The concept of studying of ethnographic and archaeological complexes (EAC) involves the analysis of their individual components: population, villages, communication routes and others, including borders — both external and internal. The analysis of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic literature has shown that borders or borderlands can be traced in almost all populations at any stage of their development. However, while the borders between large associations, like states or ethnic groups with different cultures, have been addressed by experts, almost no attention is being given to local boundaries between smaller collectives, although there are written, cartographic and oral sources that can be used as a basis for such research. After considering the materials of various origins concerning the native villages of the Middle Tom region, it became possible to discuss the boundaries between them, and the boundaries of the administrative entities which encompassed them in the 18th century. At this time, residents of villages located 15–30 km north of the Kuznetsk fortress were moving to new unoccupied lands in the upper reaches of the river Inia and its upper tributaries, as well as to the left bank of Tom below the mouth of the Mungat River. According to the drawings of S.U. Remezov, there was a boundary between the Tomsk and Kuznetsk districts. The borderline rivers could be Unga-Promyshlennaya in the north and Osipovo-Mungat in the south. Possibly, there were small settlements of Tulbers. After the middle of the 19th century, another process of settlement of the Tom riverbank territories of its both sides began. By the 1930s, all its banks were inhabited, and the reserve of free lands came to end. Indigenous people began developing islands on the river or starting settlements within 15–20 km from the village. In the second third of the 20th century, new villages were developing in the remote territories away from Tom. Almost all of them were abandoned in the second half of the 20th century. The available information suggests that there were borderlands between the villages within single districts. Most often these were represented by watercourses — small rivers and streams, ridges — elongated hills located perpendicular to terraces, and sometimes lakes. These borders were well known to locals. It cannot be ruled out that river rapids and shoals could also have been used as borders. The analysis of the correlation of locations of the villages, river rifts and stretches suggests that, in the studied area of Tom, villages were located on the river stretches between the shoals. There is also information about the existence of boundaries between minor objects, though they require further research.

Keywords: Kuznetsk district, land use, land boundaries, Cheldon villages.

 

Funding. The article was prepared as part of the State Assignment FWZG-2022-0005 “Research of archaeological and ethnographic sites in Siberia in the era of the Russian state”.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 28.02.2024

Article is published: 15.06.2024

 

Tikhonov S.S., Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS, Karl Marx prosp., 15/1, Omsk, 644024, Russian Federation, E-mail: semchi957@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6909-0727