Oleg N. Zaidov ¹, Nikolay А. Krenke²,*, Aleksandr V. Lazutkin³,**

¹ Museum-Preserve “The Kulikovo Field”, Tula, Russia
² Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
³ Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum, Russia

* E-mail: nkrenke@mail.ru
** E-mail: lazukin63@mail.ru

Keywords: Slavic colonization, Moscow vicinity, hand-made pottery, dirhams, Scandinavian imports, amulets, radiocarbon dates.

Analysis of the materials from the settlement Khotyazhi 1 on the Moskva River left bank excavated in 2009–2014 led the authors to hypothesize that the medieval finds in the site can be distributed among four chronological layers: 8th–10th centuries; 10th – the early 11th century; the second half of the 11th – the early 12th century; 12th –the early 13th century. The oldest finds are hand-made pottery; radiocarbon dating was used for the assemblages. Analogies for the early wheel-made pottery of Khotyazhi can be found in the 10th century sites of the North-West. Thus, it challenges the hypothesis that the first wave of Slavic colonization of Moskvorechye dates from the second half of the 11th century. The paper suggests considering the hypothesis that the beginning of the Slavic colonization of the region began as early as the 9th (8th?) century, and the initial impulse came from the southwestern region; later, in the 10th–11th centuries North-western influences were traced, including those accompanied by Scandinavian imports. For the second half of the 11th century, some features similar to the material culture of Smolensk region have been found.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630003394-2