Department of Medieval Archaeology

The Department (originally a Sector) of Slavic-Russian Archaeology was established at the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in 1951 by B.A. Rybakov through the merger of the Sectors of Ancient Russian Archaeology, headed by N.N. Voronin, and Slavic Ethnogenesis, headed by P.N. Tretyakov. From 1974, the department was headed by S.A. Pletneva, and from 1991, by A.V. Chernetsov.

In January 2015, the department was transformed into the Department of Medieval Archaeology. As a result of the reorganization, the groups on the archaeology of the Great Migration Period and Arctic archaeology were separated from it. The new department included the group on the archaeology of the Eurasian steppes. V.Yu. Koval was appointed Head of the Department of Medieval Archaeology. The department's main research areas include: chronology and classification of Slavic antiquities; ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Slavs; archaeology of the early medieval Russian city; rural settlement structures, processes of settlement, colonization, and assimilation of the indigenous population; the spiritual culture of the Eastern Slavs based on archaeological data; and international cultural and trade relations.

The department's key achievements in recent years include, first and foremost, expeditionary research into ancient Russian cities in Central Rus' (Rostov the Great, Suzdal, Vladimir, Old Ryazan, Moscow, and others). Department staff are actively involved in the long-term archaeological study of Novgorod, a key monument of medieval Russian archaeology. Another important focus of the department's expeditionary and analytical research is the study of the Russian North. A summary of these years of work in the field of Slavic-Russian archaeology is embodied in two volumes of the "Archaeology of the USSR" series (Archaeology): "Ancient Rus: City, Fortress, Village." M., 1985 and "Ancient Rus'. Everyday Life and Culture". M., 1997, as well as five volumes of the "Proceedings of the VI International Congress of Slavic Archaeology". M., 1997-1999.