ARCHEOBOTANICAL STUDIES AT THE ANCIENT FORTRESS OF MASLYANAYA GORA IN THE VICINITY OF TAURIC CHERSONESE
ПАЛЕОЭТНОБОТАНИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ НА АНТИЧНОМ УКРЕПЛЕНИИ МАСЛЯНАЯ ГОРА В ОКРУГЕ ХЕРСОНЕСА

Maksim I. Τyurin, State Museum-Preserve "Tauric Chersonese", Sevastopol, Russia, Irena G. Chukhina, Andrey A. Filippenko, Vavilov all-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, Independent Researcher, Sevastopol, Russia
2021 Journal of historical philological and cultural studies  
The paper is devoted to the archaeobotanical studies of the Maslyanaya Gora fortress as well as to issues related to it's household features. The fortress is located in the lower reaches of the Belbek River (Southwestern Crimea), in the contact zone between Chersonese and the local barbarian population. Two stages of the object's existence have been distinguished: the early, Chersonesian (late 4 th -the third quarter of the 3 rd century BC), and the late Hellenistic one, associated with the
more » ... od of Mithridates VI (ending with the destruction of the fort on the verge of the 2 nd and the 1 st centuries or in the very beginning of the 1st century BC). Among the material detected in the samples from the deposits of the early horizon of the site, the grains of barley (Hordeum vulgare) are the most common. Millet (Panicum miliaceum) and emmer (Triticum dicoccum) were also recorded. For this period, large grain pits are also characteristic, as well as fragments of saddle querns. In the late 2 nd century BC, the fortress was rebuilt; profound household complex of this period has been investigated in its eastern part. The grain (barley, common wheat, millet, oats) was stored in amphorae here, and its further processing took place here too (mortars, hopper rubbers, fi replaces and oven have been recorded). The fi nds of oat grains (Avena sativa) in the amphora is of great importance as it allows us to suggest the cultivation of oats in the vicinity of the fort in the Late Hellenistic period. For samples 1-3, refl ecting the early fort's phases, the archaeologisation of the grains was relatively random, whereas the samples 4-13, illustrating the economy of the inhabitants of the Fort of Mithridatic period, are taken from the fi lls of the well-preserved amphorae.
doi:10.18503/1992-0431-2021-4-74-61-91 fatcat:zqkbhmgdnbgwzpluak5r4s4hha