Korchak

Korchak

 

an archaeological culture of the sixth and seventh centuries; a variant of the Prague culture. It was widespread throughout northwestern Ukrainian SSR and southern Byelorussian SSR (along the southern tributaries of the Pripiat’ River and from the Dnieper to the Bug and Dnestr rivers). Excavations were begun in the 1920’s by S. S. Gamchenko at the village of Korchak near Zhitomir. The Korchak culture was identified as a distinct culture by lu. V. Kukharenko. It is represented by open settlements with rectangular semisubterranean dwellings, stone hearths, and burial grounds (cremations beneath mounds and flat-grave cemeteries with cremations in urns). The culture is characterized by the specific shapes of the modeled unornamented vessels, which represent the first stage in the development of Slavic pottery.

REFERENCES

Kukharenko, Iu. V. “Slavianskie drevnosti V-IX vekov na territorii Pripiatskogo Poles’ia.” In the collection Kratkie soobshcheniia o dokladakh i polevykh issledovaniiakh Instituta istorii material’noi kul’tury, fasc. 57. Moscow, 1955.
Petrov, V. P. “Pamiatniki korchakskogo tipa (po materialam raskopok S. S. Gamchenko).” In the collection Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSR, no. 108. Moscow, 1963.
Rusanova, I. P. Karta rasprostraneniia pamiatnikov tipa Korchak (VI–VII vekov novoi ery). Ibid., vol. 176. Moscow, 1970.

I. P. RUSANOVA