same time a food base for the population) assumed a natural trade exchange with the neighboring agricultural world, but at the same time required the expansion of new territories for grazing.
That is why militancy in the name of self-preservation and survival is becoming one of the main driving forces of the Cimmerian civilization. Cimmerians in USH-UI centuries. BC. penetrate through the Transcaucasia to the territory of Asia Minor and Asia Minor, devastating the lands of local peoples. Assyrian cuneiform tablets tell, for example, that in 714 BC. they defeated the troops of the Urartian king Rusa I,
Archaeological excavations of their burials, including on the territory of Donbass near the villages of Astakhovo, Beglitsa, Donskoe, Zimogorye, Kremenevka, Livishovka, Luganskoe, Primorskoe, Provalye, Chernogorovka, etc. testify not only to the high degree of their industrial, household and economic culture, but and about an equally high degree of military art.
The armament of the Cimmerian warrior consisted of a bow, sword, dagger and spear. Warriors belonged, like other nomadic peoples, to the upper class. Burials in barrows with household items and weapons (dishes from the West, swords and jewelry from the Caucasus), steles placed over them.
However, no matter how strong the people were, if they could not provide themselves with everything necessary without the constant infusion of human and material resources from the outside, they would necessarily either dissolve in the traditional local population, or be absorbed by another, more powerful nomad who replaced him.
The latter happened with the Cimmerians, whose culture in the 7th century. BC. ceased to exist and logically intertwined with the culture of other Iranian-speaking nomads who came from Asia - the Scythians, who influenced for several centuries (up to the 2nd century BC) the formation of the Steppe and the further fate of the Wild Field. According to one of the theories (the theory of aliens, in contrast to the autochthonous theory, originally the Scythians lived near the river Araks (Syr-Darya or Amu-Darya), then expanded their influence to Tanais (Don and Meotida (Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov), and later conquered the Northern Black Sea region to the Istra River (Danube).
When the Scythians appeared, like Herodotus, the Cimmerians retreated to the Caucasus and Southwest Asia. In the VII century. BC. both peoples were in Asia Minor, terrifying the local population.
Gradually, the Cimmerians leave the historical scene, and Herodotus mainly testifies only to the Scythians.
As warlike tribes, they made campaigns to Syria, Palestine, reached the possessions of Egypt, which redrawn the political map of the Ancient East. As a result of the campaigns of two generations of Scythians, for example, the states of Urartu and the despotic Assyria perished. And this, despite the fact that the nomads did not have their own state education.
Traces of the presence of the Scythians in the countries of the Ancient East are well traced in the archaeological sites of the Caucasus, where Scythian weapons and equipment of riding horses (UI-U1 centuries BC), Babylon, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Iranian Kurdistan, where the richest burial was discovered Scythian king (end of the 7th century BC).
In the VI century. BC. Scythian dominion in Asia Minor ceased, after which they returned to the Black Sea region. However, the Ancient East had a profound impact on the formation of the social structure and culture of Scythia. The military power of the Scythians raised their leaders to the level of the ancient Eastern rulers, who had a despotic rule and drowned in luxury.
The contacts of the Scythians with the great civilizations of the Ancient East and the Caucasus enriched the material culture and art of the Scythians. They had first-class weapons and equipment for that time, consisting of iron armor, swords, daggers, battle axes, spears with iron tips, unparalleled in the ancient world in terms of accuracy and range of bows and arrows. Originally Scythian motifs, the so-called "animal style" observed in the decoration of weapons and clothing (images of a deer, panther, bull, wild boar, horse, ram, eagle), were necessarily intertwined with artistic images borrowed from the art of the Ancient East (griffins, lions, monsters). Even the surviving sculptural images of Scythian warriors found on the mounds confirm the thesis about their high military culture, borrowed in many ways from the ancient Eastern civilizations.
Thus, a stone statue discovered near the village of Olkhovchik in the Shakhtyorsky district of Donetsk region depicts a Scythian warrior of a clearly European type with attributes of military strength and glory: a short sword - akinak, a case for a bow, an ax and a helmet.
Even the Persian king Darius I, who unsuccessfully tried to defeat Scythia in 513 BC, could not shake the military power of the Scythian tribes.
In the IV century. BC. During the reign of King Atey, Scythia reaches the limit of his power, uniting under his command all the Scythian tribes. Having formed an alliance with the Macedonian king Philip II (father of Alexander the Great), Atey successfully fights in the west with the Thracians, expanding his possessions beyond the Danube. However, later the alliance collapsed, relations between the two kingdoms became hostile, escalated into war, which ultimately led Scythia to death. In 339 BC. The Macedians inflicted a defeat on the nomads, from which they never managed to recover ...
The territory of the northeastern Azov region and modern Donbass up to Tanais (Don) was inhabited by the most powerful Scythians - the royal ones. In addition to them, in the territorial hierarchical ladder there were also Hellenic-Scythians, Allazons, Scythians-plowmen, Scythians-farmers and Scythians-nomads. The last of them represented the most numerous group of the warrior people.
And yet the semi-nomadic, semi-military way of life of the Scythian tribes logically led them to the need to engage in handicrafts, agriculture and cattle breeding, which indicates the beginning of the transition of a part of the population to settled life.
The growth of economic inequality accelerated the process of decomposition of Scythian society, which, in turn, led to the decline of its former power, disintegration and gradual disappearance of Scythia.
1.2 The era of the "great migration of peoples" on the territory of the Donetsk region. Formation of Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Kaganate
In Sh-P centuries. BC. The Scythians are gradually being driven out by the Sarmatian tribes formed in the Volga region, and the borders of the lands of the nomadic Scythians are moving beyond the Dnieper and into the Crimean steppes. In the steppes of the Azov and Black Sea regions, for six centuries, the dominance of the united nomadic pastoral tribes of Alans, Roxolans, Aorses and Iazygs, named on the map of Ptolemy (VI-VII centuries AD) Sarmatia - a huge territory along the Tanais (Don) river, was established. The evidence of the presence of the Sarmatians here are their numerous burials: burial mounds near the village. Primorskoe, Shevchenko, barrows near the village. Ust-Kamenka, Dnepropetrovsk region, near the village. Novoluganskoe Artyomovskiy district, near the village. Vasilyevka Starobeshevsky district, in the village. Kvashino, Ambrosievsky district, in the village. Ostry Maryinsky district, in the village. Chuguno-Kreminka Miner's district of Donetsk region and in the village. Limarevka, Belovodsky district, Luhansk region. They contained iron weapons, horse harness, jewelry, fragments of Roman amphorae, a silver mirror, a bronze cauldron, as well as a large number of objects indicating the nomadic culture of their owners.
The military, commercial and peaceful interaction of the Sarmatians with the Bosporus kingdom by the Black Sea cities is reflected in their fine art of tombstone reliefs, terracotta figurines, coins depicting walking and galloping warriors with swords characteristic of Sarmatians, long spears, fluttering cloaks on and round phala cereals of horses.
Considering the closeness of the language of the Scythians to the Sarmatians (both languages \u200b\u200bbelong to the northeastern group of Iranian languages \u200b\u200band are similar to the modern Ossetian), Herodotus noted their kinship and continuity in the entire way of life and culture.
The Sarmatians “follow their herds,” Strabo testifies, “they have always chosen areas with good pastures in winter - in swamps near Meotida (the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov), and in summer - on the plains”. That is why, like among the Scythians, wagons made of felt served as a dwelling for them. A sign of nobility for the Sarmatians were golden torques and crowns, and women had numerous jewelry: tiaras, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, rings, gold, embroidery of clothes. All this testifies to the high culture of spinning, weaving, embroidery and blacksmithing, leatherworking and bronzoletey craft.
The development of crafts, nomadic economy and the separation of the caste of leaders and nobility from the military environment stimulated the process of property stratification and promoted the development of exchange trade with ancient cities. The Sarmatians supplied slaves, cattle, skins, food to numerous markets at the mouth of the Don, receiving clothes, wine, amphorae, red-lacquered dishes and jewelry from the Bosporus in return; from China - silk, bronze mirrors, jade products; from India - turquoise and corrals for necklaces; from Iran - semiprecious stones carnelian and almandine; from Egypt - paste amulets and golden brooches; from Central Asia - phalars and bone products; from the Caucasus - crystal beads. The products of Western countries also got to the Sarmatian markets: Romanesque brooches and bracelets, Roman bronze ladles and glass vessels, bowls made of precious metals.
Representing a large military and political force, which European states had to reckon with, conduct diplomatic negotiations with them, conclude international treaties and enter into military alliances, the Sarmatians continued to live in a tribal system.
As the Sarmatians moved to the west, the culture of the Sarmatians increasingly lost its ethnic characteristics and acquired the features of new peoples with whom they came into contact. Fighting constant wars with the states of the Caucasus and Rome, they gradually lost their power. In the II century. AD on the Don, the Sarmatians were pushed aside by the Alans, who formed a powerful Alanian tribal union, the main territory of which was in the North Caucasus and extended to the Aral Sea.
In the III-VII century. AD the usual life of these peoples was disrupted by the invasion of new tribes. Huge hordes of nomads, different in ethnic composition, overcoming thousands of kilometers, moved from the highlands of Asia to the states of the Ancient World. This period was called the era of the "great migration of peoples". Its result was the collapse of the powerful Roman Empire and the formation of a number of new states and peoples of ancient and modern Europe. The period of antiquity was replaced by the period of the Middle Ages.
The movement of tribes took place on the territory of the Northern Black Sea region, which lay on the path of the nomads and was part of the great corridor between Europe and Asia.
Among the many peoples who took part in the "great migration of peoples" the most important role was played by the German-speaking Goths, the Turkic-speaking Huns, the Bulgarians and the Khazars.
In the middle of the III century. the Goths penetrate into the Northern Black Sea region from the Scandinavian region through the territory of modern Poland along the border of the forest-steppe and the steppe. Moving south along the banks of the Donets, they destroyed many ancient centers (including Tanais) and captured the Crimea. As a result of their gradual settling in this territory, there is a temporary union of different ethnic groups under the auspices of the Goths - the state of Germanarich, whose territory stretches west from the Don to the Dnieper and modern Moldova. The union, which also included the population of the Donetsk steppes, included Germanic, Sarmatian and early Slavic tribes.
In the IV century. The Alanian and Gothic tribal unions were defeated by the Huns, a Turkic-speaking people that emerged in the 4th-5th centuries. in the Urals. About the stay of the Huns in the Northern Black Sea region in 1U-Uvv. evidence of rare, but very rich burials, where jewelry made of precious metals, items of horse harness, weapons, hats, buckles, falars (the village of Novo-Grigoryevka and the city of Melitopol, Zaporizhzhya region, the mouth of the Oskol river, Krivaya Kosa of the Novoazovsky district of Donetsk region, Pavlovka village, Luhansk region). The subject of the last burial - a silver vessel of the 5th century, decorated with floral ornaments and an oval medal - a kind of coat of arms of Iranian rulers, shahs of the Sassanid dynasty, is kept in the museum funds of the State Hermitage.
The few archaeological monuments of this time cannot fully recreate the picture of the struggle of nomadic peoples for the possession of the territory of Podontsovye and Azov Sea. It is only known that for 20 years (374-395) the Turkic-speaking Huns could not defeat the Sarmatian captives of the Alans, whose language is close to the ancient Persian, and only then they seized the coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and the steppe expanses of the Podontsovye and Lower Don regions.
While moving through the Steppe, the Huns absorbed the local tribes of the Sarmatians, the defeated Alans had to leave for the Caucasus and the Crimea, and later occupy the northern territories in the south of the forest-steppe zone. The remnants of the surviving Germanic tribes had to go further west and partially occupy the Coastal Crimea. Having formed a powerful alliance of tribes, the Huns under the leadership of Attila undertook devastating campaigns in many countries, finally defeated the Roman Empire, changed the ethnographic map of Europe and put an end to the slave system, opening the way for the Middle Ages. From the Turkic-speaking peoples that remained after the collapse of the Huns' state, two states of Eastern Europe emerged: Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Kaganate.
In the VI-VII centuries. Bulgarian tribes, related to the Huns, began to penetrate into the Azov steppes from the east. This is evidenced by the excavation of female burials in the city of Mariupol, us. Novogrigoryevka on the river Kalmius, near the cities of Yasinovataya and Novoazovsk, Donetsk region.
In the 30-40s. VII century. the Bulgarians of the Azov and Black Sea regions united into a single state - Great Bulgaria. However, after the death of the unifier of the Bulgarians Kurbats, the disintegration of his state, part of the Bulgarians went north and formed the Volga Bulgaria, and the second part, led by Khan Asparuh I, crossed the Danube, forming the Danube Bulgaria, the remaining part settled along the river valleys of the Kuban, Don and Seversky Donets basins , later becoming a part of the Khazar Kaganate - one of the most powerful state associations of the 1st millennium AD, whose power stretched from the Volga to the Dnieper, as well as in the North Caucasus and Crimea.
