Research in the historical center of Tara in 2021

Archaeological research in the historic center of Tara in 2021 was concentrated in the southeastern part of the fortress, near one of the first churches of the city-Paraskeva Pyatnitskaya (Pyatnitskaya). It was the fourteenth season of excavations of the joint expedition of IAET SB RAS and National Research Tomsk State University in one of the first Russian cities in Western Siberia. Due to the overhaul of the district cultural center “Sever”, builders had to install fire tanks in an area of 100 m2 at a depth of five meters, so here, a layer of asphalt and gravel underlying it was opened and an excavation was laid. During the construction of the Cultural Centre, layers of the 19th-20th centuries were removed, so the study of cultural horizons began immediately in the middle of the 18th century from well-dated finds of the Chinese porcelain. We attributed the territory under study to the fortress based on the location of pavements recorded during the research, which were laid from Pyatnitskaya Church to the gate Tobolskaya and Spasskaya Towers, bypassing the fortress from the south. In the course of work, a construction horizon was discovered dated to the mid-17th century, being an intersection of the pavement from the entrance ostrog gates located in different parts of the town and the pavement from Pyatnitskaya Church to a complex of buildings of the Spassky Monastery. A housing complex consisting of a hut, household buildings and a glacier cellar with an overstructure, was directly adjacent to these roads. Its study yielded a collection of pottery, leather shoes, wooden and ceramic toys. Archaeological research of Tara conducted this year allowed us to significantly supplement the town ’s planigraphy for the mid-17th century, to obtain the materials that supplement our ideas about the material and spiritual culture of the Tara residents in the late 16th-18th centuries.