Khazarian settlements in the Volga delta

In 2019-2020 two large settlements from the Khazarian period were discovered in the Kamyzyak district of the Astrakhan region. The sites were located on the Bolda river banks in the Volga delta. The structure of ceramic assemblage and morphological and technological traits of the ceramic are typical for the Saltovo-Mayatsk culture of the Don basin. Some distinctive features of the table ware decorations have close analogies with materials from the North Caucasus dating to the 7th - early 8th centuries. Amphora fragments are represented by the types common in the southwestern Crimea during the first half of the 9th century. Presently, these are the first and the only known sites of the early medieval period in the region of the Khazaria capital.