Khazars are a Turkic-speaking nomadic city that created in the U-U1 centuries. tribal association on the territory of modern Dagestan, and in the VII century. an early feudal state headed by the Kagan, whose power extended to the Bulgarians, Alans, who were part of the Kaganate, as well as the Slavic tribes of the Polyans, northerners and Vyatichs, who were subdued by it, who paid tribute to the Khazars.
The formation of a strong Khazar state led to the strengthening of trade and economic relations in the steppes of Eastern Europe, an increase in population, settlements, trade and craft centers. The development of the kaganate was facilitated by Byzantium, interested in international trade in the Crimea and the protection of trade caravans. The fact is that, in addition to a purely nomadic economy, the Khazars were engaged in agriculture, various crafts and mediation in international trade. They also had a high level of military affairs.
In the basins of the Don, the Seversky Donets and its tributaries, fortresses, settlements, large trade, economic and political centers with craft settlements and shopping areas grow. So, on the territory of the modern Kharkiv region, near Verkhniy Saltov, there was a significant settlement, which was one of the main centers of the Khazar Kaganate on the border with the Slavs.
The change in the psychology of the steppe nomads, the growth of the economy, international trade, and connections with world religious centers lead to the emergence in the steppe of adherents of religious confessions carrying the "word of God." Pagan cults are replaced by monoreligions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Instead of lonely nomadic graves, huge ancestral burial grounds appear under the embankments of small mounds.
Almost three hundred years old Khazar civilization (from the 7th to the 10th centuries) played an important role in the history of the Wild Field. The ancient Bulgarians and Alans created in the endless steppe a rich and unique culture based on agriculture and livestock raising. They improved the architecture and technology of fortification, glass casting, spinning and weaving, mastered the techniques of making jewelry, mastered the technology of melting and processing ferrous and non-ferrous metals, stone, bone, wood and clay. The growth of crafts, trade and economic ties led, in turn, to the emergence and spread of art and writing.
The largely identical destinies of the nomadic peoples, which for tens of centuries determined the geography and ideology of the Steppe, become the impetus for the arrival of new actors in the historical arena - the Slavs with their state of Rus and numerous nomadic Turks.
2. "Donetsk region in the Middle Ages VI-early XVI centuries.)"
2.1 Lands Podontsovye, Azov and Kievan Rus
The history and fate of the Great Steppe and the Wild Field as an organic part of it, starting from the 6th century, is inextricably linked with the emergence of the Old Russian ethnos and a new state called Rus.
The rich land capable of providing forage for a large number of livestock, a wonderful climate that is not subject to devastating droughts, as, for example, in the steppes of Asia, of course, attracted nomads here in ancient times, and they felt like masters here until they were replaced by new tribes of the same nomads. The Persian historian Al-Juzjani wrote about this quite figuratively: "In the whole world there can be no land more pleasant than this, air, better than this, water, sweeter than this, meadows and pastures, more extensive than these." That is why in the V-IX centuries. the great migration of peoples from east to west continues. Avars, Bulgarians, Khazars and Ugrians (Hungarians) passed through the territory of the Wild Steppe to the Carpathian-Danube region during this period.
However, simultaneously with this process in the VI-VIII centuries. The Slavic tribes, the so-called anty, are a sedentary people engaged in arable farming and cattle breeding, developing rapidly. This was the period when the ancient Russian ethnos was finally taking shape, which during this period was not unsuccessfully trying to resist the invasions of nomads from Asia - the Avars, Bulgarians and Hungarians.
By this time, the Slavs were restoring "military democracy", the disintegration of the tribal system and the formation of a class society, which creates the preconditions for the formation of statehood. The conditional date of the unification of the Slavic tribes into a single ancient Russian state with the center in Kiev (Kievan Rus) should be considered 882, when, judging by the chronicle materials, Prince Oleg with Novgorod troops and the Varangian squad captured Kiev, killed Askold and Dir who reigned there and began to equip the cities and to impose tribute on the nearby Slavic tribes of the Slovens and Krivichs, and later the Drevlyans, Polyans, Severians, Tivertsy, Vyatichi and Radimichi.
Thus, Oleg united under his rule the two main political centers of Russia - Kiev and Novgorod, i.e. lands stretching along the great river trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks". Eastern tribes became the largest state in medieval Europe.
His economic interests demanded access to the borders of the Steppe, where Kievan Rus clashed with the interests of a rather strong adversary - the Khazar Kaganate. The center of this state was located in the lower reaches of the Volga and was a connecting link ensuring the safety of caravans and mediation in trade with the East, Caucasus, Crimea and Byzantium. That is why it had political superiority, and without the conquest of peoples and territories (there was no one to conquer and nothing for!) The Khazars were paid natural tribute, including some Slavic tribes (for example, the Vyatichi).
"Rus Dnieper, city, trade", as the outstanding historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, Russia, which has a high international prestige thanks to its successful foreign trade, did not want to put up with the lack of control on the "Great Silk Road". That is why the period of Svyatoslav's reign (964-972) was marked by constant wars for gaining such control and the opportunity to become the head of Eastern Europe.
His campaigns in 965-968. represented, as it were, a single "saber strike" that drew a wide semicircle on the map of Europe from the Middle Volga region to the Caspian Sea and further along the North Caucasus and the Black Sea region. As a result of these campaigns, the Volga Bulgaria was conquered and the decrepit Khazar Kaganate (965) was defeated. Obstacles placed at the intersection of trade routes to the east were removed. The "Great Silk Road" was opened for Ancient Rus, although during this period she was unable to take advantage of this.
Apparently, it was precisely for the control and protection of the trade route passing through the territory of the Wild Field that a new Russian principality, Tmutarakan, later arose on the Taman Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the wars with the nomads of the southern steppes did not stop. They either assumed a fierce character with the appearance of new nomads in the Dik field, or they confined themselves to guard service and minor skirmishes on the border. Short periods of truce and calm gave way to wars.
The situation in this region has become especially aggravated with the arrival of numerous new and warlike nomads in the Northern Black Sea region - the union of the Turkic tribes of the Pechenegs, which took shape in the VIII-IX centuries. The history of their arrival in the Steppe resembles all previous campaigns and conquests of the nomads.
Until the end of the 9th century, the Pechenegs roamed between the Aral Sea and the Volga, fought for pastures with the Oguzes, Polovtsy and Khazars. However, in the end, under their pressure, the Pechenegs were forced to cross the Volga and, displacing the Ugrians (Hungarians) who roamed between the Don and the Dnieper, occupy the Northern Black Sea region to the Danube. Nomadic cattle breeding and raids on neighboring countries - Russia, Byzantium and Hungary - became one of the means of subsistence and survival of the heterotroph state. And like any heterotrophic state, it was doomed already at the stage of its power, since it could not exist without a constant infusion of human and economic resources from the outside.
The process of gradual disintegration of the union of the Pechenegs was accelerated by Kievan Rus during the reign of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015). In the 80s. X century. he managed to organize the state defense system of Ancient Rus, building powerful defensive lines along the border rivers Desna, Sturgeon, Trubezh, Sula, Ros. Fortresses, ditches and ramparts, forest cuttings, fortified fords stretched for many hundreds of kilometers, reinforced by permanent garrisons recruited from all cities of Russia serving in border towns. The history of the medieval fortification of Western Europe did not know a defense system of this scale. The people called these earthen ramparts "Serpent".
The Pechenegs were stopped "one day's journey from Kiev, and then pushed back into the steppe. It is this period of the struggle with the" filthy steppe dwellers "at the" heroic outposts "that is sung in numerous heroic Russian epics, which pay tribute to both heroes and warriors, and simple warriors, and Prince Vladimir "Krasno Solnyshko".
The Pechenegs were finally defeated by Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 1036 near Kiev. Many Pechenegs died in the battle and during their pursuit by Russian vigilantes, the other part migrated to the Danube, but there were those who, assimilated, naturally entered the military structure of the Slavs, and then became part of the Slavic ethnos.
Old Russian chronicles recorded twelve military conflicts between the Pechenegs and Russia. Is it a lot or a little? Even if we assume that there were more of them, but they did not fall into the field of view of the chroniclers, then even then, with all the hardships of the Pechenezh-Russian confrontation, one cannot fail to notice that the war was not constant. The fact is that the structure of the Pechenezh "union" was such that the hordes of which the union consisted were not always united in their desire for conflicts with Russia. Therefore, Ancient Russia could be simultaneously with one horde in a state of war, and with another in a state of peace.
There is even a known fact that in 979 the Pechenezh prince Ildeya switched to the service of the Kiev prince Yaropolk Svyatoslavich. The Pechenegs subject to him were settled in Porosye and on the outskirts of Kievan Rus, where they would live and carry out guard duty, fighting off, along with the Russians, the raids of nomads up to the Mongol invasion. The Russians called such service nomadic Türks "black hoods", although this name disappeared as they assimilated and turned into typical Slavs in terms of language, faith and culture.
The next wave of nomads after the Pechenegs, which swept over the developing culture of Ancient Rus for several centuries (X1-X1II), is associated with the arrival of the nomadic tribes of the Torks and Polovtsians on the territory of the Steppe. The situation on the border of the forest-steppe with the Wild Field began to rapidly change in favor of the nomads. In the middle of the XI century. The Seljuk Turks blocked all routes to the south for the ancient Russian merchant caravans, and the crusaders devastated the Byzantine Empire in 1096, thereby depriving Kievan Rus of its main trading partner. It was during this period that they intensified their forays into Russia.
For the first time, the Cumans, who settled in the Northern Black Sea region, are mentioned in Russian annals in 1055. Old Russian chroniclers very figuratively described the Polovtsian invasion:
"... Yes, there are no numbers!
And closed the moon to the red sun,
But you can't see the golden light of the month,
And from the same Polovtsian spirit,
From the same from a couple of horses. "
Numerous stone women scattered across the steppe and collected by archaeologists from Lugansk State Pedagogical University and Donetsk National University (more than 60) are evidence of the long stay of the Polovtsians on the territory of the Wild Field. Stone Polovtsian statues have been known since the era of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign"; we find mention of them in the notes about Muscovy and at Boplan.
Archaeologists have been studying them since the late 17th-early 19th century, and almost every museum in Ukraine, Donets, Stavropol and Kuban regions has their own statues. They were taken from the mounds of the mounds, where they stood in specially equipped sanctuaries, where they brought offerings and sacrificial food. Here, 3-5 statues depicting men or women were sometimes installed in honor of the ancestors, facing east.
So who are the Cumans? The name "Cumans" is of Russian origin, although it would be more correct to call this medieval people of the Turkic group "Kypchaks", or "Cumans", because the Cumans themselves called the vast territory from the western spurs of the Tien Shan to the Danube, which they occupied , Desht-i-Kypchak (among the Slavs "Polovtsian land", or "Polovtsian field").
The geography of their settlement and the chronology of mentioning them in the history of the Wild Field takes about two centuries (from 1050 to 1240) and ends with an alliance with the Russians in the face of an even more dangerous nomad - the Mongol-Tatars.
By the middle of the XI century. Polovtsy reached the Dnieper, and by the beginning of the 70s. of the same century, they were entrenched in the steppe expanses between the Dnieper and Danube. The former nomadic inhabitants of the steppes, the Pechenegs and Torks, were either subordinated to their will and dissolved in the mass of the Polovtsian population, or moved to serve in other states, in particular, Russia and Byzantium.
The northern border of the "Polovetsky Field" ran along the territory of the Left Bank in the interfluve of Vorskla and Orel, and on the Right Bank in the interfluve of Ros and Tyasmin. In the south, it included the North Caucasian, Azov, Crimean and Black Sea steppes. In addition to the Polovtsians, a large number of other peoples (Alans, Khazars, Bulgarians and a mixed population) lived in this vast territory.
All this left a certain imprint on the history of relations between the Polovtsians and these ethnic groups and their behavioral stereotypes with the more powerful Kiev state. There are four periods of development of Polovtsian relations with Russia and other nomads conditionally:
Aggressiveness of the ethnos in relation to all other peoples inhabiting the Steppe before;
The emergence of stable boundaries of each Polovtsian horde and permanent winter quarters;
Increased pressure on the southern borders of Ancient Rus and the consolidation of Russian forces;
Stabilization of Russian-Polovtsian relations.
All these stages of the gradual transition from a state of militant aggressiveness to an awareness of the need for peaceful coexistence with Russia were determined by the very nature of the nomads.
