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The article presents the results of a study of three collections from the funds of the Archaeological Museum of Kazan (Volga) Federal University. The formation of collections is associated with the activity of the Society of Archeology, History and Ethnography and the Society of Naturalists under Kazan University. The collections in question were obtained in late 19th – early 20th centuries as a result of excavations at Pizhma, Svinogorie and Ufa (Chertovo) hillforts. Most of these collections correspond to Ananyino cultural and historical area. In addition, Ufimskoye (Chertovo) hillfort contained items associated with the archaeological cultures of a later period: Kara-Abyz and Bakhmutino cultures. The primary feature of the collections is a significant number of bone and horn articles. The study these items using traditional methods, archaeozoological and trace analysis techniques allowed to obtain new information expanding the perception of the ancient bone crafting technology and the chronology of the monuments in question.

The authors introduce into scientific discourse a plated bronze torc discovered at Gulyukovo burial ground by specialists of the Institute of Archeology named after A.Kh. Khalikov of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences in the summer of 2016. This is the fourth torc of this type discovered in the Volga-Kama region. The finding is dated the 12th –10th centuries B.C. and corresponds to the late stage of the Maklasheevo culture. The article features an attempt to trace the stages of emergence and distribution of this type of items. The authors conclude that the bronze crescent torcs were used in the Volga-Kama region in the final Bronze Age as costume adornments. In a later period, this type of ornaments acquired the shape of wide rings.

The article features an analysis of the costume of Ananyino cultural and historical areal in the context of the general development of Eurasian costume elements. Historical and cultural reconstruction of an archaeological costume requires a synchronous and diachronous analysis of the evolution of primary costume elements. The general nature of clothing is determined by geographical and climatic conditions, and the type of economy of Ananyino cultural and historical areal. Individual elements of the costume can have a common nature in terms of the time period for the Eurasian costume of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, and develop under the influence of "dominant cultures", or gradually evolve from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. Men's clothing of the population of Ananyino cultural and historical areal was included in the series of widely spread clothing of the cosmopolitan military subculture of the Scythian type dating back o the period under study. Women's high birch bark headwear widely known on the basis of the ethnographic material of the Finno-Ughric population of the Middle Volga region are similar in shape to Ananyino counterparts, continuing the tradition of the Andronovo world and representing a single line of development.

Yevgenii Petrovich Kazakov, Dr. habil. (History), Honored Man of Science of the Republic of Tatarstan, is 80. Having a wide range of scientific interests, the researcher is among outstanding specialists in the medieval archaeology of the Volga River and the Urals regions. Ye.P. Kazakov has studied the sites of the early Bulgars and the Volga Bulgaria, the Volga Finns and the Ugro-Magyars of the Volga River region. He has conducted excavations on the Mellya-Tamak, the Taktalachuk, the Tetyushi and other burial sites that contained Neolithic and Chalcolithic burials, as well as those belonging to the Cherkaskul’ and Srubnaya cultures of the Bronze Age, the Ananyino culture of the Early Iron Age, and these investigations made it possible to introduce many new important features in the reconstruction of the prehistoric past of the peoples that had inhabited the Volga-Kama region. Ye.P. Kazakov is the author of more than 500 scientific works, including 10 books, which are widely known among scientists in Russia and abroad.

Problems of analytical archaeological research characteristic of the initial period of the studies of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in the Volga-Kama area (from the late 18th century to the early 1920s) are discussed in the article. Within the initial period, the author has identified four basic problems, which were developed by researchers. 1. Periodization and dating of the Bronze Age sites and identification of those referring to the Early Iron Age (in the early 20th century). 2. Determination of ethnic belonging of archaeological cultures carriers. 3. The topography of settlements and hill-forts purpose and usage interpretation. 4. Funeral rite systematization. A separate block comprises the local problems, to which researchers used to turn sporadically: the study of ceramics, economic system, social structure, origins of certain types of metal products etc.