Medieval Materials from A.P. Dulzon’s Excavations at the Staroe (Tomskoe) Musulmanskoe Kladbishche
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2026-4-111-122
In 1955–1956, A.P. Dulzon excavated the Staroe (Tomskoe) Musulmanskoe Kladbishche (Old Tomsk Muslim Cemetery). Although primarily known as a burial site dating to the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and modern period, it has also yielded medieval materials. These include Burials 9 and 14, a copper belt mount, and pottery sherds recovered from different parts of the excavated areas. Their study is complicated by substantial human disturbance of the site before and during excavation and by the loss of some burial finds from the museum collection. Missing artifacts were therefore analyzed using drawings and descriptions in the excavation diary, report, and inventory. Typological parallels for iron objects from Burials 9 and 14, including spearheads, arrowheads, an axe-adze, a strap-end, and a buckle, date the burials to the Early Middle Ages. A ceramic vessel from Burial 9 is consistent with this dating. To refine the chronology, a sample of charred bark from Burial 9 was selected for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. With a probability of 87.4 %, the sample dates to the period from the second half of the seventh century to the third quarter of the eighth century CE; this interval can be accepted as the date of Burial 9. Among the finds from the cultural layer outside these burial contexts, a segment-shaped belt mount made of non-ferrous metal provides chronological evidence for the period from the second half of the seventh century to the first half of the ninth century CE. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis established that it was made of copper with minor amounts of other elements. The vessel forms and decoration likewise date the pottery to the Early Middle Ages. Burials 9 and 14 and the materials from the excavated cultural layer are therefore attributed to the early medieval Upper Ob (Verkhneobskaya) culture.
Keywords: Western Siberia, Early Middle Ages, Upper Ob culture, radiocarbon dating, X-ray fluorescence analysis
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Issue: 4, 2026
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 111 — 122
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