"Orlovka - A Dialogue of Ages and Cultures" Project
Project initiators: The High Anthropological School
(Kishinev, Moldova), Archaeological Museum of the Academy
of Science (Odessa, Ukraine) and the Fund for Cultural Initiatives
«World as mirror for Moldova».
Project managers: Bruyako I.V. (Ukrainian
Archaeological Museum, Odessa) and Manzura I.V. (The High
Anthropological School)
Terms of project activity: 2002-2007.
The staff and the students of the High Anthropological School
take part in the project.
Excavating an ancient grave
from Orlovka settlement |
Project
Goal:
Study of interaction problems between
the Balkan Peninsula and South-Eastern European cultures
in medieval and ancient times.
Project objectives include:
• Field research of the site of
the ancient settlement Orlovka;
• Research in the Danube lakes region for more detailed
image of inhabiting processes on that territory in various
historical periods;
• Creation of a database of sites and materials found in
the lower reaches of the Danube's left bank;
• Preparation and publication of a series of articles and
monographs on the subject of cultural communications in
the lower reaches of the Danube.
Orlovka settlement is a unique
archaeological site on the lower reaches of the Danube with
traces of many ages and various cultures, from early pre-history
till the late Middle Ages. By the number of cultural strata
and variety of materials that settlement is unique on the
North-west Black Sea coast.
A bronze age vessel |
The
archaeological complex in Orlovka represents a complex historical
unity that includes a fortification on a high rocky hill
with adjacent settlement and burial grounds.
Just the very first researches
in Orlovka settlement expose extreme importance of this
site and adjacent areas for resolving many prehistoric and
Early history problems in southeastern and eastern Europe.
First of all, it concerns Chernavoda I, earlier unknown
in the North-West Black Sea region. Research of of this
culture on Orlovka settlement allows us to find new approaches
to an explanation of the situation on the Balkan Peninsula
and south-eastern Europe during the Late Eneolithic. The
shape of cultures of the early Iron Age and the Antiquity,
tracked by Orlovka materials, reveals new horizons in researching
problems of intercultural contacts between steppe nomad
tribes of the East Europe and the progressive civilizations
of the classical Antiquity.
Roman fibula, discovered
on the settlement |