The basis of the economy of the Polovtsians was nomadic cattle breeding. At the same time, men were engaged in grazing horses and camels, and women were feeding cows, sheep and goats. The division of functions between men and women also existed in terms of peaceful and military professions: the crafts related to the household were controlled by women, and the crafts related to military affairs were in the hands of men.
The trade that was carried out in the Polovtsian trading centers of Korsun (Chersonesus), Surozh (Sudak) and Tmutarakan was partly specific, since one of the types of goods supplied to the Taman and Crimean markets were slaves, whom the Polovtsians exchanged for silk and brocade fabrics, wines , jewelry and tableware from Asia and Byzantium.
The constant invasions of the Polovtsians on the Russian land caused a natural response. Only during the reign of Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125) the combined forces of the Russian princes made
numerous campaigns (in 1103, 1105, 1107, 1111, 1116) to the Polovtsian steppe, as a result of which they captured the Polovtsian cities of Sharukan, Sugrov and Balin. The persistence of hostilities both on the one and on the other hand, weakening and diverting the human and material resources of both sides, leads to the search not for an armistice, but for permanent peace. For these purposes, they used, in particular, dynastic marriages.
So, Vladimir Monomakh married not only Yuri Dolgoruky to a Polovtsian woman, but also his son Andrey the Good. When Andrey was 15 years old (in 1117), his father married him to the granddaughter of the famous Tugorkan. According to S.V. Gurkin, "Andrei Bogolyubsky was the son of a Polovtsian woman, Gleb Yurievich, probably the son of a Polovchanka, Mstislav Andreevich and Mstislav Rostislavovich - the son and nephew of Andrei Bogolyubsky - the grandchildren of a Polovchanka. Rurik Rostislavovich is married to a Polovtsian woman. the son of Rurik on the daughter of the Polovtsian khan Beluk "(S. V. Gurkin, p. 85).
The Polovtsian steppe, in turn, had strong personal and dynastic contacts with Russia. A significant part of the Polovtsian khans entered the ancient Russian Christian cultural arsenal. This is evidenced by the names of the Polovtsian khans of that time, such as Yuri Konchakovich, Danila Kobyakovich, Gleb Turievich, Yaropolk Toluakovich, as well as the appearance in the XIV century. the only Ukrainian princely dynasty after the Rurikovichs - the princes Ruzhinsky-Polovtsy (they descended from the Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan (died in 1096) - the father-in-law of the great Kiev prince Svyatoslav Izyaslavovich (1093-1113).
All this led to the fact that the Russians and the Cumans met the Mongol-Tatar invasion together, and it was at the request of the Cuman Khan Kotyan that the Russian princes, united with him, on May 31, 1223, took part in the battle with the Mongol-Tatars on the Kalka River (now r Kalchik - tributary of Kalmius), which ended in the defeat of the allies.
2.2 Podontsovye and Priazovye in the Ordpino period (XIII - first half of the XVII centuries)
The ancient Russian early feudal state fulfilled its historical mission and gave way to new state forms. Since the 30s of the XII century. a period of feudal fragmentation began. Here is how Academician B.A. Rybakov writes about it: “For the young Russian feudalism of the 9th-11th centuries, the united Kievan Rus was like a nanny who brought up and protected from all troubles and misfortunes a whole family of Russian principalities. the onslaught of the Pechenegs, and the invasion of the Varangian detachments, and the turmoil of the princely feuds, and several wars with the Polovtsian khans, and by the 12th century they had grown so much that they could start an independent life. " However, this opportunity for an independent life was not realized due to the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
In the vastness of the Steppe and the Wild Field, a change in the dominant ethnic group took place. The Polovtsian steppe was replaced by the Mongol-Tatar steppe, the Golden Horde, founded in the early 40s. XIII century Khan Batu and existed until the 15th century.
Initially, the Golden Horde was dependent on the great Mongol khan, but since the reign of Batu's brother Khan Berke began to pursue an independent policy.
The ethnic composition of the Golden Horde was quite variegated and unstable. In settled areas, for example, the Volga Bulgarians, Mordovians, Greeks, Khorezmians, Russians lived, and the nomadic milieu consisted of the Turkic tribes of the Kypchaks (Polovtsians), Tatars, Kanglys, Turkmens, Kirghiz and other peoples.
That is why the khans of the Golden Horde did not interfere with the restoration of trade ties. Thus, during the movement of Russian trade caravans from Kiev to Crimea, there was no need to be afraid of raids, moreover, there was no need to worry about food. Throughout the entire journey, everything you needed could be obtained in the steppe hotels - caravanserais, at post stations and in coachmen.
The Golden Horde, absorbing the elements of different cultures, in a relatively short period of time created unique art, more than 15 thousand monuments of material culture of this era are stored today only in the State Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia). They allow speaking of the originality, originality and global significance of the art of the Golden Horde.
At the same time, the territory of the Wild Field was still a kind of bridge that connected Asia with Europe. Despite the elements of violence inherent in the policy of the Golden Horde khans (then they will be repeated in no less harsh form in the practice of ruling Moscow Russia, and later in Russia), here the intercultural and interethnic dialogue of the Forest with the Steppe, nomads with farmers, Asia was fully carried out. and the East - with Europe and the West.
The steppe only benefited from this dialogue, strengthening its ideology and culture, and the Golden Horde, like many state and semi-state formations of nomads, disintegrated. In the early 20's gt. XV century the Siberian Khanate separated from the Golden Horde, in the 40s. the Nogayskeba horde arose, and then the Kazan (1438), Crimean (1443) and Astrakhan (60s of the 15th century) khanates.
The fate of the Wild Field and Russia as a whole after that was in one way or another connected primarily with the Crimean Khanate (from 1443 to 1783). Psychologically, after the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Tatars, having squandered their forces in the internecine struggle, were no longer aimed at war and for a certain period did not pose a threat either to the territory of the Steppe, much less to the strengthening Moscow state. They were busy with a peaceful life; were engaged in cattle breeding, trade and even, as Academician D. Yavornitsky emphasized, became close to the Slavic population. During the reign of the Crimean Khan Khadzhi-Devlet-Girey (and he ruled the Crimean Khanate for 39 years) friendly relations were established between the Slavic and Tatar populations, trade strengthened, the khan even donated considerable funds to Christian monasteries.
Similar documents
The process of settling in the spaces of East, Central and North Asia. The appearance of ancient people in the Far East, their settlement and main occupations. Monuments of primitive culture in the Far East. Centers of rock art.
abstract, added 01/17/2011
Formation of the Bulgarian state. Territory and population. Social and political system. Economic life of Volga Bulgaria. Foreign policy ties. Volga Bulgaria and Russia. Volga Bulgaria before the Mongol conquest. Spiritual culture.
abstract, added 10/27/2008
The use of the rich natural resources of the Azov region and the need to strengthen the southern borders. Construction of an iron foundry near the Lugan River. The development of crafts and trade, the state of the city's industry. The struggle against the serfdom of the peasants.
abstract, added 03/29/2011
The social structure of the Slavs according to ancient and Byzantine sources. Archaeological evidence about the social structure of the ancient Slavs. The development of social relations among the Slavs. The formation of new social formations.
term paper, added 02/05/2007
Hunting culture is one of the most ancient human occupations along with gathering. Its emergence and development as an economic and cultural tradition on the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan. The emergence of hunting with birds of prey and hunting dogs.
term paper, added 02/09/2010
Smolensk diocese during the occupation period and at the end of the Great Patriotic War. Administrative and legislative conditions of the church in the territory of the Smolensk region during the occupation. Revival of churches and clergy. Extra-curricular activities.
term paper, added 11/12/2008
General information about modern Slavic languages. Great migration of peoples. Ethnogeography of the Tribes "Tale of Bygone Years". Slovenia and Krivichi. Life and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs. Christian state - Kievan Rus.
abstract, added 04/22/2003
The first mentions of Tver in the annals. The struggle for wealth and prosperity during the times of Kievan Rus, the times of decline and rise of Tver, development during the Mongol yoke. Towns and borders of the Tver principality in the XIII century Evidence of the power of the Tver region.
abstract, added 04/25/2010
Features of the life of the Azov region. Honoring bread, observing the rules for its use and preparation. The basics of Ukrainian women's costume, the meaning of color. Traditional men's costume. A peculiar dress of the Greek population of the region. Religious rites and customs.
presentation added 09/08/2015
Study of the course and consequences of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. on the territory of the Saratov region. Mass voluntary movement as one of the most noticeable manifestations of popular patriotism at the beginning of the war. Outstanding feats of compatriots.
The oldest history
Almost until the end of the 19th century, the prevailing opinion among Russian scientists was that Donbass was inhabited only in the 16th century. This conviction was shaken by the findings of Vasily Fedorovich Spesivtsev, a resident of the village of Raygorodka (now the Slavyansk region). An energetic and inquisitive man, carried away by antiquities, he began to look for them in his native land. And he found on the outskirts of his native village. Already about his first finds in 1891 V.F. Spesivtsev wrote: "The above-mentioned shards and flint fragments can be collected, perhaps, whole carts." In subsequent years, he went from Slavyansk to Yampol, surveyed Shchurovo, Stary Karavan, Brusovka, the banks of the Zherebets River. Collected by V.F. The Spessivtsevs' collections were adjacent to items from various archaeological eras: Golden Horde coins and clay vessels of the Bronze Age, an iron sword with an Arabic inscription and fragments of pots made by the Scythians. Among the many flint products one could discern leather scrapers, knives, very elegant arrowheads, and polished stone hammers.
The finds of V.F. Spesivtsev aroused interest primarily among the specialists of Kharkov - the nearest large scientific center, where members of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society were engaged in the study of antiquities of the region. It was at this time that preparations were under way for the XII Congress of Russian Archaeologists, which was to take place in Kharkov at the very beginning of the new, XX century. The upcoming events were thoroughly discussed at the meetings of the Provisional Committee; the report of V.F. Spesivtseva about the monuments discovered by him in the last decade. By decision of the committee, in the summer of 1900, Professor N.A. Fedorovsky. After the trip, he reported that the area he examined was "an extremely interesting phenomenon." The committee soon adopted a resolution: "... to pay attention to the sites of the Stone Age, especially in the Izyum district, and, if possible, to examine them." A new stage began in the history of the archaeological study of Donbass. Specialists came to the aid of curious enthusiasts, collectives began to work in place of single individuals.
In 1901, an expedition headed by Vasily Alekseevich Gorodtsov, at that time already a recognized scientist, arrived in the Izyumsky district.
Gorodtsov's expedition worked in Izium for four months. During this time, one hundred burial mounds were opened, three settlements were studied and five sites of the Neolithic era were discovered: near Khailovka. (now Ilyichevka Krasnolimansky district), Raygorodok, Kamenka, Dolgen'ky and Velikaya Kamyshevakha.
At the XII Congress of archaeologists, held in 1902, V.F. Spesivtsev and V.A. Gorodtsov reported on the results of work in the Izyum region. Particular attention was paid to the parking lot and workshop opened in Khailovka. Along with finished tools and fragments of clay vessels, large piles of flint wastes were found there. This allowed us to assume that about 7 thousand years ago, products from flint were made here for a very long time. Thus, already at the beginning of the 20th century, it was indisputably proven that Donbass was inhabited about 7 thousand years ago.
Stories about the Stone Age of Donbass should be preceded by several remarks regarding the periodization and chronology of this longest period in the history of mankind.
Thanks to the findings of recent decades, the age of human society is now estimated at almost three million years. For the convenience of studying such a long period, it was conditionally divided into a number of eras, distinguished by phenomena in nature, in the appearance of man himself, in the economic and social life of primitive people. A very important role in the periodization of the Stone Age is played by the technique of processing stone raw materials, the typology of products made from it, and statistical indicators.
The main eras of the Stone Age are Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. Within each of these periods, stages are distinguished. So, the early Paleolithic ended about 140 thousand years ago (some researchers believe that 100 thousand years ago), the Middle Paleolithic lasted from 140 (or 100) to 40 thousand years ago, the late one - from 40 to 10 thousand years ago. The Mesolithic period covers the period from 10 thousand years ago to 6 thousand years BC, the Neolithic (in our territory) - 5-3 thousand years BC.
The settlement of Donbass from time immemorial was stimulated by a favorable combination of a number of vital conditions - an abundance of small rivers and boundless reserves of flint, a favorite raw material of the ancients, abundantly lying in the chalk mountains of our region.
