Antique imports of the VII cent. BC in the Northern Black sea region (about some of the distribution features and their possible explanations)

The topic of the article is the story of the appearance and spread of ancient ceramics in the Northern Black Sea region in the 7th century BC. Monuments where ceramics were found only in the 7th century are chosen for discussion. These are settlements (hillforts) and burials. The collection of antique tableware found in total on these monuments consists of the main dining room and container ceramics (amphorae). Analysis of the collection shows that the dating of painted ceramics is 20–30 years ahead of the dating of early amphoric containers. The earliest examples of the first date from the middle to the third quarter of the 7th century, and the earliest types of amphorae date from the last quarter of the same century. At the same time, the amphorae found in the Black Sea region belonged to those centers that began producing these products in the first half of the seventh or even as early as the eighth centuries BC (Chios, Samos, Lesbos, Clazomenes). It is well known that it is the supply of products in amphoric containers that is considered the beginning of a full-fledged trade relationship. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the painted ceremonial tableware had a different quality, a different meaning, and symbolized some other form of relations between the Greeks and barbarians that was not commercial and economic. I believe that the antique pottery found in the settlements of the Right Bank, Pobuzhye and Middle Dniester rivers are gifts designed to establish “diplomatic relations” on the basis of which the Greeks could in some form obtain the right to settle coastal territories. Potential control over these territories was carried out by territorial associations of the forest-steppe, the administrative centers of which were specific settlements, such as Nemirovskoye, Trakhtemirovskoye, Belskoye. Political consolidation in the Black Sea forest–steppe region is the result of the development of local societies, whose culture dates back to the Bronze Age. The alien Scythians probably exercised only partial control over these politicians, preferring not to interfere particularly in the economic structure of the local population, limiting themselves to tributary relations. The supplies of imported ceramics found on the monuments of the barbarian periphery are most likely of a different nature. So, it is the finds of pottery containers that are the sign by which the presence of regular contractual (trade) relations is unmistakably determined. And, since amphorae began to predominate in the composition of imports only at the end of the VII – beginning. In the sixth century, (about 600), accordingly, the establishment of such relations takes place about 20–30 years after the first contacts of the Hellenes with local rulers were established, the withdrawal of the colony proper, its arrangement, including stable, regular communication with the metropolis.

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