Pages: 142-263

The paper is the first monograph dedicated to the aforementioned antiquities in the region. The analysis of the sites of VIII-X cc. in the Dniester-Pruth interfluve shows that the found antiquities are culturally homogenous, and that they can be rightly attributed to the same archaeological culture according to all criteria. These antiquities belong to the East-Slavic culture, spread between the Dnieper in the East and the Carpathians in the West, Pripyat’ in the North and the mouth of the Danube and the Black Sea in the South, which was called Luka-Raikovetskaya type. The integrity of features of this culture is clearly brought out by the types of settlements, dwellings, ceramics, funeral rite, etc. The integral nature of the Luka-Raikovetskaya type culture, which includes in its area the Dniester-Pruth interfluve as well, is conditioned by the common historical routes followed by its bearers in the studied period.
The pursued research enables a firm periodisation of the Luka-Raikovetskaya cultural type in the Dniester-Pruth interfluve, which also finds certain proof in other regions where this culture got spread.
An analysis of pottery and other objects enabled the author to argue that there were no grounded reasons to talk about a new wave of the Slavic migrants who could bring the Luka-Raikovetskaya type into the studied region on the turn of VII-VIII cc. The cultural development in this territory was based on the local Prague-Korchak antiquities of VI-VII cc.
Besides, it is noted that the current level of our knowledge enables us to believe that the antiquities of the Penkovskaya culture in the Dniester-Pruth interfluve do not get further development.
With general integrity of the Eastern Slavic culture of the Luka-Raikovetskaya type in this region, it suffers certain changes on its last stage of development and grows into the early Russian culture in the northern part of the interfluve, which is typical of the whole area of antiquities of this type. In the southern forest-steppe part, at the same time, the studied antiquities lay the foundation for development of the sites typical of the contact zone.
The attempts to distinguish local features of the Luka-Raikovetskaya culture in the Dniester-Pruth interfluve have not yielded any objective positive results. A correlation of the evidence from the dated chronicles and data of the synchronous Luka-Raikovetskaya antiquities of VIII-X cc. enabled the author to infer that the latter belong to the tribal union of the Tiverians.