This dissertation is a summarizing comprehensive research on an important scientific problem: a thorough analysis of ancient ceramic imports in Cherniakhiv culture. It categorize, systematized and mapped all groups of late antique transport vessels and tableware from Cherniakhiv culture’s sites in the territory of Ukraine; elaborated detailed vessels’ chronology; defined areas of distribution; traced periods, ways and dynamics of their arrival.
This study provided a solid basis for historical reconstruction of the relations between the barbarian society of Southeastern Europe and ancient civilization during the Late Roman period. Its results could be used for further study of the problems related to chronology and economic development of Cherniakhiv culture, as well as its neighboring cultures in the European Barbaricum. The results of this research are of interest to specialists dealing with economic relations of the ancient centers in the Black Sea region, the problems of the chronology of late antique wares and attribution of mass ceramic material, etc. The author proposed a chronological scheme for various amphorae and tableware types that could be used for dating the late roman archaeological complexes from the Black Sea region, as well as other territories.
The research is based on the following sources: 93 intact or archeologically intact forms of late antique transport vessels and tableware; about 5,000 typologically defined fragments from 130 Cherniakhiv sites and random finds in the Cherniakhiv culture’s areal. In order to introduce a comparative perspective and provide an analysis of typological and chronological developments, this study explored numerous materials from synchronous barbaric sites of the Crimean peninsula and ancient centers of the northern Black Sea coast.
The author analyzed all known in the Cherniahiv culture types of the red-clay transport wares, and developed a typology as well as a chronology for the amphorae with grooved handles from the North Pontic region.
Drawing on the detailed study of the various groups of ancient ceramic imports, this research reconstructed the relationship between Cherniakhiv’s population and ancient civilization. It determined that the first contacts most likely took place in the first half – middle of the 3rd century AD. As a result of these connections, the ancient products began to enter the zone where Cherniakhiv’s population had settled. Considering that the time of these imports, which consisted mostly of Heraclean wine, coincided in general with the period of the Scythian/Gothic wars, the author regards as probable that, to some extent, the ancient goods appeared in the barbaric area as a result of looting.
During the age of Constantine (306 – 337 AD), the contacts of the Cherniakhiv’s population with the ancient world turned into permanent relations. From the second third of the 4th century AD, the products in amphorae and tableware of the Pontic, Aegean, Mediterranean and provincial Danube centers started to enter Chernyahiv’s areas. On the sites situated to the east of the Dnister river, a significant proportion of imports was represented by Chersonesus’ tableware, while the products of the Lower Danube workshops dominated on the sites founded between the Dnister and Danube rivers. This can be explained by the following difference in directions of trade relations in these regions: the main supplier of the ancient goods to Chernyakhiv’s population in the eastern zone was Chersonesus and, probably, other cities of South-West Crimea, meanwhile the population of the western zone was accustomed to trade with the Danubian provinces. The Dnister river became the boundary between these two zones. Only the sites of the Dnister basin are known to have finds of imported ceramics from Crime and ceramics produced in the Danubian provinces.
The period of the most intense trade and exchange relations between the Chernyakhiv’s population and the ancient world dates back to the second half of the 4th century AD (with the peaks in the 360s – 375s AD), when the ancient ceramic imports spread out practically throughout all territory of Chernyakhiv culture’s settlers.
At the end of the 4th century AD the flow of the imported products to the area where forest-steppe’s population settled significantly reduced. At the same time, the population of the southern regions continued to participate actively in the exchange of goods with the ancient world until the first decades of the 5th century AD.
