Radiocarbon сhronology of the Malmyzh сulture in the Eastern Amur region

This article discusses radiocarbon dating of the Zheltyi Yar and Malmyzh-1 sites, published by Japanese scholars in 2019, and correlates it with the available radiocarbon determinations by Russian laboratories. It has been shown that the set of absolute dates for the recently identified Malmyzh culture increased two times. Calibration and synchronization of five radiocarbon determinations for dwellings at the Malmyzh-1 settlement has revealed that the site might have existed on Mount Malmyzh on the right bank of the Amur River since the late 2nd century BC until the first half of the 2nd century AD. Calibration and synchronization of twelve radiocarbon determinations for the Zheltyi Yar settlement has made it possible to date the late stage of human habitation on the left bank of the Bira River to the mid 3rd-early 5th century. Pottery of the syncretic Poltse cultural community of the Eastern Amur region and Primorye, included by Russian scholars in archaeological periodization of the cultures of the Early Iron Age, differs from pottery from the Poltse I site. Based on radiocarbon dates, it has been established that the settlements ofMalmyzh-1 and Poltse I could have existed simultaneously from the second half of the 1st century BC until the first half of the 1st century AD. Radiocarbon dates of the Malmyzh-1 site may indicate the initial period of the Malmyzh culture, spread of its carriers in the Eastern Amur region, and their participation in the emergence of mixed population in Primorye. Judging by radiocarbon determinations from the dwellings at the Zholtyi Yar settlement, its evidence marks the middle and late stages of the Malmyzh culture in the first half of the first millennium AD.