CONTRIUUTIOXS TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF 

 THE SOVIET UNION 



Compiled by HENRY FIELD 

 (With Five Plates) 



I. ALL-UNION CONFERENCE ON ARCIILOLOGY* 



This Conference, called by the Academy of Sciences, was held in 

 Moscow during 1945. Represented at the Conference by a total of 

 156 delegates were the Marr Institute, the Academies of Sciences of 

 the various Union Republics, branches of the U.S.S.R. Academy of 

 Sciences, Peoples Commissariats of Education of the I'nion and 

 Autonomous Republics, universities, teachers* colleges, central, terri- 

 torial, regional, and municipal museums, the Commission on the 

 Preservation of Ancient Monuments, and other scientific bodies. 



The Conference was opened by V. \'olgin, Vice President of the 

 Academy of Sciences and chairman of the committee on organiza- 

 tion. In his opening speech Academician Volgin reminded the dele- 

 gates that the Marr Institute — the leading center of Soviet arch- 

 eolog)' — had recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary. I'ounded 

 as the Russian Academy of the History of Material Culture, it suc- 

 ceeded the Committee on Archeology which had been in existence 

 since 1859. 



"We no longer support the teachings of f(jrmer archeologists that 

 the ancient history of our country was represented by .separate 

 'archeological civilizations.' We regard it rather as a harmonious and 

 logically connected chain of consecutive stages in the development of 

 humanity from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages." 



'Jhe problem of the origin of the Slavs and their relations with 

 neighboring tribes is now presented from a new angle. Archeolo- 

 gists have traced the first stages in the formation of the Slavonic trilx^s 

 to the beginning of our era. Scientists of today Ixise their conclusions 

 on material found in strata dating back to the Bronze Age and 

 Neolithic civilizations. More and more light is being shed upon the 

 unification of the Slavonic tribes in the first thousand vcars of our 



» From \'OKS Bulletin, 1946. This has been condensed and edited to conform 

 to our style. (H. F.) 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLEaiONS, VOL. 110, NO. 1) 



