HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

ARCHAEOLOGY OF KIEV 331settlement type, but they are unknown for the later center of Kiev, exceptfor a very small number of sherds (Tolocko 1981, p. 361).Kiev was certainly not a likely tribal center in this period. The archaeologicalmaterial of the eighth and early ninth centuries is not consistent withthe idea of Kiev as the center of a homogeneous tribal territory. Ananalysis of material culture remnants in the Dnieper Basin around Kievindicates a rather extreme border zone character of settlement. In someparts of the Right Bank, as in Kiev itself, the Luka-Rajkovec'ka settlementscentered in southern Polissja, Volhynia, and Podolia reached the Dnieper;elsewhere, the Volyncevo-type settlements centered in Severia reached theLeft Bank. This borderland character goes back even further: in thesixth-seventh centuries the parallel occurrence of Kolocyn-type sites andKorcak-type settlements in the Kiev region can be noted.IV. KIEV IN THE LAST DECADES OF THE NINTH CENTURYAND THE FIRST HALF OF THE TENTH CENTURYGiven the commonplace character of settlement and the modest size of itsearly settlements, the subsequent development of Kiev was clearly connectedwith a rapid and tremendous change in economic, social, and certainlyalso in political conditions over a period of only one to two generations.A few decades into the tenth century, a completely new humansociety must have evolved.Unfortunately, a detailed chronology allowing a close study of thedynamics of development from the late ninth century to the late tenth andearly eleventh centuries has not been worked out. Pottery, the most importantevidence for the dating of settlement, cannot as yet be dated closer thanwithin two generations to a century. Hoards, single coins, and jewelry cangive certain suggestions for a closer dating, but generally this is also vague.Architecture, especially stone architecture, can be used for certain chronologicalgrouping. But dating the dynamic development of Kiev by observationsof these categories of material is still unsatisfactory. Only in the Podilcan dendrochronological samples from wooden architecture furnish us withmore precise information about the development of settlement. Here wefollow that development from the late ninth century to the beginning of theeleventh century in two stages. The mid-tenth century is the divide betweenthe two stages. For most materials it is possible to separate early from latematerial within the period from the late ninth century to the early eleventhcentury (e.g., Tolocko 1981B, pp. 298-301).Settlement in the Kiev region from the end of the ninth century onwardsis known from a number of different localities (fig. 5). The main settlementareas were located along the hills and in the Podil. The northernmost