The Main Line of Defensive Fortifications at Rostislavl'-Riazanskii

This article presents the results of cross-cutting an embankment and ditch at the Rostislavl' fortified settlement, the remnants of a town mentioned in the chronicles. After identifying sectional profiles of the trenches, for every 20–30 centimeters, it was possible to discern hard-to-detect remnants of timber from log constructions that had completely decayed and been displaced by native soil (yellow loam). It was established that the embankment visible today is the ruins of a wood and timber wall. This approach has clarified the sequence of the backfilling of soil into the log constructions and the description of this soil after the timber had rotted. This permitted us to establish traces of four successive walls rebuilt repeatedly. Radiocarbon analysis of the charcoal from under the wall foundations and study of the objects and ceramics from the extensions to the wall have allowed stages of fort construction to be dated to the late thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. The founding placement of the fortification of Rostislavl' in the second half of the twelfth through the first half of the thirteenth centuries is documented.