The exhibition "Ancient History of Kemerovo" of the Kemerovo State University opened in the "Archeology, Ethnography and Ecology of Siberia" museum on March 20.
Kemerovo is the capital of Kuzbass and one of the youngest cities in Western Siberia, emerged from the union of several villages at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the urban land keeps in itself cultural layers of more ancient times - the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages.
In 2018, in the year of Kemerovo’s 100th anniversary, a project was launched to study, preserve and promote the city’s historical and cultural heritage. Historians, archeologists and museum workers from leading scientific organizations of the region have joined together to implement the project - the "Archeology, Ethnography and Ecology of Siberia" Museum and the Institute of History and International Relations of Kemerovo State University, the Institute of Human Ecology of the Federal Research Center for Coal and Coal Chemistry of the RAS Siberian branch, the State Museum-Reserve "Tomsk Pisanitsa". The project is fully supported by the administration of Kemerovo, the Kemerovo regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society, and the Foundation for Presidential Grants.
The first large-scale archaeological research was carried out in the city, and unique written documents and maps were obtained from the archives. The exhibition "Ancient History of Kemerovo" is at the top of the first phase of the project.
The most ancient human settlements on the territory of the modern city of Kemerovo arose about 7,000-6,000 years ago, in the Neolithic Age. Archaeologists date this time the early cultural layers of the settlement of Sukhovo and stone axes that were accidentally discovered in different parts of the city.
A Bronze Age settlement, belonging to the Irmen culture, originated in the mouth of the Luskus River about 3,500 years ago. The cultural layer had fragments of ceramic dishes, bronze things, fragments of casting molds and crucibles, and pebble weights for the nets. The remains of the Lachinovka settlement of the Middle Ages (monument to Luskus III) were found nearby.
The survey of the Russian period was carried out in the territories of former villages and a foreign settlement that coincide with the modern city boundaries, that were not subjected to large urban development and represent a series of streets with private one-story buildings. There were found household items, coins, fragments of ceramic dishes, a descent token of a miner from the Kemerovo mine of the Autonomous Industrial Colony "Kuzbass".
The exposition includes unique finds of the most extensive archaeological research in the city: stone axes of the Neolithic Age, fragments of ceramic dishes, casting molds and crucibles, pebble weights for the nets, bronze items dating back about 3,500 years. Citizens and guests of the city can see all these items at the exhibition "Ancient History of Kemerovo".
Photo by Dmitry Kirchanov
Irmen culture is a huge, even by modern standards, community of families and tribes united by a common religion, funeral rite, types of jewelry and, possibly, by language.
The tribes of Lachinovskaya culture differed in a complex type of economy (hunting, farming, domestic animal husbandry). Their settlements are known throughout Pritomye, from Mountain Shoria to the modern city of Tomsk.