Thematic layer «water-portage ways» of the GIS "Historical and Cultural heritage of Perm region" features and possibility of analysis by the methods of GIS technologies

The thematic layer of "water-portage ways", which is a part of the GIS "Historical and Cultural Heri­tage of Perm Region", allows to solve many academic problems connected with the determination of specific migration routes of the ancient population and the speed of movement within and between river basins. During the prior historical and toponymic research toponymic characteristics of the Finno-Ugric "portage" lexicon were identified. In ancient times, those characteristics were a kind of "verbal sailing directions" providing easy navi­gation on the river network of Perm the Great and adjacent regions. The use of GIS allows to trace the process of connecting relatively isolated river basins into an actual river network, where the portages were the cross points. Studying hydronyms allows to conclude on the migration routes of the ancient population and on the settlement system, thus to reconstruct ancient infrastructure.