So far, only one product has been found in the territory of Donbass, the age of which is determined to be about 200 thousand years. This ax found by V.M. Evseev in 1935 near Amvrosievka, on the slope of the Kazennaya Balka, which flows into the Krynka River. The ax is made of a massive piece of grayish flint and has a shape close to an irregular triangle. Its length is 10.5 centimeters, width is 7.3 centimeters. By blows on both sides of the surface, it was almost completely removed from the crust that covers the untreated flint. With this chopper it was possible to chop, hit, crush, pick, etc. The versatility of this tool is explained by the indivisibility of the labor operations of a person who lived at that time. Along with a chopper, flakes and sharp-edged blades deliberately chipped from the nodule, as well as wood products, were used.
More "young" is another ax found in 1971 on the northwestern outskirts of Makeevka, in Khanzhenkovo. Teachers of secondary school No. 72 T.G. Egorova and R.A. Popov transferred it to the Archaeological Museum of Donetsk State University. In 1972, at the congress of archaeologists, which was held in Odessa, this ancient tool was examined with interest by scientists from Leningrad, Kiev, Chisinau. Unlike the Ambrosievsky, the Khanzhenkovsky chop was convex only from the upper, front, side. Bottom, back, its side is flat. Symmetrical edges are carefully corrected with small chips - the so-called retouching. These details of the technique of making tools are characteristic of a time closer to us: the end of the Early - the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic. That is, about 150-140 thousand years ago. Both were cut by finds unique, but isolated. The sites of such an early time in Donbass are not yet known.
Traces of the most ancient settlements in our region belong to the Middle Paleolithic and were discovered back in 1924 on the Derkul River, a tributary of the Seversky Donets, by one of the largest Soviet archaeologists, P.P. Efimenko, later director of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, academician. Attention was drawn to a large disc-shaped core, from which flakes close to a triangular shape were chopped off, which were then turned into various tools: side-scrapers, incisors, points, etc. Not all archaeologists of the country agreed with the dating proposed by P.P. Efimenko, and attributed the found to a later era - the Neolithic. Recent collection of material carried out at this site by V.N. Gladilin, supplemented the Derkul site with finds characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic. The site's age, named 50 years ago by P.P. Efimenko, received a new confirmation.
Another location of a man of the Middle Paleolithic period in these parts was discovered in 1933 by the Leningrad archaeologist S.N. Zamyatnin not far from Voroshilovgrad, near the Krasny Yar farm. Here they found points typical of this pore, scrapers, rather large plates.
The finds on Derkul and Krasny Yar were the northernmost traces of the habitation of the most ancient man - the Neanderthal man - in the Donbass during the Middle Paleolithic.
It took almost thirty years before new, so ancient sites were discovered. In 1960, the archaeological team of the Donetsk Pedagogical Institute collected 550 flints with traces of their processing in different pores of the Stone Age. They were found on the left bank of the Osyka River (a tributary of the Volchya River), flowing through the village of Alexandrova, Maryinsky District. Among the cherts, 400 specimens were found to be of Middle Paleolithic age. All of them were covered with "gray hair" of antiquity - a patina, a white bloom that forms on the surface of flint as a result of the influence of various forces of nature that destroy it. A lot of waste material was collected in Aleksandrovka: debris, fragments, flakes. We also managed to collect several dozen guns. Most of all it turned out to be scraped in different versions: angular, longitudinal, transverse, with a finger rest. There were also small scrapers, a leaf-shaped point, a miniature ruber, etc. In the technique of making tools, the processing of items on both sides - the upper and lower ones - prevailed.
The Middle Paleolithic time was very harsh, as it coincided with the next advance of glaciers. People of this time are called Neanderthals. Although in appearance there were still many features that brought them closer to animal ancestors, labor activity helped them "humanize". To survive, they had to learn how to make fire. And they learned. Fire became a means of fighting animals, gave light and warmth. The findings of recent years have significantly enriched our knowledge of Neanderthals. It has now been proven that they did not live in herds, as they had recently thought. The tribal system was already emerging among them - the original form of organization of human society. They possessed a rather complex stone processing technique, made 63 types of tools, and knew how to build permanent dwellings. The origin of the funeral rite and art is attributed to this period.
Millennia passed slowly. Slowly but steadily, the life of a young human society developed under changing conditions. After the Middle Paleolithic era, the Late Paleolithic era (40-10 thousand years ago) came. It was an even harsher time. It coincided with the last glacier advance, which brought with it the worst cold snap. And yet the man stubbornly walked north. He already knew a lot. A fire always burned in the house where his family lived, fenced off from other families of the same kind. The human body was protected by the skins of animals killed by him in the hunt. He learned how to make elongated plates and flakes from flint and other types of stone. The guns made from them were more effective. Scrapers and cutters at the end of a blade or flake have become one of the favorite items. They were cleaved from specially prepared prismatic cores, which supplanted other types. The French explorer Soneville-Borde identified 90 types of tools that the late Paleolithic man knew how to make. Yes, it was already a man. Solving many complex tasks in the process of collective labor, developing his brain and speech, in the late Paleolithic era, a human-like creature is finally rejected from his animal-like ancestors, becoming homo sapiens - a reasonable man. The greatest of the processes in the history of the development of life on earth - the process of anthropogenesis - has come to an end. At the same time, different races of people took shape.
Hunting was still the main source of human existence. With the help of fire, a man drove the animal out of the caves, drove it in a planned direction: to a cliff, a gully, and there he threw boulders of stone. A spear and a spear thrower that lengthened its flight had already been invented. Sometimes the spear was equipped with a tip - flint or bone. The tip resembled a narrow spindle. Often, longitudinal or transverse grooves were cut into such "spindles" and small, thin, very sharp pieces of flint - inserts - were inserted into them. In the territory of Donbass, it was possible as early as 1919 to find such a "spindle" near the village of Veselogorye in the Luhansk region.
Traces of sites of the Late Paleolithic were identified by N.V. Sibilev on the Seversky Donets just before the war in the villages of Tatyanovka, Prishib, Bogorodichnoye. In the south of Donbass, in the Azov region, V.M. Evseev opened a site in 1935, which surprised archaeologists with the wealth of material. Near Amvrosievka, on the slope of Kazennaya Balka, they managed to find a parking lot and a bone associated with it: a huge accumulation of bison bones, a giant animal cemetery. The unusual complex immediately aroused the interest of researchers. At the invitation of V.M. Yevseyev, the famous paleolithic scholar P.I. Boriskovsky, who later, after the war, headed the work here. Research in these places was also conducted by a Kiev paleontologist, later an academician, I.G. Pidoplichko. A dispute arose between scientists about the origin of the bone. P.I. Boriskovsky insisted that it was of cult origin, that is, it arose because here a person worshiped the incomprehensible forces of nature that he deified, made sacrifices to them. I.G. Pidoplichko, having studied the composition of the bones, found the remains of animals of different ages, pregnant females. It was a herd of about 1000 individuals. The scientist came to the conclusion that the accumulation of bones is the result of driven hunting. Of great interest are the tools found in Amvrosievka. Among them there are many bone spearheads, confirming that a group of bison hunters lived here. Scrapers, incisors, points, miniature needle-shaped inserts were made from flint. The analysis of the composition of the flint inventory also helped in the development of some important theoretical questions of the history of the Paleolithic in general.
In the 50s P.I. Boriskovsky put forward the assumption that in the late Paleolithic era, related communities of people lived in the steppe zone. They were united by the way of life, the type of economy, the level of technology for making tools, the composition of the inventory. An important aspect of this thesis was the assertion of the unity of the historical development of human society at the dawn of its history.
Now we can say that on the vast expanses of the southern steppes of our country tens of thousands of years ago the paths of people who came here from very distant regions crossed. Donbass also crossed these paths. Much is still unclear. What variants of cultures of the Late Paleolithic are found in the Donbass? What are the boundaries of their distribution, relationships? To answer these questions, you need to find several expressive monuments that are not inferior in wealth to Amvrosievka. But even now it can be argued that in both the Early and Late Paleolithic, communities of people lived in the territory of interest to us and in adjacent areas, who had different production traditions and, perhaps, came from very distant regions. The mobility of the population, despite the harsh climatic conditions, was much more active than could have been imagined before the latest research. And the area of \u200b\u200bDonbass connections, apparently, was much wider than previously assumed.
The time has come for the glaciers to melt - the Mesolithic era. Much has changed in nature and in the life of human collectives. The climate has become milder, closer to the modern relief. The channels of rivers and streams have been determined. The composition of plants and animals has become close to the modern one. Large cold-loving animals were exterminated or died out.
Hunting was still the main economic activity of ancient people. But since the composition of the herd has changed qualitatively, the forms of hunting should have changed. Wolves, foxes, hares could not be hunted with torches and a corral. Man could not hit an animal that moved many times faster than him. And he came up with a bow and arrow. True, the idea of \u200b\u200bflying a deadly weapon was laid down in the Paleolithic spear-thrower. In the new conditions, this idea has received a new embodiment.
Now there was no need to go hunting in large groups of 50 or 100 people, as before. The hunters united in small groups of 4–5 people. The hunter's faithful assistant was the dog, the first tamed animal.
Changes, of course, have occurred both in the technique of manufacturing tools of labor, and in their very composition. First of all, flint arrowheads were to appear. They are mainly elongated narrow "willow" points in the north of Europe. In the south and southwest of Europe, the tips were mainly small silicon microlites made in the form of geometric shapes: trapeziums, segments, triangles. An important invention of this time was the spread of "in-ear" technology. If earlier the whole tool was made of flint, now in some cases only the working part was made from flint - scraping, cutting, etc. and set it into a wooden, horny or bone base. This created a comfortable handle, and the weapon was manufactured faster.
Along with hunting, the Mesolithic man was also engaged in fishing, which was facilitated by the milder climate. Sometimes geometric microliths were used as a spoon. Some tribes learned at this time to harvest wild-growing edible plants - the first beginnings of activities that would later lead to the discovery of the secrets of agriculture. The way of human life has become more mobile, in some places nomadic. This circumstance can explain the fact that the cultural layer at the Mesolithic sites is relatively thin.
Traces of the Mesolithic hunters and fishermen have been found in a number of places. Back in the 1920s and 1930s, N.V. Sibilev discovered Mesolithic sites in the middle reaches of the Seversky Donets - in the village of Drobyshevo, several points - in the villages of Petrovskoe, Prishib, Zlivka and others. Here, a large number of scrapers of various types and incisors on flakes and blade blades, geometric microliths and occasionally “willow” arrowheads were found. Along with this small material, large tools of labor are also collected here: axes, cutting axes. The combination of small items (microliths) with large ones (macrolites) is one of the features of the Mesolithic complexes of Donbass.
The Stone Age ends the Neolithic era. Some researchers even associate it with the concept of "neolithic revolution". The essential difference between the new stage and the previous ones was that if earlier man existed thanks to the use and appropriation of the riches of nature, now the primitive worker began to multiply them and modify them as he could in accordance with his needs. It was at this time that agriculture and animal husbandry were born. An appropriating economy was replaced by a producing economy. Most scientists believe that the secrets of agriculture have been grasped by a woman who has been collecting and observing the life of plants for thousands of years. Animal husbandry is associated with a male hunter who knew the habits of wild animals and took upon himself the hard work of taming them.
The Neolithic was a time when axes, hammers and other large tools were especially needed - for the construction of dwellings, boats, cultivation of land, construction of cattle corrals. The ax has become such a widespread product that some researchers even suggested calling this entire period the "era of the ax." The manufacture of a large number of large tools significantly increased the consumption of flint raw materials. The flint that came out of the mountain depths to the surface of the earth was no longer enough. A person sometimes mined flint from its places of occurrence before, but now he began to do it systematically. Long ago, the primitive master noticed that flint lying on the surface of the earth breaks worse than flint extracted from the bowels of the mountains. Temperature drops, winds, water, frost and heat affected the flint unprotected by the shelter. It was difficult to make a core from it, suitable for cleaving elongated plates and flakes of regular shape. At the same time, flint extracted directly from the deposit (and these were mainly chalk mountains in our region, stretching along its eastern part), is more plastic. When cleaved, flakes and plates of a more regular shape were separated from it.
Having only stone, bone, horn, and wooden tools of labor, man began to break into the bowels of the mountains in order to obtain higher quality raw materials. This is how the oldest mountain mines and workings appeared. Usually, groups of workshops were located near the places of flint mining, intended for the initial processing of flint nodules. The crust, finger-like and lumpy growths were chopped off from them, blanks, cores were made. They usually completed the manufacture of guns in the parking lot. The workshops were places of temporary existence.
Since the places abounding in flint are by no means located everywhere, and the demand for flint raw materials increased at that time, the Neolithic was also a time of development of the still irregular, but already taking shape, exchange relations. The tribes living in the siliceous region exchanged the prepared semi-finished products for animal skins and other items.
