Berezniaki

Berezniaki 

a gorodishche (site of a fortified town) of the D’iakovo culture of the third to fifth centuries; located near the village of Berezniaki, Rybinsk Raion, Yaroslavl Oblast. The site was investigated in 1934–35 by P. N. Tret’iakov.

Berezniaki was a settlement of a patriarchal commune; it consisted of several dwellings for individual families, a large communal house, a smithy, a common storehouse for grain, an enclosure for livestock, a structure for the women’s work, and a burial structure. The settlement, located on the banks of the Volga on a rise skirted by the Sonokhta River (a tributary of the Volga), was enclosed by a rampart and a wooden fence. The population engaged mainly in livestock raising and agriculture. Objects have been found that testify to connections with tribes of the Dnieper and the southeastern Baltic regions.

REFERENCE

Tret’iakov, P. N. K istorii piemen Verkhnego Povolzh’ia v 1-m tys. n. e. Moscow-Leningrad, 1941.