The wooden component of the 11 th century cart from excavations in Velikiy Novgorod

In 2014 a wooden artefact was found in the Troitsky excavation trench in a layer dating back to the early 11 th century in Velikiy Novgorod. Based on ethnographic analogies, this wooden component was identified as a cart turning mechanism and a front fork. In the Northwest of Medieval Rus this is the first find of this kind, which enabled the researchers to use a holistic approach for reconstructing the body of four-wheeled vehicles. The closest parallels come from Polish Pomerania and Silesia, similar items are also found among ethnographic materials in Central Europe and the Baltic region. These data suggest nonlocal origin of this cart in early Novgorod. The technical design of this cart shows a number of archaic features inherited from the earliest turning mechanisms in the wheeled transport; these features substantially reduced mobility of such vehicles in narrow urban streets. This find adds substantially to our knowledge on the use of carts in the Novgorod region in the medieval period.