The 'dark age' in the medieval archaeology of the Tomsk Ob area: results of a study of a XVth century construction at the Shaitan III fortified settlement

The historical-and-cultural situation in the Tomsk Ob area in the II mm. A.C. has been studied for over a hundred years based purely on archaeological material. Formed were the chronology of the sites and the scheme of the region's ethno-cultural development, the vector and prospects of which were largely determined by so-called 'Turkization', with the formation of Turkic groups being one of its most topical aspects. New archaeological material allows seeing time gaps and 'blanks' in the existing ethno-cultural scheme that are connected with the XV c. - a 'dark age' in the archaeology of the Tomsk Ob area, which 'falls out' from the overall picture of the region. That puts forward the task of studying the XV c. as a pressing problem of building a unified chronological scale regarding the Tomsk Ob area's development. The needed impetus was given by the research on the Shaitan III fortified settlement in the Tomsk region. During the excavations here, a construction was found, which had been built using the log house technique. The construction technique of this type was, for the first time, archaeologically recorded in the Tomsk Ob area which is important for the reconstruction of medieval building traditions. According to the radiocarbon analysis results, the construction dates back to the XV c. The identification of a XV c. construction is significant in terms of furthering research on the development of ornamental traditions in ceramics of the Tomsk Ob area in the II mm. A.C., which according to main burial sites material was divided into two chronological groups: 1) from the XI to the XIV c.; 2) from the XVI to the XVII c. Obviously, the XV c. was left out of the picture. The chronological gap has a negative impact not only on the dating of settlement complexes often carried out with the help of ceramics. Outside the research scope remains the historical context of the relationship between High Middle Ages ceramics (1st group) and Late Middle Ages ceramics (2st group). The analysis of the ceramics found in the XV c. construction pit points to the fact that Late Middle Ages ornamental traditions had been spread at least a hundred years earlier than previously thought. And here, the question comes to the fore as to the origins of this ceramics - the one which seems to be left up in the air today. The XV c. is in a sense a turning period in the life of the population in the Tomsk Ob area. In this period, continuity in the use of cemeteries was disrupted; the local population's economy was reoriented. Probably, it is during this century that the change in ceramics traditions took place. In our view, the XV c. was a key time in the formation of the Turkic population in the Tomsk Ob area known to have been present in the region by the time the Russians arrived. The XV c. problem is crucial to the study of local Turkic groups' ethno-genesis and it is already becoming less of an isolated and local one.

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