Current work site: Pskov Oblast
Head of expedition: Boris Korotkevich
The Upper Dvina Expedition was launched in 2008 as a spin-off from the Zhizhitsky Unit of the North-West Expedition of the State Hermitage Museum. Its principal study location is the Early Iron Age site of Anashkino, situated on Zhizhitskoe Lake , Kunyinsky District, Pskov Oblast. Systematic exploration of the site began in 1991.
The site has 3 m of deposits spanning from the former half of the 1st millennium BC to the late 1st millennium AD. The Anashkino excavations have provided some valuable data on the earliest of these periods which previously remained fairly obscure. The Expedition has studied the remnants of defence, residential, production and household structures dating from various times. A large collection of everyday objects, household items, manufacturing tools and jewellery (now held in the Hermitage) has been amassed. The earliest horizons were found to contain ornamented pottery, numerous bone and horn objects, bronze decorations, labour tools and bronze casting equipment. In the late 1st millennium BC the site had accommodated a workshop producing and processing iron from bog ore; remnants of furnaces and iron objects were retrieved. The most recent cultural deposits are associated with a 9th–10th c. settlement.
Apart from Anashkino, in 2010–2012 the Expedition studied the Borokhnovo site located in Palkinsky District, Pskov Oblast. The site had been used as a stronghold in the 8th and 9th c. Until recently, this type of monument seldom attracted the attentions of archaeologists, being devoid of the cultural layer. The Hermitage team explored much of the Borokhnovo fortification structures.
