Zhuravlevo complex of the of Borki 1 hillfort in the Lower Ishim River Basin

Abstract

At the end of the Late Bronze Age, there were events taking place in the history of the Eurasian steppes that manifested the beginning of the formation of cultures of the Scythian type. These processes, in many aspects triggered by the climate changes, spread into both southern taiga and forest-steppe territories of Western Siberia. In understanding the processes of the transitional period from the Bronze to Early Iron Age and beginning of the Early Iron Age in the southern taiga and forest-steppe Ishim River Basin, a major role pertains to the materials of the multi-layered hillfort of Borki 1, in the study of which, as well as of the cultures of the concerned period in ge-neral, a significant contribution was made by E.M. Danchenko (1991, 1996). The site is located nearby the village of Borki of Vikulovo District, Tyumen Oblast. This paper aims at the analysis and introduction into the scientific discourse of the materials of the Zhuravlevo type from the excavation trench of 2014 with the clean archaeological layer of the beginning of the Early Iron Age. During this period, the fortified platform of the hillfort was overbuilt with dwellings of the above-ground type, probably timber crib. The Zhuravlevo ware of the settlement finds its closest similarities in the materials of the sites of the Lower Ishim Basin: the settlement of Borovlyanka 2, hillfort of Lastochkino Gnezdo 1, fortified settlement of Maray 4, as well as the sites of Yamsysa 7, Kip 3, Novonikolskoe 3 and others in the southern-taiga Ishim-Irtysh area. Differences in the pottery and material culture assemblages even within a range of the Zhuravlevo complexes, not to mention the later ones of the Bogochanovo type, which have certain continuity with the aforementioned complexes, help to reveal evolutionary development of the culture of the transitional period in the Lower Ishim Basin and to raise the issue of the revision of its chronology and peri-odization. Giving the studies of E.M. Danchenko credit for unification of the Zhuravlevo and Bogochanovo types within the framework of the Bogochanovo Culture of the Early Iron Age, we believe that it would be more logical to consider earlier, Zhuravlevo, materials as a stage in the development of the Krasnoozerka Culture. The existence of the latter we tend to define from the mergence of the Suzgun and Atlym complexes to the formation of the steady Sargatka Culture. In spite of certain dissimilarities in the ware originating from the forest-steppe territories of the Lower Tobol River Basin, Ishim-Irtysh interfluve, Baraba and the Ob River Basin, it still seems that the pro-cesses of the development of the cultures of the concerned period in these regions have similarity in many as-pects. There is a notable uniformity in the bronze assemblages of the sites of these and much wider territories. Products, similar to those found at the hillfort of Borki 1, are present in the complexes of the steppe belt of Eurasia from Tuva to the Circumpontic area and date to, most likely, the period within the 8th–6th cc. BC.