Shaitanka Fortified Settlement of the Late Bronze Age in the Ket’ River Basin (Western Siberia): New Interpretation

In 1967—1968, M.F. Kosarev excavated a fortified settlement of the Molchanovo culture 9th—8th/7th centuries BC in the Shaitanka River basin, and identified it as a “ring fort” surrounded by a moat, rampart and palisade. Subsequently, the researcher attributed it to the large wood-earthen “fortified dwellings” identified by the author. The northernmost distribution area of these fortifications was in the western regions of the taiga Ob’River Region. Buildings of this type began to form here in the Neolithic - Eneolithic (6th — 3rd millennium BC) and became widespread in the Bronze Age (late 3rd millennium — 8th century BC). In the Narym Ob’ River Region and the Ket’ River Basin, fortified dwellings appeared as a result of the migration of fishermen-hunters from the Lower and Surgut Ob’ River Region, caused by a sharp cooling and humidification of the climate at the turn of the 2nd — 1st millennium BC.