Pages: 17-130

This monograph presents an original view on the problem of the “inner“ Greek Colonization of one of the earliest “border“ regions from the North-Western Pontic Area — Lower Bug region — in the Scythian time. The main result of the research is the possibility to give an expanded characterization of some newly discovered agrarian settlements in the Chora of Olbia, which are of Scythian and Greek origin (6th — first third of the 3rd century BC). The emergence and existence of these settlements in the agrarian neighbourhood of Olbia is directly linked to the history and culture of the Polis itself. Nevertheless, we should not regard this relationship between Olbia and its Chora as a singular and exclusive binding force, although all the political and economical efforts of the Greek colonists were directed towards establishing such a relationship. One of the arguments in this sense is the foundation by the Greeks already in the Late Archaic period of a local and, possible, sacral centre on the northern outskirts of the Chora — Staraia Bogdanovka 2. Yet, at the same time, another populated locality — Kutzurub I — emerges in the south, with material culture quite different from the Greek one. The efforts of the Greek colonists towards establishing a solid base for the functioning of the state is traced also in the Classical period of the Chora’s occupation. But even at that time their possibilities were quite modest — a fact, reflected in the historical fate and the peculiarity of the cultural remains from the Kozyrka 12 site.

Keywords: North Western Pontic area, Lower Bug region, Olbia, Ancient Greek colonization, agrarian neighbourhood

Information about author:

Konstantin Marchenko (Saint Petersburg, Russia). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]