Thanks to the abundance of flint deposits, Donbass already in those distant times became in Ukraine one of the largest centers for the extraction, processing and exchange of this most important raw material. From Izium in the north of our region to Uspenka in the south, for almost 12 years, a detachment of Donetsk University regularly examined the places of flint outcrops, and it turned out that almost all of them were known to a person of the Stone Age. Along the middle course of the Seversky Donets and its tributaries: Kazenny Torets, Krivoy Torets, Bakhmutka, near Krynka - wherever the bowels were
We worked in the workings without straightening up. They moved forward and to the sides gradually, forming niches, between which small chalk columns were left untouched - pillars that served as a support for the roof. These pillars were separated from the chalk strata on three sides, and on the fourth side they merged with this stratum. It was safer that way. As a result of the gradual chipping of chalk from the ceiling and walls of the adits, the pillars gradually "grew" in height. We can confidently say that the ancient miners took the measures necessary to ensure safety during the period of work.
On the walls of the workings, traces of ancient tools have been preserved, with the help of which flint was broken. Inside the caves, the flint was not processed, but very skillfully cut into pieces. Near the workings on small hillocks, flint was mined by an open method, as a result of which several tiers of chalk were formed with traces of nodules removed from them. Here, traces of blows with a horn hoe were found - one of the most important proofs that flint, in any case, was mined for some time even in the era before the discovery of copper and bronze. Thus, the most ancient mines appeared in the Donbass in the Stone Age, and the first miners mined flint.
In the immediate vicinity of the mines, points were discovered where flint was dissected, finger-like processes and growths were knocked down from flint nodules. At some distance, there were workshops for the manufacture of cores. Such blanks were very convenient for exchange. A whole rounded sandstone grain grater and grinding stone were also found here. Obviously, the ancient masters supported themselves with flat cakes.
Quarries near Kramatorsk and near the village of Krasnoe were also surrounded by workshops. Near Kramatorsk, more than 3 thousand cherts with traces of processing were collected. Including, rough chopping tools for dissecting nodules, chippers of various sizes, cores and blanks of axes, points, darts. There were also identified stocks of raw materials: 211 nodules prepared for processing.
Ancient workshops were also found in the villages of Yakovlevka, Nikolaevna, Kirovka, Grigorievna, Kurdyumovka, Severen, Yasnogorka, Uspenka, Aleksandrovna and others. Many ancient workshops suggest that Donetsk flint served as an object of exchange and went far beyond the Donbass. So, gray spotted flint, characteristic of our region, is found in the Kiev region. Archaeologist I.F. Kovaleva, who studied the treasure of flint axes found near Dnepropetrovsk, convincingly proved that they come from Donbass. Now it is difficult to say what exactly Donetsk flint was exchanged for. L. Ya. Krizhevskaya, who researched many workshops, proved that sometimes flint was exchanged for animal skins. Thus, already in distant antiquity, our region performed an important function as a center for the extraction of raw materials, their initial processing and exchange.
But enough about flint. What do we know about people? Who lived and worked at that time in our area? Where did these people come from? What did you do? How did you live? Different researchers answer these questions differently. So, D. Ya. Telegin believes that the entire territory of Donbass from the Seversky Donets to the Azov Sea was occupied by the tribes of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture, who also lived in the south-west of Belarus. They lived in our area from the middle of the 5th millennium BC. until the middle of the 4th millennium BC They were primarily engaged in fishing and hunting. Later they developed agriculture and animal husbandry. They sculpted wide-necked, straight-walled pots from clay with a sharp, and later flat bottom, and decorated vessels with a comb-pricked ornament. The facts suggest that these tribes were familiar with mining. The remains of the settlements of these tribes were found near the Seversky Donets and in the Azov region.
However, some researchers believe that the tribes of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture lived only in the northern regions of Donbass. In the south, in the Azov region, lived tribes whose material culture reveals similarities with the culture of the peoples of the Caucasus, the Caspian region and, possibly, even more southern. This point of view is defended by V.N. Danilenko. A.A. Formozov believes that the Dnieper-Donetsk culture, taken as a whole, gravitates towards the southern sources.
In the IV millennium BC. on the Seversky Donets, tribes with pit-comb (by the type of ornament) ceramics appeared, which were formed on the Desna and Seim. Their main occupation was, first of all, hunting and also fishing. They had a great influence on the tribes of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture, which were gradually assimilated by them and partially supplanted. The fate of the tribes of the pit-comb pottery, which disappeared at the end of the 3rd - the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, still makes archaeologists ponder.
In addition to settlements and industrial complexes of workshops and workings, the land of Donbass has preserved a very interesting burial complex - the Mariupol burial ground. It was opened in 1930 during the laying of the foundation of the Azovstal plant.
Headed by N.E. Makarenko's expedition cleared a 28-meter long corridor dug by the ancients in the ground in 65 days. The 122 deceased lay on their backs with their arms and legs straight. They were laid in three tiers, between which red ocher was poured - a symbol of warmth and life. Tools of labor were lying next to the buried: axes-wedges with polished blades, flint knives, scrapers, punctures, arrowheads. Many adornments were also found there: perforated boar tusks and deer teeth, small round mother-of-pearl beads, spherical bone beads, many bone plates, pendants made of porphyrite, marble, rock crystal ...
The result of the hard work of the expedition was the work of N.E. Makarenko "Mariupol burial ground", published in Kiev in 1933. His main conclusion was that there was a tribal tomb here. According to the researcher, probably 100 people lived not far from each other for decades. They were engaged in hunting and fishing, their dwellings were reminiscent of smoking camps. The found jewelry allows us to speak about the contacts of the ancient Mariupol people with very distant tribes that lived to the east and south.
In the years when the burial ground was opened, it was the only such monument in Ukraine. Subsequently, similar burial places were found in the Dnieper region, in the villages of Vovnigi, Vasilyevka, Volnoe.
Among the antiquities of Donbass, there are also very rare monuments of art. So, in 1973, a student of Donetsk State University A.I. Privalov discovered in the south of our region, in the Azov region, a cave with ancient drawings. On its ceiling and walls are contour drawings made with ocher. At the very entrance, on the ceiling, a kid with long horns bent far back was masterfully painted, a man on the left on the wall, a swan on the right, and a woman further in the depths of the cave. Only these four figures are clearly visible. There were many more of them, but, alas, they were criminally destroyed by unlucky visitors. Perhaps one of the remarkable monuments of antiquity, not only of Donbass, but of the whole of Ukraine, has been ruined. The second such complex is not yet known in Ukraine. The completeness of the vault of the cave, the innumerable number of cracks on the ceiling, dozens of names carved directly on the ancient drawings, indicate that we are still very poorly guarding our antiquity, our antiquities.
The Azov region knows one more monument of ancient art. This is the famous "Stone Grave", which was explored during the Soviet period by expeditions led by M. Ya. Rudinsky, N.I. Veselovsky and O.N. Bader. "Stone grave" is located outside our region, but since the Donbass includes a part of the Azov region, it is impossible not to mention this amazing complex. It got its somewhat gloomy name because it is an accumulation of sandstone slabs, resembling, as it were, a huge mound in a wide, flat Azov steppe. On the slabs that make up the mound, ancient images of various styles and themes have been preserved. Here you can see realistic, schematic and incomprehensible drawings. Among the realistically executed drawings, the image of a running roe deer makes a special impression; a group of bulls lined up for defense is very interesting, since a danger is not far away - a hidden wolf. A harness of oxen is depicted in a more conventional manner. Many signs were probably symbols.
Who knows, maybe people who mined flint in the tunnels of the village of Shirokoye, buried their loved ones in Mariupol, came here to perform a ritual. There are also fierce disputes about the Stone Grave. Most researchers consider this place to be cult. However, there is still a lot of mystery here.
... Donbass is surprisingly generous. Its bowels store not only ore and coal, but also whole vaults of the most ancient stone chronicles, important for understanding the historical process in the entire southeast of the European part of our country. Many questions have not yet been answered. We need new searches, discoveries, thoughts.
According to scientists, back in the VIII-VII centuries BC Homer wrote about the Cimmerians, who are known to us from history as the most ancient nomadic tribe that lived in the Northern Black Sea and Azov regions, that is, within the current Donetsk region.
Other researchers suggest that the Scythians who ousted the Cimmerians are spoken of in the biblical book of the prophet Jeremiah as barbarians, a people who “from afar ... a strong people, an ancient people, a people whose language you don’t know, and you won’t understand what he says ... His quiver is like an open coffin; they are all brave people. And they will eat your harvest and your bread, they will eat your sons and your daughters, they will eat your sheep and your oxen, they will eat your grapes and your figs. they will destroy your fortified cities with a sword, in which you hope ... ”Scientists attribute this mention to the 7th-6th centuries before Christ's birth.
The most detailed and reliable written evidence about the Donetsk region of that long-past historical period and about the then population in it was left by the recognized father of history Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC: “... the nomadic Scythians who lived in Asia, being pressed by the war from the Massagets (a Scythian tribe that occupied the lower reaches of the Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya in the 8th-4th centuries BC, and became part of other tribal unions in the 3rd-1st centuries), crossed the Araks River and retired to the Cimmerian land (indeed, a country occupied now the Scythians, originally belonged, they say, to the Cimmerians) ".
According to Herodotus, the Scythians were divided into plowmen, nomadic pastoralists and the so-called "royal", that is, ruling. By the way, it was he who first called the land from the Don to the Dnieper Scythia, including our land. The great historian, therefore, described him as well: “Their land is level, abundant in grass and well watered; the number of rivers flowing through Scythia is only slightly less than the number of canals in Egypt. The fourth river, Borisfen (Dnieper), in our opinion, is the richest in useful products not only between the Scythian rivers, but also between all in general, except, however, the Egyptian Nile. Of the other rivers, Borisfen is the most profitable: it delivers the most beautiful and luxurious pastures for cattle, excellent fish in great abundance, the water tastes very pleasant, clean, while near it the flowing rivers have muddy water; along it are excellent arable fields or very tall grass grows in places where no grain is sown; at the mouth of the river, salt collects by itself in great quantities; in Borisfen there are huge fish without a spinal column, called antokay and salted. "
Scythians. Relief of a bowl from the Kul-Oba mound
As the legend suggests, Heaven itself, having endowed the Scythians with such a rich nature, also sent them tools for managing: a plow, a yoke, an ax, a bowl. And thus prompted the choice of a righteous occupation, not assuming that many tribes of the Scythians would choose a different way of life - the warlike one. Further Herodotus wrote: “Beyond the river Tanais (Don) is no longer a Scythian land. The first of the local plots of land belongs to the Savromats, which start from the corner of Lake Meotius (Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov), occupy space for fifteen days' journey to the north; there are no wild or garden trees in the whole earth. "
Herodotus wrote down the myths of our region along the way. In particular, he preserved several versions of the legend about the origin of the Sarmatians, who subsequently conquered Scythia. Let's tell one of them, which is closest to the Donetsk region.
A Greek sailboat, loaded with goods, headed for Tanais. The wind of unprecedented force forced the sailors to take refuge in the bay of the southern coast. And at night unknown soldiers attacked the ship, destroyed the entire crew and sailed into the sea. But since the invaders had no idea about navigation, the wind carried their uncontrollable ship across the sea for a long time, and only a few days later drove it to the coast beyond the Agorsky Cape (Berdyansk Spit), to the Kremny market. When the unlucky sailors finally landed on the shore and eagerly began to drink water from the spring, they were noticed by the local inhabitants - the Scythians - and sent a detachment of their troops to them. A battle ensued, in which the aliens distinguished themselves with extraordinary courage. At night, carrying out their killed soldiers from the battlefield, the Scythian scouts also captured one killed enemy. It turned out that it was a female warrior, an Amazon. Upon learning of this, the Scythian sages decided not to engage in battle with brave women anymore, but selected the best young men and married them to the Amazons. The newlyweds did not want to live in Scythia, but went to the homeland of their wives, for Tanais. A hundred years passed, and the mighty army of the sons of the Amazons - the Sarmatians - broke into Scythia and conquered it.
This version of the legend is given in the guidebook "Northern Azov region", published almost twenty years ago in Dnepropetrovsk. In the same edition, the authors substantiate the life origin of the legend: “The Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and the sailing ships of ancient sailors remember ... Ships loaded with spices, amphorae with wine and oil began their journey from the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait) and ended in Tanais, an ancient city at the mouth Don. And on the northern coast of the sea, Greek sailors founded the Kremna marketplace, which the famous ancient chronicler Herodotus mentions more than once in his books. Traces of this settlement were found near the Petrov Balka tract, 18 kilometers west of the city of Berdyansk. Amphorae, coins of ancient times, ceramic fishing weights and many other evidences were found here, suggesting that there was once a brisk trade between the Greeks and the local inhabitants - the "royal" Scythians. The legend about the origin of the powerful people - the Sarmatians, the sons of the Amazons ...
