THE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE VYPOVZIV HILL-FORT

Abstract

This paper deals to the hill-fort of the Vypovziv archaeological complex. The materials of the 2010—2021 from different ages discovered during the excavations are published.

The Old Rus hill-fort of a rounded shape is located at the tip of the cape, which rises 3—4 m above the terrace. It has small dimensions (75 Ч 95 m) on the outer edge of the Old Rus ramparts and about 30 Ч 40 m on the inner side (its own site). The remains of ramparts that once surrounded the settlement around the entire perimeter are now almost completely blown away (the fortifications themselves occupy the area of natural dune which consists entirely of loose sand), and only under the soles the moat rather is guessed than visible. From the northern and southern sides the moat reaches the terrace slopes and creates ramps that gently descend to the floodplain of the old Desna riverbed. From the open side also passed the moat which is now practically covered with the same sand (it can barely be traced along the slope of the hill-fort). The settlement first attracted the attention of researchers from the end of the 19^th century (1889). The site was gradually surveyed during the 20^th century by various scholars but in-patient research was not conducted here before 2009.

Since 2009, the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Chernihiv Shevchenko National Pedagogical University started here the stationary works, which continued permanently until recent times.

The oldest materials originating from the territory of the settlement are antiquities of the late Neolithic period and Bronze Age. They are quite few and mostly occur in a re-deposited state. Separate pits and small areas of cultural layers of these periods located under the Old Rus layers, at the level of the pre-virgin soil, were discovered on the hill-fort site.

During the research of the area of hill-fort a few fragments of pots from the Early Iron Age and the Early Slavic period were found. However, no objects of this time were found here. The main cultural layers on the hill-fort are ones of the Old Rus period of the late 9^th — 10^th centuries. It is at this time that defensive structures appeared on the hill-fort,the site is built up, which over time undergoes re-building and reconstruction. The time of the existence of the Old Rus settlement can be divided into several stages during the late 9^th — 10^th centuries. It is notable that there are no buildings of the 12^th—13^th centuries on the Vypovziv settlement. This proves that the settlement was not used at this time.

The Late Middle Ages and early modern times were practically not reflected in the horizons of the complex. However, Vypovziv constantly appears in written sources of the post-Mongol era, starting from the end of the 13^th century. In general, from 2010 to 2017, 15 burials of the 17^th—18^th centuries belonging to one cemetery were discovered on the site of the settlement. This, in turn, gives reason to assume the existence of a Christian church on the Vypovziv settlement, to which the discovered cemetery was attached.