"Inconvenient opening" and three-part periodization of V. A. Gorodtsov

Aim. To cover the history of the discovery of V. A. Gorodtsov in 1903 as a result of archaeological research carried out by him in 1901 in the Izyumsky district of the Kharkov province and in 1903 in the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province.

Methodology. On the basis of comparative and typological methods, as well as the analysis of various written sources, the essence of the periodization of V. A. Gorodtsov and his discoveries are revealed, which made it possible to approach the issue of periodization of archaeological cultures of the Bronze Age in a new way.

Results. The methods and results of archaeological excavations carried out by V. A. Gorodtsov at the beginning of the twentieth century were evaluated.

Research implications. In the process of studying the materials available to the author, it was possible to show that the general level of development of archaeological science of that time limited the researcher and did not allow him to achieve even more important results. Therefore, V. A. Gorodtsov, being close to identifying a special group of funerary monuments in wooden frame structures, in which the buried lay in a slightly crouched state, with their heads oriented to the West, but not accompanied by intact clay vessels, which he eventually combined into one group with burials in wooden frames, in which the buried lay on their sides, with their hands near their faces, their heads oriented to the East and accompanied by intact clay vessels. And only 70 years later this special group was identified by us as belonging to the multi-сoiled pottery culture, which occupied the “triad” of V. A. Gorodtsov is an intermediate place between the catacomb and timber-frame cultures.

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