It is interesting that, in full accordance with the legend, near the Petrov Balka tract (the supposed location of the Kremny marketplace) until recently, the only spring with excellent drinking water flowed on this coast, which the locals called the "Key of the Amazons" ... But, unfortunately, a few years ago in a landslide occurred in this area and the spring disappeared.
The Sarmatians had a lot in common with the Scythians. The same Herodotus wrote that their women “ride horseback hunting with and without their husbands, go to war and wear the same clothes as them”.
The scientist Hippocrates, who worked a little later than Herodotus, also spoke about the similarity of these peoples: the Scythians did not have permanent dwellings, they literally lived on wheels - in wagons, moving from one place of good grazing to another with their herds of cattle, there were children under cover and their mothers, and the warriors, whether men or women, spent most of their time in the saddle. Scythian tribes were called "inhabitants of carts".
The Sarmatians invaded Scythia in the II century BC, as evidenced by Diodorus of Sicily: "The Sarmatians, having become stronger, devastated a significant part of Scythia and turned it into a desert ..." Interestingly, the Latin name of the territory of Donbass - Sarmatia - is associated with the Sarmatian tribes. Therefore, the authors consider it rational to use the definition of Ruthenia Sarmatica as the Latin analogue of the term "Donbass Rus" as part of Pax Ruthenica - the big world of the Russian community.
Perhaps, the most ancient map of Claudius Ptolemy with the designation of the Alan Mountains (in Latin - Montes Alanienses), that is, the Donetsk ridge, can be attributed to the written evidence of the past of our region. And the works of the ancient Greek geographer and historian Strabo, in whose view our region extended to Asia, which, in his view, began immediately after Tanais.
In the second century BC, Alans occupied a special place among the Sarmatian tribes. Here is what the historian Ammian Arzelin wrote about the Alans: “... young people, having become akin to horse riding from early childhood, consider it a shame to walk, all of them are efficient warriors due to various exercises. Almost all Alans are tall and handsome, with moderately blond hair; they are terrifying with the restrained, menacing look of their eyes.
Unfortunately, there are not so many written testimonies about the Great Migration of Peoples in the vastness of our Donetsk region. And even then they are mostly ancient Greek, Arab and Roman.
This is understandable: we did not have a written language at that time. And oral traditions, legends, parables, legends and tales, if they existed among the population, were also not written down for the same reason. Except for those that survived thanks to Herodotus.
Although the rudiments of the oldest writing in our region were discovered by archaeologists in the form of unsolved signs on pots, found during exploratory excavations in the territory of the villages of Ivano-Dar'evka and Pokrovskoye in the northern side of the Donetsk region. If these are indeed ancient writings, as scientists believe, then it remains only to regret that we did not discover the information that they carry silently through many centuries and to this day.
After all, this is also a word, only reified, and therefore a museum, such as, for example, tools that are displayed for visitors. Only in them is also what the distant ancestors unwittingly wanted to convey to us through the centuries.
With the onset of a new era, the Donetsk region, its people and events played out on its lands are constantly under the watchful eye of chroniclers: historians and travelers, scientists and writers. And therefore it is captured in the written word much more and in much more detail than before.
True, the principle of reflecting events at first remained unchanged: what kind of people came here, whom he committed robbery, what former settlers or nomads.
So, in the 5th century AD, the Huns invaded the local limits, panicking even the Roman Empire, not to mention the Sarmatians. The Christian writer of that time, Eusebius Jerome, wrote literally the following about this event: “The whole East trembled at the sudden spread of news that from the extreme reaches of Meotida, between the icy Tanais and the fierce peoples of the Massagets, where the Alexander locks (the Derbent passage in the mountains near the Caspian Sea) were holding back wild tribes with the rocks of the Caucasus, swarms of the Huns escaped, which, flying here and there on fast horses, filled everyone with carnage and horror ... May Jesus turn away such animals from the Roman world for the future! They are unexpected everywhere, and by their speed, warning hearing, did not spare either religion, or dignity, or age, did not spare the crying babies. "
For a short time, in comparison with other nomadic warriors, the Huns operated in our area. Under the leadership of Attila, they invaded Western Europe, but after the battle on the Catalaunian fields in Eastern Gaul, suffering heavy losses, they were forced to retreat. And when Attila died, the alliance of the Huns collapsed altogether. After that, there was no one in the local area!
And Avars, and Slavs-Antes, and Bulgarians led by Khan Kubrat, and Khazars, and Arabs, and Alans, and Hungarians, and Pechenegs, and Torks, and Polovtsians, and Mongol-Tatars, and Nogais ... And it is quite understandable, why the local lands have attracted so many peoples of different tribes in all ages. Herodotus wrote about their wealth and attractiveness. And the Persian historian al-Juzjapi later confirmed this: "In the whole world there can be no land more pleasant than this, the air is better than this, the water is sweeter than this, the meadows and pastures are wider than these."
From the book Complete course of lectures on Russian history author Platonov Sergei Fedorovich author Lyapustin Boris SergeevichTerritory, population, ancient history According to the traditional geographic division dating back to the Greeks, the Eastern Mediterranean region, stretching from the foothills of the Taurus and the great bend of the Euphrates to Sinai, includes: Syria (with the Amanus mountains in the north and Lebanon and
From the book History of the Ancient East author Lyapustin Boris SergeevichChapter 29 Ancient history of China Formation of ancient Chinese statehood In V-III millennium BC. e. the basin of the middle reaches of the Yellow River was occupied by an ethnocultural community characterized by the archaeological cultures of Yangshao and Longshan (into which the Yangshao culture grew).
From the book History of the Ancient World [From the Origins of Civilization to the Fall of Rome] author Bauer Susan WeissChapter Two The Earliest History Somewhat later, a very large flood occurred in Sumeria For many months not a single rain fell. In the fields near the salt bay, a woman collects dried ears. Behind her, against the background of the leaden sky, her walls rise
From the book A Brief History of the Jews author Semyon Markovich DubnovPart 1 The oldest (biblical) history
From the book Myths of the Ancient World author Becker Karl Friedrich2. The most ancient history of the Egyptians In all the legends and legends, especially in the "Painting of the Kings" priest Maneth, who was about 250 BC. e. Temple scribe in Thebes, the first king is a native of the city of Feni in Upper Egypt, named Mena (or Less), who reigned 3890 years before
From the book Ancient East authorThe earliest history of the Eastern Mediterranean With the appearance of the Canaanites in Syria and Palestine, there has been a dramatic progress in handicraft production, primarily in metallurgy; from this time begins the so-called Early Bronze Period in the history of the Eastern
From the book Ancient East author Nemirovsky Alexander ArkadievichThe oldest history of the Jews By the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. e. next significant changes have occurred in the ethnic composition of the region's population. Still about 1400 BC. e. from Babylonia were expelled local Amorite essences who had settled there six centuries earlier.
From the book Slavic Encyclopedia author Artemov Vladislav Vladimirovich From the book General history from ancient times to the end of the 19th century. Grade 10. A basic level of author Volobuev Oleg VladimirovichChapter 1 The earliest and most ancient history of mankind
author Nemirovsky Alexander ArkadievichTerritory, population, ancient history Mesopotamia (Greek "Mesopotamia", the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates) stretches northwest of the Persian Gulf and is bounded by the Arabian plateau, Syria, the Armenian Taurus and the Zagros. The region is divided into two parts: Lower Mesopotamia, where
From the book History of the Ancient World [East, Greece, Rome] author Nemirovsky Alexander ArkadievichTerritory, population, ancient history From the north, the Fertile Crescent is adjoined by a vast, mainly mountainous region bounded by the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea and embracing Anatolia, the Armenian Highlands and the Transcaucasia that continues it.
From the book History of the Ancient World [East, Greece, Rome] author Nemirovsky Alexander ArkadievichTerritory, population, ancient history According to the division adopted since ancient times, the territory of the Eastern Mediterranean, stretching from the Taurus and the great bend of the Euphrates to Sinai, is divided into Syria (with the Amanus mountains in the north and Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon in the south),
From the book Russian history author Platonov Sergei FedorovichThe most ancient history of our country At present, there is no need to point out that the nature of the country affects the life of the people, determines the characteristics of the national economy, and leaves its imprint on the entire course of the historical development of society. Anyone who would like to get to know
Cemetery
Mariupol burial ground - the burial ground, which was discovered on the left bank of the Kalmius, on the outskirts of Mariupol during the construction of the Azovstal plant).
The burial ground dates back to the 3rd millennium BC (Eneolithic) and belongs to the Lower Don culture.
The burial ground was discovered by an employee of the Novotrubny plant, G.F. Kravets.
From August 10 to October 15, 1930 Nikolai Emelyanovich Makarenko excavated here.
The burials of cattle breeders were found in the burial ground, which can be seen from the decorations from boar tusks, teeth and bones of animals, shells. Also found were stone tools, stone tops of maces, ceramics, grave goods, beads, including a crescent-shaped bead, presumably playing the role of money, burial shrouds.
The burials were in graves 28 meters long and about 2 meters wide. A total of 122 burials were found. The skeletons are in an extended position, about half of them are covered with red ocher.
On the ceramic dishes, scientists saw an ornamental pattern that was unchanged in all burials from the Dnieper to the Don. The people buried in the Mariupol burial ground had a developed religious system (there were amulets, figurines of fetish bulls, clubs, close proximity to the river, along which, according to many beliefs, the souls of the dead were sent to another world). Among the finds are 2 carved figurines of a bull - examples of realistic art, mother-of-pearl beads, patches for clothes made from boar tusks, a spindle (a weaving tool). The remains belonged to people of a large Caucasian race, who were very tall (172-174 cm), very long legs, and a massive skeleton. It is known from archaeological data that part of the population of the Lower Don culture around 5100 BC. e. under the pressure of the arid climate, she went to the Western Azov region and settled next to the tribes of the Sursk culture. As a result of their interaction, a new culture appeared - the Azov-Dnieper (5100 - 4350 BC).
In addition to the Mariupol burial ground, the Neolithic sites in the Azov region are: Razdorskoe, Samsonovo, Rakushechny Yar, 5 burials on the Karataevo farm (Rostov-on-Don).
(the burial ground was discovered in 1930 during the construction of the Azovstal plant) on the territory of the left bank of Kalmius, a late Neolithic tribal burial (5500-5200 BC) of the Lower Don culture was discovered. There were found 122 burials of people, ceramics, burial items (shells of mollusks, plates and scrapers of silicon, beads, including those in the shape of a crescent, supposedly playing the role of money, burial shrouds, ocher - a symbol of blood and fire, which was showered on the corpses of the dead and other subjects). On the ceramic ware, scientists saw an ornamental pattern that was unchanged in all burials from the Dnieper to the Don. The people buried in the Mariupol burial ground had a developed religious system (there were amulets, figurines of fetish bulls, clubs, close proximity to the river, along which, according to many beliefs, the souls of the dead were sent to another world). Among the finds are 2 carved figurines of a bull - examples of realistic art, mother-of-pearl beads, patches for clothes made from boar tusks, a spindle (a weaving tool). The remains belonged to people of a large Caucasian race, who were very tall (172-174 cm), very long legs, and a massive skeleton. It is known from archaeological data that part of the population of the Lower Don culture around 5100 BC. e. under the pressure of the arid climate, she went to the Western Azov region and settled next to the tribes of the Sursk culture. As a result of their interaction, a new culture appeared - azovo-Dnieper (5100 - 4350 BC). In addition to the Mariupol burial ground, the Neolithic sites in the Azov region are: Razdorskoe, Samsonovo, Rakushechny Yar, 5 burials on the Karataevo farm (Rostov-on-Don).
The early stage of the Eneolithic (copper-bronze age, 5-4 thousand years ago) In the Northern Azov region is associated with the formation sredniy Stog (or Skeliansk, Novodanilovskaya) culture (3800-3300 BC), formed on the basis of the traditions of the Lower Don and Sursk cultures in the Kalmius interfluve
and the Lower Don. The Sredniy Stog culture includes 4 burials near the Mariupol burial ground (the walls of the graves were fortified with stone slabs, clubs with kidney-shaped tops, pendants made of marmot teeth, boar tusks, copper beads, bracelets, a belt made of mother-of-pearl threads, the top of the grave was covered with stones). At the contact of the Skeliansky and Azov-Dnieper cultures, the following Eneolithic culture was formed - kvityanskaya (late 4th-1st half of the 3rd millennium BC), which marked the beginning of the emergence of burial mounds ("graves") in the Northern Azov region ("uterine" position of the deceased, orientation of the head to the east, vegetation, ocher as an element of burial, the presence of cromlech - stone ring outline).
