The ethnic and social composition of the Rim-gora hillfort population

The paper reviews the results of a study on Rim-Gora hillfort, a large historical and cultural monument located in Central Ciscaucasia. The author presents the archeological discoveries belonging to the Bronze Age, the pre-Scythian and Scythian periods, the Sarmatian epoch, the Early and Late Middle Ages made in the hillfort and at its foot. In particular, the research specifies the ethnic composition of the hillfort and its nearby in the Scythian and Sarmatian period and the Middle Ages. Other topical issues of studying Rim-Gora hillfort are considered as well. The author concluded that there was a complex ethnic structure of the inhabitants of this trade and handicraft military defense center in the post-Khazar era (the Alans who returned from Podontsovye, the descendants of the steppe settlements population in the Kuban region in the Khazar era, Byzantine merchants or missionaries, and probably the descendants of the population who left necropolis in Khasaut and other rock-cut tombs of Central Ciscaucasia).