Evgeny I. Gak^1, *, Ekaterina E. Antipina^2, **, Elena Yu. Lebedeva^2, ***, Elke Kaiser^3, ****

¹ State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia
² Institute of Archaeology R AS, Moscow, Russia
³ Free University, Berlin, Germany

*E-mail: e.i.gak@mail.ru
**E-mail: bikanty@inbox.ru
***E-mail: elena.archbot@mail.ru
****E-mail: ekaiser@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Keywords: the Middle Bronze Age, the Middle Don Catacomb culture, settlement, economy, cattle breeding, season.

The article is devoted to modeling the structure of the economy of the settlement Rykan-3 (Middle Bronze Age, 26th – 24th centuries BC). The settlement is located in the center of the Don forest- steppe and is single-layered. Data on the economic activities of the inhabitants of the village were obtained by archaeological and natural-scientific methods as a result of excavations. Of particular importance for the reconstruction of the economic structure are archaeozoological studies of mass bone remains, determination of archaeobotanical finds and verification of their age by radiocarbon dating. Archaeological and pedological data characterizing the natural environment, topography, internal structure, functions and connections of various objects, and the duration of the existence of the settlement were also used. The conclusion of the complex studies is the absence of arable farming and gathering plants in the economy of the village. Secondar y occupations (hunting, fishing, weaving, stone processing, woodworking, bone and horn processing, leather and pottery making), similar to the whole organization of everyday life, were subordinated to cattle-breeding. The identified hierarchy of domestic ungulates with absolute dominance in the cattle stock and significant differences in its size indicate the mobile forms of animal keeping. A lot of data allow us to talk about use of the village as winter shelter. For the first time in the practice of studying the range of catacomb cultures of the 3rd millennium BC the authors substantiate the model of seasonal living activities of a small family group of mobile cattle breeders in the forest-steppe.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630004788-5