Complex of archaeological sites near the village of Skovorodka. History of investigations and the present state
This paper considers a complex of sites near the village of Skovorodka situated in Strugo-Krasnensky District of Pskov Oblast. The sites on the bank of Lake Barskoye (Plotishno) were noted by archaeologists in 1909. There students headed by K. D. Trofimov and V. A. Gorodtsov from the Moscow Archaeological Society recorded a fortified settlement and burial sites of different periods and investigated a sopka and three zhalnik graves. In 1927, the complex was examined during the palaeoethnological investigation of the district by G. P. Grozdilov and N. N. Chernyagin who draw a visual plan of the sites. The next investigation was conducted in 1986 by S. L. Kuzmin who also draw a visual plan. In 1988, he excavated two sopkas in the group of Skovorodka II and dug exploratory trenches at a settlement site revealed by him. In the opinion of S. L. Kuzmin, this complex was constituted by a synchronous fortified site, an unfortified settlement and high cult-memorial mounds - sopkas. On the basis of analysis of materials from the excavations and the topographical situation, the authors made a supposition about a non-simultaneous character of the abovementioned sites and a relation of the fortified settlement with a different earlier cultural community having parallels in Eastern Estonia.