THE RESEARCH OF THE FORTIFICATIONS OF LYTOVEZH HILL-FORT IN VOLYN REGION

Currently, the complex of the hill-fort by the meandering bend of the Bug River channel is divided into two parts: the western one where the castle is located, and the eastern one where the city is obviously placed. During the exploration the rampart of the eastern part of the fortified complex was cut by the trench. The body of rampart is stand on the ancient original surface which looked like a humus substance. It consisted of three consecutive fillings. The first is gray soil up to 0.2 m thick, the second is white sand up to 0.8 m thick, and the third, most high (up to 1.4 m) is the yellow sand that covered the previous one from inside of the rampart. The yellow sand was cut through by well visible pit at the bottom of which the bones, probably human skulls have been found. These filings contained several fragments of pots of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. From inside the rampart was covered by the powerful cultural layer that contained various finds from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. The original layer of humus sand was well visible under the body of rampart and worse under the cultural layer. In the original surface the materials of the 12th—13th and 15th—16th centuries were found. Particularly the hinged lock of the 15th—16th centuries found in the original layer of humus is noteworthy. The majority of partially explored objects were located on the inside of the rampart. Latest of them, the object 1 of the 19th century, was occurred in the cultural layer and the rest, objects 2—6, were found while cleaning the virgin soil at the bottom of the trench. Moreover, large objects 3—4 were located outside the rampart, under the powerful cultural layer, and small objects 5—6 — under the body of the rampart. Thus, the explored site in the area of the future rampart was virtually uninhabited in the Old Rus period and was poorly used during the 14th—15th centuries. It is ascertained that the fortifications of Lytovezh hill-fort consisted of the rampart up to 2.1 m high of artificial origin built in the late medieval period, most probably in the 16th—17th centuries.