Metal products and relative chronology of the medieval settlement Ufa-II in the Forest-Steppe Urals

In the middle of the 1st millennium AD the ethnic situation in the steppes of Eurasia was radically changing. The Iranian-speaking nomads of the early Iron Age were replaced by the Turkic and Ugra-speaking nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes of the Huns, Oguzes, Bulgarians, Kimaks, Kipchaks, Magyars, etc. This movement was the result of a global process, called the era of the Great Migration of Nations, as a result of which a modern ethnic map of a significant part of Eurasia began to form. In the medieval period, the steppe and forest-steppe areas of the Southern Urals also experienced numerous waves of population migration, moving from Central Asia to the west to Europe and backwards. These include the tribes of Turbaslinskaya, Kushnarenkovskaya, Karayakupovskaya, and Bakalskaya archaeological cultures. On the territory of the forest-steppe Ufa-Belsky interfluve, one of the most striking monuments of that period, reflecting the interaction of an alien and sedentary population for almost half a millennium, is the ancient settlement Ufa-II. This interaction is manifested in mixed forms of ceramics, imported things, as well as in accessories of the suit complex, which are reliable markers and allow separating the alien component from the local population. In the article, based on the analysis of a number of metal products (elements of a suit complex, horse harness, household items, armament, tools, coins, etc.), the time of the Ufa-II fortification was specified. The settlement is located in the Kirov district of Ufa, on the elevated and wide promontory of the radical right bank of the river White. Opened in the middle of the 20th century, the settlement of Ufa-II is a large settlement with a powerful cultural layer and various mass and individual materials. According to the researchers, this monument fully reflects the processes of ethno-cultural interaction in the territory of the Southern Urals in the 1st millennium AD and therefore is a reference for both South Ural and Eurasian archeology. The first period of functioning of the monument by the authors of the article is determined within the framework of the IV-first floor IX centuries and is closely connected with the Bakhmutinskaya, Tur-baslinskaya, Imenkov-Romanovskaya, Kushnarenkovskaya and Karayakupovskaya tribes. At the second stage (XI-XIV centuries), the site of the monument was occupied by the “chiyaliks” people, by this time the settlement had already ceased to exist. Another chronological segment (XVIII-XIX centuries), distinguished by the discovered metal inventory, is associated with the economic activities of the Russian population on the site of the monument in ethnographic time.

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