90 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



objects similar to those from cemeteries in the Kama region of the 

 higher and lower Pianobor types. 



The gorodishches of the first millennium B. C. were of limited 

 size. The dwellings were built on the ground. Among the inventory, 

 apart from sherds and bone objects, were stone and metal imple- 

 ments and some ornaments. Remains found in even the oldest goro- 

 dishchc establish the complete ascendance of animal raising over 

 hunting. The horse and the pig were the principal domestic animals. 

 Numerous hand mills confirmed the existence of agriculture. 



The Upper Volga gorodishche can be somewhat distinguished 

 from those of the Kostroma section of the Volga by the form of 

 the dwellings and the pottery. This suggests the existence of two 

 separate tribal groups. Moreover, exploration in this region has 

 shown that a considerable length of the Volga, from the mouth of the 

 Mologa to that of the Kotorosli and the section which lies between 

 the sites of the two tribal groups, was uninhabited at that time. 



At the beginning of the first millennium A. D. — Some of the in- 

 habited sites of the first centuries of our era have been excavated. 

 An examination of all these sites, together with their chronological 

 classification, permits the following conclusions to be drawn : 



(a) That sites dating from the first centuries A. D. are represented 

 mainly by the remains of fortified sites {gorodishches). Many sites of 

 this type are even older (first millennium B. C). 



(b) From the second and third centuries, open sites (selishchcs) 

 were found. 



(c) Both types were distributed on the banks of the Volga and 

 its tributaries in compact groups of two to four, which indicates clan 

 grouping and consequently denotes the existence of clan territories. 

 Tretiakov brings ethnographic examples to the support of this theory. 



Each locality belonged to a definite patriarchal community whose 

 primitive economy, while multiform, also had a collective character. 

 The main branches of production were the raising of livestock andj 

 cultivation in clearings. Hunting and fishing were also carried out.! 

 In nearly every gorodishche and sclishche were found traces of irons 

 founding and copper smelting. Commercial relations were barely I 

 developed at that period, either between localities or more distantl 

 areas. 



Tretiakov again comments on the presence of certain distinctions! 

 between the population of the Upper Volga and that of the Kostromaf 

 sector of the Volga. 3 



A fourth-fifth century gorodische on the Sonochta River. — In 1903;! 

 A. A. Spitsyn discovered a gorodishche at the mouth of the Sonochtaj 



