HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL RELATIONS OF THE POPULATION OF THE BASIN OF VYCHEGDA AND THE UPPER KAMA RIVERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE VYM AND RODANOVO ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURES)
Authors:   nstitute of Language, Literature and History, FRC Komi Science Centre, Ural branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Savelyeva E. A. 
Published: June 2021

The latest materials of the excavations of medieval sites in the Vychegda basin and the Upper Kama region confirm the ethno-cultural proximity of the Rodanovo and Vym archaeological cultures associated with the related peoples – the ancestors of the Komi-Permians and Komi-Zyryans, which was proved by A.P. Smirnov, V.A. Oborin, A.F. Melnichuk, R.D. Goldina and other researchers. It can be traced in the most conservative, traditional elements of culture – in funeral rites, ceramics, and women's costume decorations. Both cultures are characterized by underground burial grounds, burials in which are made by the method of inhumation and cremation. Ceramics are represented by stucco vessels of cup-shaped and pot-shaped forms, ornamented with comb, rosette stamp, and cord prints. Common adornments of women's costume are umbonoid, arched, anchor and bronze bi-anchor rattle pendants, a variety of tubular thread decorations. The greatest affinity to the Rodanovo culture is found in the sites adjacent to the Upper Kama areas – Sysola, Mid-Vychegda, dating back to the 10th – 11th, 11th – 12th centuries. On the Sysola river, three burial grounds were investigated, different from the Vym, Mid- and Low Vychegda ones. The Votcha burial ground on the Middle Sysola river, dating back to the 10th – 11th centuries, refers to the earliest ones. According to the funeral rite and ware implements, it shows the greatest cultural proximity to the sites of the Kama region, which is most likely due to the relocation of a small group of the Kama population to the Sysola basin. The Uzhga I and II burial grounds on the Upper Sysola are distinguished by their great originality. The burial rite of the Uzhga burial grounds is characterized by dismembered burials, burials of individual skulls, and the tradition of deliberate destruction of graves for ritual purposes. These features of the funeral rite find analogies in the Upper Kama burial grounds, in particular, Averino I in the Afanasyevsky district of the Kirov region, as well as Plotnitsy, located in the Kudymkar district of the Perm region. It is most likely that the population that had left Uzhga burial grounds, was part of the same territorial–tribal association as the northern Upper Kama population, associated with Zyuzdino Komi-Permians, which is confirmed by the data of ethnography and linguistics. The infiltration of the Rodanovo population into the Vychegda basin in the 11th and 12th centuries is documented by the excavations of the Chezhtyyag and Vym Kichilkos I burial grounds. They belong to the Vym culture of the Vychegda Perm, the early complexes of which, dating from the 11th –12th centuries, may be associated with the Rodanovo newcomers. In the burial 37 of the Chezhtyyag burial ground, a characteristic Rodanovo women's costume is represented. At the Kichilkos I burial ground, numerous highly artistic Bulgar silver articles from the Kama region were found, as well as typical Rodanovo decorations, stucco vessels similar in shape and ornamentation, and burials that show the greatest similarity to the Early Rodanovo ones. These materials testify not only to the active trade and cultural relations between the population of the Vym and Rodanovo cultures, but also to the infiltration of the Upper Kama Rodanovo groups into the Vychegda basin in the 11th and 12th centuries.