Pages: 411-478

The author studies sites of Golden Horde time found in the south-eastern part of Ukraine. The nature and climate of this region has three zones: Seversky Donets, Donetsky Kryazh and the Azov region. Different natural environment in these zones conditioned peculiar features of sites located here. In the steppes in Donetsky Kryazh, with their nomad population, the sites represent some barrow necropolises, seasonal camps and some individual finds. The Azov coast, along with sites left by the nomads, yields some stationary settlements, most of which emerged in the second half of 14th c. One of them had an adjacent ground necropolis (Lyapinskaya Balka). The steppe also yields burials of nomad elite, including Muslim ones (the stone from Guselshchikovo). The largest and most typical sites are located in the middle stream of the Seversky Donets (camps, small and large settlements, ground and barrow necropolises). A group of settlements with pseudo Early Russian ceramics had existed there from the previous time period. Next to some of these, some large Golden Horde centers emerge in 14th c. (at village Maiaki and town Raygorodok). It is noteworthy that both groups of settlements coexist in the middle stream of the Seversky Donets during the whole of the Golden Horde time.
The rise on the considered territory dates to the second half of 14th c. With the fall of Mamay and accession of Tokhtamysh to power, the region lost its importance. The ultimate desolation of these lands started after the western territories of the Golden Horde had been devastated by Tamerlane in 1395.

Keywords: Don River Region, Azov Region, steppe zone, Golden Horde time, settlements, camps, ground necropolises, barrow necropolises

Information about author:

Eduard Kravchenko (Donetsk, Ukraine). Donetsk Museum of Local History. Chelyuskintsev St., 189a, Donetsk, 83048, Ukraine
E-mail: [email protected]