Welcome to our web-page!
The group was created in 1978 on the basis of Chair of Archaeology of Faculty of History of Donetsk National University. During many years its primary goal of activity was carrying out salvage works on those archaeological monuments which were in danger of destroying because they appeared in a zone of construction of national objects of Donetsk region.
Since 1992 the group has been implementing state-financed research besides carrying out of archaeological expeditions (which had become much less scale by then). This research is based both on material obtained as a result of many field seasons and on archive materials of other expeditions as well as on already published reports.
In 2000 the group published the 1st volume of learned series "The European Steppes in the Middle Ages" and 7 volumes have been already issued. The series is approved by Supreme Certifying Commission of Ukraine (Bulletin No.6, 2000). Its main idea is an attempt to reconcile now existed considerable distinctions of information opportunities of various Humanities which elucidate historical events of the Middle Ages. Therefore, in our volumes we are going to continue combining works not only devoted to archaeology but also to ethnology, anthropology, epigraphy, etc. Furthermore, we will hail any research integrated into toponymy, onomastics, paleozoology, neuropsychology, geography, geology, astronomy, geodesy, etc. However, an indispensable condition of such research is the analysis based on an archaeological material or placed in archaeological context.
Since a steppe zone - a living environment for nomads - spreads from Mongolia to Danube river, it is necessary to consider that in a short space of time an epicenter of certain nomadic organism could shift for hundreds and thousands kilometers. Therefore, gathering of information as well as exchange of it with many learned centers of Ukraine, Russia and other CIS countries, Europe, Asia, and even Northern America where there are many experts on medieval nomadism is needed. So we are going to expand geography of cooperation as much as possible.
In 2002 another publishing project of the group - "Structural and Semiotic Investigations in Archaeology" - received official approval. Like the first series, it has been supported by Publishing Council of Institute of Archaeology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 2006 the edition was approved by Supreme Certifying Commission of Ukraine (04.07.2006 No.1-05/7). Three volumes of this learned series have been published so far.
