Archaeological vestiges of the 5th-3rd centuries BC in the Carpathian-Dniester region as a source of ethnic interpretation. Historiographical issues

The question on ethnic interpretation of archaeological sites of second half of the 1st millennium BC in the Carpathian-Dniester region is one of the cores in archaeological literature. The majority of the generalizing works, devoted to a given circle of sites, define an ethnic or ethno-cultural attribution through ethnic criteria of the archeological finds. The specific character of a funeral ceremony and style of material culture, in particular ceramics, has a special role. Correlation of archeological data to written sources remains the main argument and motivation of ethno-cultural definitions and reconstruction. Despite of ambiguity of historical-archeological parities, that predetermines sometimes opposite sights at treatment of ethno-geographical information of ancient sources, by way of ethnic character of some features of a funeral ceremony, style of ceramics and art objects a certain consensus is shown. In given article the basic tendencies of a historiography in the field of ethnic treatment of different categories of archeological sources are considered.