Archaeological sites of the Azov Sea are also classified as Eneolithic
lower Mikhailovskaya culture (3000 - 2600 BC: burial mounds in the Ilyichevsky district of Mariupol, on the site of the power plant of the Ilyich combine) - characterized by the creation of peculiar cult complexes - steles and altars, burials with black-burned pots with part-time food,
zhivilovo-Volchansk culture (mid-3rd millennium BC: burials near the village of Sartan) - besides pots, there were also some kind of playing pieces in the form of knee-cap bones, astragalus and metapodians,
yamnaya culture (Late Eneolithic, mid-3rd millennium BC: multiple burial mounds in the area of \u200b\u200bVolonterovka and Novosyolovka, near the villages of Kremenyovka, Ogorodnoye, Chermalyk, etc.) - orientation of the deceased towards the rising of the Sun and the Moon, the presence of horizontal platforms on top of the mound for burial rituals ... It is this culture that belongs to about 80% of all the mounds of the Northern Black Sea region. In the mounds " Stone graves"And in the city itself (a mound at the intersection of Stroiteley Avenue and Uritskiy Street in Mariupol, popularly -" Green Hill ", on old maps -" Grandfather ") traces of tribes of the copper-bronze age were found.
In 1993, during the construction of an aqueduct running along the outskirts of the Zelenaya Gorka mound (Mariupol), bones were found, three burials dating back to the Bronze Age were discovered, it is possible that the burial mound also contains burials of the Scythian-Sarmatian period. Some mounds have a soil volume of more than 2000 m³, and a weight of more than 2400 tons. In those years, people lived quite tall (men - 173 cm, women - 160 cm), more like eastern peoples, at the same time the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was actively developing.
The find of the Mariupol archaeological expedition in 1984 is recognized as unique. Remains of wooden four-wheeled carts with solid wooden disc-shaped wheels were found near Mariupol. Scientists date this find to the XXVII century BC. e. Thus, the carts found in the Azov region are today one of the oldest types of wheeled transport in the world (earlier this was considered the transport of Mesopotamia in the XXVI century BC).
Bronze Age
The Copper Age (Eneolithic) was replaced by bronze Age... The largest monuments of the Bronze Age cultures of the Azov region:
catacomb culture (XXVІІ-XX centuries BC): burial at the construction site of the second mannesman of the Ilyich plant, the Ded, Vineyards mounds, the Zirka burial ground, the mound near the village. Kamensk - bronze knives, an awl, the remains of a wheeled transport were found, the burial of a young man-master for making arrows,
baba culture (XX-XVI centuries BC): burial mound group "B" at the site of the Azovstal plant, Samoilovo, Old Crimea - the burials look poorer than the catacomb ones, the appearance of male belt buckles made of bone and horn, anthropologically - Indo-Iranian tribes with an admixture of the ancient Mediterranean type
log culture (XVI-XII centuries BC): kurgan group "Baba" near the village of Nikolaevka, Volnovakha district, near the village of Kamensk, group "B" at the site of "Azovstal" - the deceased in the kurgans was fenced by a wooden structure made of logs - a frame, demographic population growth,
belozerskaya culture (XII-X centuries BC) - associated with a certain depletion of local plant reserves, which caused several waves of population migration.
Iron age
In the early Iron Age at the beginning of the first millennium BC, tribes lived in the northern Azov region cimmerians (900-650 BC), engaged in nomadic cattle breeding and agriculture, using iron instead of stone in almost all sectors of the economy. At the same time, the first historical (actually written) sources about the Azov region and its inhabitants appeared. Judging by the ceramics, the continuity of the Cimmerian culture to the preceding Bronze Belozersk culture can be traced. The Cimmerians, judging by the sources (Homer and other ancient Greek and Eastern authors), were the military elite of the multilingual pre-Scythian population of the Northern Black Sea region and the Azov region. Their burials were found in several villages near Mariupol: Ogorodnoye, Razdolnoye, Sartana, Vasilyevka and others.
The Azov steppes became home to many ancient tribes (2.5-2 thousand years ago): in the 7th century BC, the Scythians came to the Azov region because of the Don (VII-VI centuries BC, displaced the Cimmerians), and five centuries later they were supplanted by the Sarmatians. Formation scythians took place on the territory of modern Altai, Southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, later - they moved to the Caucasus, and from the 2nd half of the 7th century - in the Azov steppes. An indispensable part of Scythian burials was a fire - a large double case made of leather, wood or metal for storing bows and arrows. In the VI-V centuries BC. e. in the Northern Azov region there was a trading colony (emporium) Kremny (Greek "rocky ledge"). Scythian burials: near the village of Sartana, the villages of Kremenyovka, Ogorodnoe, the village of Peschanoe in Mariupol. Quiver clasps, bronze arrowheads, iron swords - akinaki, coins were found. In the IV century BC. e. north of the village. Sartan, the Scythians built a mound up to 5 m high ("Two-humped grave"), in which a noble Scythian was buried, next to whose grave under the mound there were 2 pits with funeral gifts (a wooden chariot and wine in 19 amphorae - imported from the Mediterranean region). The body of the Scythian nobleman was "guarded" by a servant with arrows, and his cooks buried him along with a bronze cauldron filled with food. The constructed mound was reinforced along the perimeter with a stone belt up to 3 m wide and up to 2 m high, as well as a moat and three stone belts. The Scythians were typical Caucasians, their average height 167 cm (men) and 159 cm (women), were driven out in the first half of the 3rd century BC. e. invaded from behind the Don by the Sarmatians.
Sarmatians formed in Asia, in the region of the Aral Sea, having a powerful cavalry army (the striking force of the army - kataphraktarii - warriors-horsemen, armed with a heavy long spear with an iron tip) easily occupied the territory of the Northern Black Sea region. Sarmatian burials of the first half of the 1st century AD e. found in 4 mounds north of the village. Sartan, where there were 15 burials, including the rich burial of the priestess (women among the Sarmatians enjoyed great prestige and even took part in battles) with the funeral utensils: jugs made on a potter's wheel, spindle, bronze mirrors, incense burners, beads, rich dress, embroidered shoes, headwear. Male burials were accompanied by weapons - swords, daggers. In addition, in the Azov region, Sarmatian burials were discovered near the village of Shevchenko (Volodarsky district of Donetsk region), Samoilovo (Novoazovsky district of Donetsk region), at the mouth of the Kamyshevataya and Samarina gullies.
A new wave of conquerors - the Gothic invasion (III century AD) interrupted the rule of the Sarmatians in the Northern Black Sea region. Due to the cold snap goths (an ancient Germanic tribe, the Ostrogoths), gradually moving from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, dominated the Azov Sea region for over 150 years, during which time they almost completely destroyed the Sarmatian culture, cut off the Azov Sea region from the Ancient World. The Goths were engaged in agriculture, raised cattle.
Nomadic tribes in the Azov region
In the IV century, hordes poured into the steppe of the Northern Azov region huns (the first of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Azov region). Their invasions slowed down the development of the economy and culture here for a long time. Swarthy, Mongoloid, of short stature, mixing with the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus and the North Caspian (Alans), the Huns under the leadership of the leader Balamber clashed with the Goths (the leader of the Gothic tribe Heruli - Alahir), drove them far to the west, partially mixed with the local population. In 371 - 378 the Huns occupied the territory from the Don and Meotida (Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov) to the Dnieper and Dniester and the lower reaches of the Danube, in 378 - 445 a Hunnic tribal union was formed. In the Azov region, few archaeological monuments of that time have survived (Hunnic bows in Tanais, burials with horses near the city of Melitopol, on the Korushan River in the Berdyansk region, near the village of Novoivanovka and a sacrificial site in the Makartet tract in the Zaporozhye region).
The disintegration of the Hunnic nomadic empire began after the death in 453 of the leader of the Huns Attila. Attila's two sons (Dintsik and Irnak) took the Huns to the lower reaches of the Danube (part of the horde with Irnak later passed back through the Azov region to the Trans-Volga steppes, dissolving into local peoples such as the Chuvash). For almost two centuries, various tribes (Akatsir, Saragurs, Urogs, Onogurs, Avars) moved across the territory of the Northern Azov region, tribal unions were disintegrated and formed. The most significant of these associations was the union kuturgurs (VI - VII centuries). The Kuturgurs (or Uturgurs, Kutrigurs) are Finno-Ugric tribes that appeared in the territory of Northern Kazakhstan, adopted the culture and language of the geographically close Turks. The burials of the Kuturgurs were oriented with their heads to the west, the skulls after death were subject to trepanation (in contrast to the related Onogurs, or Utigurs, who lived south and east of the Don River). For a long time, both peoples were at enmity (the attack of the Onogur leader Sandil, etc.), and did not create their own powerful associations, and in 559 the leader of the Kuturgurs, Ziber Khan, even made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Byzantine Empire.
In 558, the lands of the Azov Sea, pushing back the Kuturgurs, were invaded avars (or varhonites - descendants of the Ugrians and Alans of Central Asia), who had previously defeated the Onogurs, Zals and Savirs. The Avars, moving further to the Danube since 565, founded the Avar Khaganate (538 - 803). They invented a rigid saddle, stirrups and a broadsword (a kind of saber). A burial of Avars was found on the left bank of the Mokrye Yaly River (orientation of the body with the head to the west, earrings with multifaceted pendants, iron buckles on the belt, stucco pots, etc.), as well as near the village of Kominternovo (Novoazovsky district of Donetsk region) - a relief image of a man in a helmet (?), an impressive stele. The unsuccessful campaign of the Avars, Slavs and Persians against Constantinople in 626 can be considered the decline of the power of the Avars, after which the liberation movements among the Kuturgurs and Onogurs intensified (they united against the Avars in 633 into a tribal union headed by the leader Kubrat - Great Bulgaria, or Onoguria).
Later, the Khazars, Pechenegs, Torks, Polovtsians roamed here. It was the Khazars who destroyed Great Bulgaria in 656, and the remnants of the horde of the Proto-Bulgarians migrated to the Danube in 675 (under the leadership of Khan Asparuh) and founded the First Bulgarian Kingdom there. The horde of Khan Batbai remained in the Azov region and became part of the Khazar Kaganate. Later, in the 7th-8th centuries, part of the Bulgarians went to the Volga, creating the state of Volga Bulgaria there. Khazarsat the end of the 7th century, in the south of Eastern Europe, the Khazar Kaganate was formed, the main population of which in the Azov region were nevertheless the Proto-Bulgarians (Turkic-speaking peoples who roamed the steppes, paying tribute along with the early Slavic tribes to the Khazars). Settlements of the Pro-Bolgar Saltov-Mayatsk culture in the Azov region: in the area of \u200b\u200bZintseva, Buzinnaya, Vodyanoy, Bezymennaya beams, on the territory of the modern Primorsky Park of Mariupol (amphora ceramics, red clay pottery, iron knives, buckles, ornaments). Weapons and even a militarized fortification resembling a castle on the left bank at the mouth of Kalmius, which was bounded from the south by a rampart, were also found in the Khazar burials). A small seasonal camp of the times of the Khazar Kaganate was found near the Lyapinskaya gully. A Khazar burial was also found on the territory of the modern mill "3000" of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works (burial of a Khazar woman with a pot and a set of jewelry, a mirror and coins) and near the village of Peschanoe (a warrior with an arrow, a horse and a grindstone).
In the first third of the VIII century, the Arabs attacked the Khazar Kaganate, the Hungarians invaded from the north (they had been neighbors since the Hunnic period, slowly moving from Southern Siberia to the Urals - the VIII century, and then in the steppe zone of the Don and Khopra - the beginning of the IX century, and under the onslaught of the Pechenegs - in the interfluve of the Dnieper and Prut - the end of the 9th century), and part of the Khazar aristocracy itself adopted Judaism, causing almost 100-year turmoil and civil war in the pagan kaganate. The defeat of the Khazar state was completed by 2 successful campaigns of the Kiev prince Svyatoslav in 965 and 968.
According to the famous scientist-historian L. N. Gumilyov, "... until the X century, the hegemony belonged to the Khazars, and the history of Ancient Russia was preceded by the history of Khazaria ...". Subsequently, Kievan Rus seized the initiative in relations with the Wild, or Great, steppe. However, the cessation of life in the Proto-Bulgarian (Khazar) settlements in the Azov region was associated not with the Slavs, but with the Pechenezh invasion. All subsequent peoples of the Azov region of the Pre-Slavs (Pechenegs, Torks, Polovtsians) belonged to the Turkic peoples, were Mongoloids. All of them buried their relatives in graves with the carcass of a saddled horse, often used more ancient burial mounds for burials.
