Magnetic prospecting on the ancient settlements in the tract Adzhiel in 2017

The publication presents the results of geophysical studies (magnetic prospecting) conducted on two archaeological sites discovered in 2016 in the Kerch Peninsula, situated about 30 km west of Kerch in the territory of the Adzhiel tract. These objects are located near one of the largest ancient sites on the Kerch Peninsula - the settlement Belinskoye and probably their inhabitants were closely connected with the inhabitants of Belinskoye. Monuments were discovered during pedestrian archaeological reconnaissance due to significant accumulation of fragments of antique ceramics, distributed on an area of 12-14 hectares. Magnetic survey was carried out in the places of the highest concentration of fragments. The remains of any building structures in the course of research have not been revealed, but the results indicate that a large number of objects are under the ground, which are, probably, household pits. Such a high concentration of alleged household pits is quite unusual, in fact they form a continuous economic yard. This, in turn, suggests that the purpose of these pits was not to meet the needs of an individual family, but to store some supplies destined for a large collective, or such a yard could act as a place for some reserve, grain for example, before it could be sent for sale or exchanged. The research was carried out by the archaeological expedition of the Tula State Pedagogical University in the framework of the research work "Archaeological and geophysical surveys on archeological monuments of the Adzhiel truct to test hypotheses about the nature of anthropogenic impact in the Holocene" at the Tula State Pedagogical University by L.N. Tolstoy (task of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, No. 33.6496.2017 / BP).