WOODLANDS VS. SETTLEMENTS: RELICTS OF RUSSIAN LATE MEDIEVAL LANDSCAPE

The research is supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research – project # 17-31-01074 «Historical geography of feudal land tenure in Tver uyezd of Moscow State in the XVI century». The research is devoted to the studying of the cultural landscape of the historical territory of Tver uyezd (district) of Moscow State of the XVI century. For today, a significant part of this territory is covered with the woods. There are many archaeological sites could be found in the wooded area. The ratio of the territories occupied with settlements, arable lands, forests, etc. were constantly changing. For now at our disposal there are late medieval cadastral sources (census books) containing information on land tenures and settlements, wastelands etc. that land tenures consisted of, as well as data on the amount of arable lands, hayfields and woodlands related to that land tenures. Many of the cadastral objects correlate with cartographic materials of the late XVIII–XIX centuries. Using of the medieval censuses, cartographic materials of subsequent centuries and contemporary satellite images and open geodata allow exploring the development of the landscape from the XVI to the XXI century. Generalizing all of these materials in GIS allows correlating data on medieval landscapes with the location of known medieval archaeological sites. Reconstruction of both settling and landowning structures of the XVI century in GIS allows to discover the areas that have been used in the Late Middle Ages, but were excluded from the economic turnover in the subsequent time. These areas could retain the least damaged monuments of medieval archeology. Studying these sites have a great importance for disclosure of the chronology of the formation of the settlement system and for researches of the material culture of various feudal property.

Author(s): Kutakov, Sergey (State Academic University for the Humanities; Staritsa Museum of Local History)

Видео WOODLANDS VS. SETTLEMENTS: RELICTS OF RUSSIAN LATE MEDIEVAL LANDSCAPE канала European Association of Archaeologists