In the Azov region there are burials of nomadic peoples:
Pechenegs (X - mid-XI century, appeared in the Azov region around 889, having founded the Pechenezh horde, lived in the Azov region for about 150 years until the victory of the troops of Yaroslav the Wise over the Pechenegs in 1036) near the village of Sartana, near the villages of Orlovskoye, Ogorodnoye, Zaporozhets, Kuibyshevo. Found a lot of stone statues of that time - "stone women" (translated as "ancestors"): sandy in the village of Yalta, Guselshchikovo, granite in the village. Mangush, Oktyabrskoe (including 5 of which are kept in the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore): stelae, processed only from the "front" side and depict men (less often women) without a headdress, on the face there is a "T" -shaped nose and eyebrows and not always designated eyes
Torquay (1030 - 1060 years, appeared in the Azov region from the Aral Sea region under pressure from the Polovtsians, later the same Polovtsians were expelled to Byzantium, Iran, the Caucasus, Kievan Rus, where they eventually assimilated) in the Azov region, few in number (the nearest on the Kazenny Torets river) - burials of warriors along with horse, statues, kumgan (pot for ritual ablutions),
Polovtsi (the middle of the XI - the end of the XIV century, the "Polovtsian steppe" stretched from Central Asia to the Danube, in the Azov region for about 200 years) burials in the Mariupol region: Novosyolovka, "Dvugorbaya Mogila", near the villages of Kamyshevatoe, Zazhitochnoe, Vasilyevka, Razdolnoe, Samoilovo.
The brightest monuments of art and beliefs of the Polovtsian people are stone figures of Polovtsian soldiers and women (the so-called "stone women"), which have survived to this day. They carry elements of individuality, perhaps even that specific people (relatives, leaders) posed for their manufacture. In contrast to the Pechenezh women, the statues had a headdress, a hairstyle, a set of jewelry, and clothes. In total, up to 600 stone figures are known in the Azov region, in Mariupol itself at the beginning of the 19th century there were 16 stone women (at street corners, on hills), many of them were damaged and lost during the construction of buildings. The figures of stone women served the Cumans as a place for celebrations, rituals and sacrifices.
It is the campaign against the Polovtsy (1185) that the famous monument of medieval literature "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" is dedicated. Events developed at the headquarters of one of the most powerful Polovtsian khans - Konchak (presumably the area of \u200b\u200bthe modern city of Slavyansk). As you know, this campaign was very unsuccessful for the Russians. However, as a result of the campaign, the son of Igor Svyatoslavovich returned home with his wife, a beautiful Polovtsian (daughter of Khan Konchak), and there were hundreds of such interdynastic marriages during the times of Kievan Rus and the Polovtsian Khanate. At the beginning of the XIII century, the Polovtsians began to settle on the ground, at this time there was a peak in the development of trade in the Polovtsian steppe, some khans began to adopt Christianity after the Russians. However, from the east, the troops of the Mongol leader Genghis Khan approached, who in 1220 - 1223 passed through the entire Polovtsian steppe and entered the Azov region. On May 31, 1223 in the Azov region, a battle took place on the Kalka river between the Mongol-Tatar hordes and the combined troops of the Russian princes and Polovtsy, which ended with the complete defeat of the Russians. (Scientists are still arguing about where the Kalka River flowed, and the place of the legendary battle on the Kalka River in 1223 has not been determined). There are several similarly described places on the rivers Karatysh, Kalmius and Kalchik (the latter two flow through Mariupol). In the 40s of the XIII century, the Azov steppes were captured by the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. The territory of the Northern Azov region was first part of the Golden Horde, and in the 15th century it became part of the Crimean Khanate. Much later, fleeing from feudal oppression, serfs fled to the Don, Dnieper into a wild field. This is how the roaming people began to appear in these places and the Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks arose.
Ancient settlements on the territory of Donbass
Endless undulating steppe ... Scorched by the sun and dried up by the eastern winds-dry winds, fescue-feather grass and wormwood grasses, bare areas devoid of moisture and cracked soil, rocky outcrops of limestone and sandstone, occasionally supplemented by thickets of bushes, and even less often - by small ravine forests was in the recent past the landscape of the Donetsk region
The Donetsk coal basin was formed on the bays and estuaries of the long-defunct sea. This sea occupied the entire eastern half of European Russia and western Asian, dividing between them by a continuous massif of the Ural ridge and cutting to the west by a narrow, highly elongated Donetsk Bay into the mainland. Relatively small reservoirs filled with seawater, the Caspian and Aral seas have survived to our era as monuments to a sea that disappeared long ago.
In the exposed areas, a thick layer of limestone formed from shells that lived on the bottom of the sea. The shores of the sea were covered with lush vegetation characteristic of the Carboniferous period: monstrous sigillaria, giant horsetails, tree ferns, slender lepidodendrons and calamites. The remains of these plants, very rich in fiber, covered the bottom of the shallow bay, interspersed with sand and silt, began to rot and, as a result of decay that lasted for millennia, turned into peat, coal and anthracite.
Since the time when they emerged from the waters of the Carboniferous Sea, the Donetsk sediments were again flooded with sea waves three times - during the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. The advance of each sea destroyed high-rise places with erosion and filled the depressions with its sediments, thus contributing to the gradual leveling of the surface.
In the end, only their broad bases in the form of ridges remained of the mountain ranges that cut the terrain. A series of these ridges traverses the entire basin from northwest to southeast, clearly indicating the former position of eroded mountain ranges. The most significant of these ridges, the so-called main fracture, or Donetsk ridge.
Through joint activity during whole geological periods of the ridge-forming and leveling process, the area of \u200b\u200bthe Donetsk basin has been brought to its modern form, representing a type of relief known as the "Erosion Plateau".
Donetsk region is considered one of the most late developed and populated in Ukraine. However, in reality, people and civilization appeared on the territory of Donbass a long time ago. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations carried out by employees of the Donetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore.
Back in the first millennium BC, the territory of the region was part of the Scythian state, moreover, the so-called Golden Scythia - the central and main part of the ancient kingdom. In the first millennium of our era, the Polovtsian tribes roamed the Donetsk steppes. Moreover, both the Scythians and the Polovtsians left a memory of themselves - burials in the form of barrows. And on these man-made hills there are steles, the so-called women, respectively, Scythian and Polovtsian.
Initially, the name of the Scythians belonged to a tribe that lived to the east of the lower reaches of the Volga, and then penetrated its western bank and the North Caucasus. From here the Scythians rushed to the territory of present-day Azerbaijan through modern Dagestan and the Derbent passage. Here they settled and, probably including significant groups of the local cattle-breeding population, made trips to various parts of Western Asia.
Herodotus about the ancient history of the Scythians:
“According to the stories of the Scythians, their people are the youngest of all. And it happened in this way. The first inhabitant of this ... country was a man named Targitai. The parents of this Targitai ... were Zeus and the daughter of the river Borisfena. Targitai was of this kind, and he had three sons: Lipoksais, Arpoxais and the youngest - Kolaksais. During their reign, golden objects fell from heaven to the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl. The older brother saw these things first. As soon as he came to pick them up, the gold blazed. Then he retreated and the second brother approached, and again the gold was engulfed in flames ... But when the third, younger brother approached, the flame went out, and he carried the gold to his house. Therefore, the older brothers agreed to give the kingdom to the younger. So, from Lipoksais ... came the Scythian tribe called Avhat, from the middle brother - the tribe of the Katiars and Traspians, and from the younger of the brothers - the king - the Paralat tribe. All tribes together are called skolots, that is, royal. The Greeks call them Scythians.
This is how the Scythians tell about the origin of their people. They think that from the time of the first king Targitai to the invasion of their land by Darius, just 1000 years have passed. The Scythian kings carefully guarded the sacred golden objects and venerated them with reverence, bringing annually rich sacrifices. If someone on a holiday falls asleep in the open air with this sacred gold, then, according to the Scythians, he will not live even a year ... Since they had a lot of land, Kolaksais divided it, according to the stories of the Scythians, into three kingdoms between his three sons. The biggest he made was the kingdom where the gold was kept. In the area lying even further north of the land of the Scythians, nothing can be seen and it is impossible to penetrate there due to the flying feathers. Indeed, the earth and the air there are full of feathers, and this is what interferes with vision ...
There is also a third legend. It reads like this. Scythian nomadic tribes lived in Asia. When the Massagets drove them out of there ... the Scythians crossed Arake and arrived in the Cimmerian land (the country now inhabited by the Scythians, as they say, from ancient times belonged to the Cimmerians). With the approach of the Scythians, the Cimmerians began to hold advice on what to do in the face of a large enemy army. And at the council, opinions were divided. Although both sides stubbornly stood their ground, the proposal of the kings won. The people were in favor of retreat, considering it unnecessary to fight with so many enemies. On the other hand, the kings considered it necessary to stubbornly defend their native land from invaders. So, the people did not heed the advice of the kings, and the kings did not want to obey the people.
The people decided to leave their homeland and give their land to the invaders without a fight; the kings, on the other hand, preferred to lie down on the bones in their native land rather than flee with the people. After all, the kings understood what great happiness they had experienced in their native land and what troubles await the exiles deprived of their homeland. Having made such a decision, the Cimmerians divided into two equal parts and began to fight among themselves. All those who fell in the fratricidal war were buried by the Cimmerian people by the river Tiras. After that, the Cimmerians left their land, and the Scythians who came took possession of the uninhabited country.
It is also known that the Scythians, in pursuit of the Cimmerians, lost their way and invaded the land of the Medes. After all, the Cimmerians constantly moved along the coast of Pontus, while the Scythians, during the pursuit, kept to the left of the Caucasus until they invaded the land of the Medes. So, they turned inland. This last legend is transmitted equally by both the Hellenes and the barbarians. "
The initial colonization of the Donetsk Ridge was most influenced by the fact that it was on the path of the great movement of peoples from the far east to the west. The nomadic peoples of the East, for many centuries, swept through this land in a noisy stream, not wanting or not being able to settle in it themselves, and not giving this opportunity to others. Two opposite elements fought here: the northern element, the Slavic, striving to seize the land through peaceful colonization, and the eastern, Turkic-Mongolian element, which swept away all the plantings of settled life and culture on its way. The struggle of these two elements for almost a millennium is the whole history of the initial colonization of the region.
The beginning of the Slavic colonization of the region dates back to the VIII and IX centuries of the Christian era, when this region, along with the entire coast of the Black and Caspian Seas, was ruled by the people of Turkic origin - the Khazars. The neighbors from the north, the Slavs, who paid tribute to them and enjoyed their political protection, were also considered under the rule of the Khazars.
Vyatichi, Radimichi, and especially the Chernigov northerners, the most energetic colonizers among the Slavs, also took part in the colonization of the region, which is why the whole colonization was called "northerners". The name of the Seversky Donets River remains a monument to this former, later destroyed colonization.
A new historical wave brings here new nomads, also a Turkic tribe: in the 10th century, the Pechenegs, who destroyed the Khazars and extended their power to the Northern Black Sea region and the Azov region and Crimea; in the XI century, the Polovtsians, who destroy the Pechenegs and take their place.
On May 12, 1185, the battle between Prince Igor and the Polovtsy took place on Diko Pole (now Donetsk region), which gave birth to the golden word of East Slavic and world literature "The Word about Igor's Host."
Leaving Novgorod-Seversky on April 23, 1185, the army of Prince Igor on May 10 near the present village of Kamenka crossed the Seversky Donets and headed towards the present-day Slavyansk. Russian cavalry took part in the first battle with the Polovtsians under the leadership of Khan Konchak. But soon the army of Igor switched to a foot battle: the Polovtsians were good archers, and on a flat, clean place they were able to quickly deal with the enemy's cavalry. It was enough to shoot not at the riders, but at the horses, which, mad with pain, would soon crush the entire army. Then the Polovtsians skillfully pushed the Russians back to the salt lakes, where they gave them a complete rout.
As you know, Igor's son Vladimir subsequently married the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Konchak, and his grandson from this marriage 38 years after Igor's defeat from Konchak (one grandfather from another) led one of the Russian squads in the historical battle on Kalka (also on the territory of our present region) on May 31, 1223 against the Tatar-Mongols, where he laid down his head, defending the Russian land.
In the thirteenth century, innumerable hordes of new nomads, the Tatars, flooded into Europe from Asia, destroyed or absorbed the Polovtsians, marched like a thunderstorm throughout the Russian land, destroying Kiev, Volhynia, Galich and other cities to the ground, reached Hungary and, having failed there, returned back and formed the Golden Horde, after which only one part of it survived - the Crimean Khanate.
