The Rests of Fortification of Uch-Bash Hillfort in the South-Western Crimea

Abstract

The purpose of the research paper. The article deals with one of the few hillforts of the Final Bronze - Early Iron Age on the northern coast of the Black Sea - the Uch-Bash settlement. Scientific novelty. Discovered remains of fortification, the system and stages of their construction, the reason and time of fortification of the settlement, the place of the site in the system of synchronous fortified settlements of the region are discussed in the article. Conclusions. The settlement of Uch-Bash is one of the points that arose on the shores of the Black Sea during the final Bronze Age – around the end of the 12 century B.C. The site was badly damaged by the detonation of the Black Sea Fleet’s ammunition depots during the retreat of the Primors’ka Army in 1942. The settlement was founded on a place with landscape protection. From the side of the Inkerman valley and the sea, Uch-Bash was impregnable, its protected steep rock was about 15 meters high. From the land, the plateau of the Uch-Bash smoothly descended towards the hill of Malakhovy Kurgan on the Heraklion Peninsula. The first remains of an ancient fortification were excavated in the 1950s by the expedition of S.F. Strzelecki. 2006-2012 research revealed the remains of walls, an ancient entrance and a ditch on the west side of the settlement. The direction of the walls corresponded to the direction of the fortifications excavated in the 1950s. The context of the remains of the fortification allows them to date from the end of the 12th to the mid of 8th century BC. Archaeological excavations have shown that the fortifications at the Uch-Bash settlement were built in several stages. The second stage dated on the middle of the 8th century BC. It is likely that the construction of the fortress was not finished. The remains of these buildings are covered by a layer of destruction and fire associated with an attack by nomads, which left a number of finds of the Novocherkassk type in the fire layers. The fortifications of Uch-Bash are not the only one site in the north of Pontus. Various types of fortifications have sites in the mouth and lower reaches of the Danube, the Southern Bug, and the Don. Landmarks with similar geographical characteristics are known in the headwaters of the estuaries of other large rivers in the north of the Black Sea. Fortified settlements of this time also appear further north on the border of the steppe and forest-steppe, in the forest-steppe region, further east near the steppe zone of Eurasia. There are grounds for asserting that the northern coast of the Black Sea had an economically and socially determined system of fortified settlements and hillforts, which was located on the border of coastal settlements and the steppe zone of the region.