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THE EXTERMINATION OF THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN CITY OF YAROSLAVL AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 13TH CENTURY: THE LONG JOURNEY TO EXACT DATING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Asya V Engovatova ,
Alexander Cherkinsky Open the ORCID record for Alexander Cherkinsky [Opens in a new window]  and
Ganna I Zaiseva
Asya V Engovatova
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, RAS, Moscow, 117292, Russia
Alexander Cherkinsky*
Affiliation:
Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, GA30605, USA
Ganna I Zaiseva
Affiliation:
Institute of History of Material Culture, RAS (IHMC RAS), St. Petersburg, 191186, Russia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: acherkin@uga.edu.
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Abstract

This paper raises methodological issues of radiocarbon (14C) dating of historical events based on data obtained during the excavations of the Russian medieval city of Yaroslavl. The city is of special interest to our study because of the precise time of its destruction by troops of Batu Khan mentioned in chronicles—the winter of 1238. To date in Yaroslavl, researchers have discovered 9 mass burials of citizens and domestic animals buried sometime after the massacre by the Mongols. Mass burials of people alongside animals in a common grave and outside of the cemetery, in violation of Christian traditions, are not typical of medieval Russia and are a sign of a military catastrophe. To test this hypothesis, we dated a total of 65 samples representing all 9 mass burials. A Bayesian chronological model of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates narrowed the interval to the range of 1197–1280 cal AD, with the mean age of 1239 AD, consistent with the hypothesis that the studied mass burials of citizens and livestock are related to the capture of the city by the army of Batu Khan.

Keywords

Bayesian approachbone datingmedieval Yaroslavlradiocarbon
Type
Conference Paper
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 62 , Issue 6: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium , December 2020 , pp. 1833 - 1844
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 9th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Symposium, Athens, GA, USA, 20–24 May 2019

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