Search

The article features a publication of material on the Mellia-Tamak V burial ground. Starting with the 1970s, the Early Bolgar Archaeological Expedition headed by the author of the article has discovered and researched the unique sites of the Stone Age in the Trans-Kama areas of Tatarstan, such as Minnarovo, Russkii Shugan and Mellia-Tamak burial grounds, as well as the Izmeri site. Of particular significance are the Minnarovo and Mellia-Tamak V burial grounds. The author distinguishes the necropoleis of the Mellia-Tamak type located in the Trans-Kama region and the Southern Urals. They are characterized by abundant and unique burial inventories indicating the foreign nature of the population they were established by. It allowed the author to attribute these sites to a new Mellia-Tamak archaeological culture. Its chronological classification remains problematic, although many groups of the stone inventory have preserved evident Mesolithic traditions.

Based on the author's cultural-chronological stratigraphy of the antiquities of the early and pre-Mongol Volga Bulgars in the 8th through to 13th centuries, the stages of their migration from the north-eastern provinces of the Saltov culture territory to the Middle Volga region have been singled out. It is assumed that in the history of the Middle Volga region, there were two main waves of Turkification: the first was associated with the population of the post-Hunnish circle (the Khazars, the Oghuz, the Bulgars), while the second wave was represented by the Late Turkic (Kipchak?) population. However, the interaction of Volga Bulgaria with its ancestral home in the framework of the Saltov culture and the Khazar Khaganate had lasted for several centuries, and during that time, a number of migration waves on a smaller scale, in particular after the defeat of Khazaria, occurred in the Middle Volga region. For about 600 years, the Bulgars had been maintaining contacts with the Ugrians, the Volga-Uralic Finns, and the Slavs.