Aboriginal "small towns" of the Lower Ob of the 16th-17th centuries: problems of identification and correlation of written and archaeological sources

The paper addresses key issues related to the identification of information about the location and the history of a particular kind of monuments (referred to as "small towns") on the territory of the North-Western Siberia in written and cartographic sources of the 16th-18th centuries. The main goal set by the author was the full collection, analysis and synthesis of a variety of sources and attempts to implement them for the study of settlement structures of the indigenous population of the northern Trans-Urals. The short historiographical essay is of interest in the chosen topic to specialists in different disciplines of the humanities. An important place is given to the criticism of the documents and their correlation problems. The source base of the research includes: the text of the first geographic description of Western Siberia from the Book of the Big Drawing (late 16th - early 18th centuries), the drawings from the first Russian atlases by S.U. Remezov (late 17th - early 18th centuries), travel notes by G.F. Miller (1730s-1740s), assembly documents and ethnographic data by pre-revolutionary and contemporary researchers. During the presentation of the material the emphasis is put on the possibility and the importance of studying toponymic material. In the course of the research, issues that are extremely important for the modern science of history have been identified. They include, in particular: identification of features of political entities of Ugric population during the period under review and definition of the concept of "small town". Working with the selected complex of the materials in the first stage of the research allowed revealing 38 "small towns" in the study area. They were further divided into 4 typological groups. The main criterion for the distribution of "small towns" by groups was their presence in various sources. On the basis of the dating of the sources it was possible to build the chronology of the sites and to identify previously unknown information which is highly relevant for further research. "Small towns", known from the archaeological data, have become a special group of identified sites. Their example shows the basic methods of identifying and comparing "small towns" from various sources. In the study, the author has come to an important conclusion about the possibility of using the selected set of sources, in which data from one document can be double-checked and possibly even extended by information from other documents. The accuracy of written and cartographic sources allows hoping for positive results of archaeological research in the framework of the topic.

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