Archaeological Evidence of Migration from the Southern Taiga of Western Siberia to the Urals in the Early Middle Ages: The Vodennikovo-1 Cemetery

We describe 15 burials at the Vodennikovo-1 group of mounds in the northern Kurgan Region, on the Middle Iset River, relevant to migration processes during the Early Middle Ages. On the basis of numerous parallels from contemporaneous sites in the Urals and Western Siberia, the cemetery is dated to the late 7th and 8th centuries. Most of single and collective burials are inhumations in rectangular pits with a northwestern orientation, with vessels, decorated by carved or pricked designs, placed near the heads. These features, typical of the Early Medieval Bakalskaya culture of the Tobol and Ishim basins, are also observed at the Pereyma and Ust-Suerskoye-1 cemeteries in the same area. However, there are innovations such as inlet burials, those in blocks of solid wood and plank coffi ns, western orientation of the deceased, and placing vessels next to the burial pits. These features attest to a different tradition, evidenced by cemeteries of the Potchevash culture in the Tobol and Ishim basins (Okunevo III, Likhacheva, and Vikulovskoye). Also, Potchevash and Bakalskaya vessels co-occur at Vodennikovo-1, and some of them (jugs with comb and grooved designs) are typologically syncretic. To date, this is the westernmost cemetery of the Potchevash culture, suggestive of a migration of part of the southern taiga population from the Ishim and Tobol area to the Urals.

Figures 5 & 6

Figure 5. The urban area of Winchester in the early Middle Ages (1:25,000) Figure 6. Winchester and the Chilcomb estate (1:100,000)

Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: An Edition and Discussion of The Winton Domesday

London and Winchester were not described in the Domesday Book, but the royal properties in Winchester were surveyed for Henry I about 1110 and the whole city was surveyed for Bishop Henry of Blois in 1148. These two surveys survive in a single manuscript, known as the Winton Domesday, and constitute the earliest and by far the most detailed description of an English or European town of the early Middle Ages. In the period covered Winchester probably achieved the peak of its medieval prosperity. From the reign of Alfred to that of Henry II it was a town of the first rank, initially centre of Wessex, then the principal royal city of the Old English state, and finally `capital’ in some sense, but not the largest city, of the Norman Kingdom. This volume provides a full edition, translation, and analyses of the surveys and of the city they depict, drawing on the evidence derived from archaeological excavation and historical research in the city since 1961, on personal- and place-name evidence, and on the recent advances in Anglo-Saxon numismatics.