Don Cossacks’ small towns as a part of the cultural heritage of the Volgograd region: theory and methodology of study and preservation

The article deals with the problem of studying and preserving of the unique archeological monuments in the territory of the Little Don bend of the Volgograd region -the small towns of the Don Cossacks. The historiography of the 19 th - early 21 st centuries and the sources, most of which cover the period not earlier than the 15 th century, do not give the precise information about the location of towns. The hypotheses about the localization of some of them, made in the works of N.B. Skvortsov, allowed to justify a new conception of integrated conservation of the unique archaeological monuments in the Little Don bend territory.