Olga Manigda

Candidate of Historical Sciences (PhD), Researcher of the Department of Kyiv Archaeology, Scientific Secretary, Institute of Archaeology NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9819-8059

E-mail: manigda_olga@iananu.org.ua

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Olha Hrabovska

Candidate of Historical Sciences (PhD), Head of the Research Sector of Archeology, Vinnytsya Regional Museum of Local History, Vinnytsya, Ukraine

E-mail: mazur.arkona@gmail.com

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Keywords: Middle Age, hill-forts, chronicle tribe Ulychi, Southern Buh river, archaeological map, viewshed
analysis.

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Abstract

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This paper deals with the hill-forts of the medieval tribe of ulychi who came to a region of Southern Buh river in the late 10th century AD and left here about 50 remains of hill-forts. We know about the time of their appearance here from the chronicle, in which it is written that due to military conflicts with the Kyiv princes Oleg and Igor (10th century AD) «Ulychi lost their capital – «Peresechen» (which means «passed through town» or «intersected town») and went and settled «by Boh river» (today – Southern Bug river). Today, the antiquities of ulychi people are being studied by the Archaeological expedition «Ulychi», created in December 2018 jointly by the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv) and Vinnytsya Regional Museum of Local History. The expedition conducts
reconnaissance survey in search of hill-forts and settlements of ulychi people, topographic measurements, archaeological research for the purpose of verifying the dating of the fortifications, as well as carries out monitoring and aerial photography to establish the current state of archaeological sites.

On a territory of two hill-forts of ulychi people – Sazhki and Chervone were conducted a large–scale archaeological research in 1970s and 1980s, the author of which was Pavlo Khavlyuk. The results of these studies showed the peculiarities of their way of life – pottery, jewelry, weaving and other crafts. The well-known researcher Mykhailo Kuchera also paid an attention to the location of ulychi hill-forts in Southern Buh region in the 1980s.

Nowadays we can observe massive ground fortifications of these hill-forts, reaching more than 5 m in height. Among the special characters of ulychi hill-forts are the construction of shafts with stone covering, the placement of wells inside the fortifications, and the protection of water sources by additional fortifications.

One of the interesting traditions of hill-forts location is paired settlements located across the ravine or on the neighboring capes not further than 500 m from each other (such as hill-forts Tarasivka or Sosny).

Considering the basic version that ulychi people in the territory of Southern Bug basin are not an autochthonous population, we are inevitably faced with the question of how exactly they used the space in which they decided to settle? The Ulychi people become identifiable at the end of the 10th century, in a region that until then had belonged to the distribution area of the Raikovetska archaeological culture of the 8th–10th centuries. We find the stratification of this culture at the places of the construction of the hill-forts of ulychi (Voronovytsia 1), in the nearby settlements (Gostynne, etc.). The nature of the interaction between the autochthonous and the newcomer population will obviously be hidden from us forever. Only the fact of direct contact is indisputable. It should also be noticed, that has been found no more than ten the settlements of 8th–10th cent. of Raikovetska culture in the Southern Buh region, while in the neighboring regions (Middle and Upper Dniester) it is a time of cultural flourishing and the existence of many hundreds of Raikovetska culture settlements.

We created a map of the ulychi hill-forts known for today, which is counts 49 objects, located on an area of 14300 km2. This map is based on information from the site protection services about the location of fortresses, and on the results conducted by the archaeological expedition «Ulychi» in 2018–2020 of reconnaissance research on the location, dating and detection of previously unknown hill-forts. They are located in the tributaries of the Southern Buh river, mainly on the steep slopes of capes, surrounded by ravines and in close proximity to water sources. We also observe round hill-forts with fortifications made in a circle, located on the plain, without the use of natural relief (Popeliukhy, Huta). So, the viewshed analysis of 3 km visibility zone for 49 hill-forts showed that 69.4 % of it (34 hill-forts) covered from 8.9 to 33.3 % of the area of visibility and only 30.6 % of fortresses (15) covered from 33.8 to 59.9 % of the area of visibility. The viewshed analysis of 5 km visibility zone reviled similar results that 80 % of hill-forts (47) covered from 3.6 to 29.1 % of the area of visibility and only 20 % of fortresses (2) covered from 33.5 to 50.4 % of the area of visibility.

Thus, we can say that these hill-forts were not built for the purpose of domination and for control of the territory, or with the aim of the defensive line construction. On the contrary, the construction of hill-forts on the slopes, in hard-
to-reach places, was supposed to help save the population in case of danger.

According to the first observations, we can say that the population of ulychi very successfully used the highly fragmented landscape of the ravines at the same time creating an additional fortification to protect water sources.

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References

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1. Kuchera, M. P. (1999). Slov’iano-ruski horodyshcha VIII–XIII st. mizh Sanom i Siverskym Dintsem [Slavic-Rus hill-forts of the 8th–13th centuries between San and Donets]. Kyiv: IA NANU [in Ukrainian].

2. Kuchera, M. P. (2017). Horodyshcha ulychiv u serednomu Pobuzhzhi [Hill-forts of Ulychi in the Middle Southern Buh river]. Arkheolohiia – Archaeology, 4, 61–73 [in Ukrainian].

3. Novgorodskaya pervaya letopis' starshego i mladshego izvodov [Novgorod first annal older and younger editions] (1950). Moscow [in Russian].

4. Rabinovich, R. A. (2001/2002). Ot ul'tinzurov
   k ulicham, ili predystoriya odnogo letopisnogo pelmeni [From Ultinzury to Ulichi or prehistory of one chronicle tribe]. Stratum plus, 5, 282–299 [in Russian].

5. Rabinovich, R. A. (2003/2004). Ulichi i tivertsy v otsenkakh istoriografii [Ulichi and tivertsi in the assessments of historiography]. Stratum plus, 5, 440–484
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6. Khavlyuk, P. I. (1972). Materialy iz gorodishch
   ulichey na Yuzhnom Buge [Materials from the settlements of ulichi on the Southern Bug]. Arkheologicheskie otkrytiya 1971 – Archaeological discoveries in 1971.
   Moscow: Nauka, 380 [in Russian].

7. Khavlyuk, P. I. (1981). Gorodishche Chervone [Hill-fort Chervone]. Arkheologicheskie otkrytiya 1970 – Archaeological discoveries in 1980. Moscow: Nauka, 316 [in Russian].