Aleksandr A. Maslennikov 

Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: iscander48@mail.ru

Keywords: The Geography of Strabo, M.I. Rostovtsev, the Crimean Azov littoral in the 3rd –1st centuries BC, rural settlements, chronology, history.

Based on the current state of archaeological sources and works by antiquity researchers, the article discusses options for historical reconstructions of the ethnic-demographic situation in the Crimean Azov littoral, which the geographer Strabo outlined in his work. Source analysis of this author’s information about the Northern Pontic and the Bosporan kingdom was brilliantly made by M.I. Rostovtsev. Now it has become possible to specify and date this information provided by Strabo by choosing one of four chronological slices that are most consistent with historical realities: the turn of the first to second third of the 3rd century BC; the middle of the last quarter of the 2nd century BC; 63 BC and 14–13 BC.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630008954-8