2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I ID 



era, a factor which exerted a tremendous influence upon the history 

 of Eastern and Central Europe. 



Academician B. Grekov deHvered a report on the achievements of 

 archeological investigations in the U.S.S.R. He pointed out that 

 interest in ancient cultural remains has long existed in Russia. As 

 early as 1804 a scientific society called the Society of History and 

 Russian Antiquities was founded in Moscow. As stated at the time, 

 this Society was interested, among other things, in collecting an- 

 tiquities, medals, coins, and other objects shedding light on various 

 events in Russian history. 



Pre-Revolutionary archeologists excavated much material con- 

 nected with the ancient history of the peoples of Russia. The remains 

 of Hellenic civilization in the northern regions of the Black Sea coast, 

 objects excavated from Scythian burial mounds, and other materials 

 cleared up many previously unexplored periods of Russian history. 

 It was mostly due to the efforts of archeologists that a new field of 

 study was opened to historians — the study of the Scythians who in- 

 habited the territory of the present U.S.S.R. before the Slavs. Parallel 

 with these investigations, archeologists unearthed the monuments of 

 ancient Slavs in the Caucasus and Siberia. 



In order to clarify previous observations and conclusions, the 

 archeologists established firm ties with paleoanthropology, paleo- 

 zoology, geology, soil science, philology, and history. At the present 

 time archeology no longer stands apart from the general aims of 

 history, but is itself a historical science solving the same problems 

 and pursuing the same aims in its own specific field. 



In recent years the number of sites investigated by archeologists 

 has greatly increased. At the present time there is not a single region 

 or nationality in the U.S.S.R. which has not been the object of study. 



Significant achievements have been made in the study of the Stone 

 Age. Hundreds of Paleolithic sites have been discovered and in- 

 vestigated, including those at Kostenki-Borshevo, Gagarino, Timo- 

 novka, and Malta and Buret in Siberia. Parallel with these studies, 

 archeologists have charted the various periods in the Russian Paleo- 

 lithic age, establishing the characteristics of its three main provinces — 

 Asia, Europe Proper, and the regions of the Caspian Sea. These 

 discoveries contributed much that was new to the existing conception 

 of forms of Paleolithic tools and implements and of the art and mode 

 of life of the people of that period. 



Thorough investigations of a number of regions (the central part 

 of European Russia, the Karelian-Finnish S.S.R., the Urals, and the 

 Baikal area) made it possible to distinguish between the various 



