Archaeozoological Research of the Settlement Zhemchuzhina-1 and Economic Issues of South-East Сrimea in the Golden Horde Period

The work publishes the results of an archaeozoological study of a collection of bone remains from the excavations of the settlement Zhemchuzhina-I, located in the steppe foothill part of southeastern Crimea. A representative collection of 164 objects with a volume of 5795 fragments was studied. The taxonomic set is represented mainly by the remains of mammals; there are bones of birds, fish, and shells of the Black Sea mollusks. For a rural monument, the low index of fragmentation of bone residues looks unusual, that is, meat carcasses were cut in large pieces, as in cities. Beef prevails in the spectrum of meat consumption – 85%, the share of lamb and horse meat is much less, the share of pork is insignificant. A hypothesis was expressed about the cattle-breeding nature of the occupations of the inhabitants of the Zhemchuzhina settlement and a number of other settlements of the steppe zone of the southeast and central Crimea, from which there are representative archaeozoological collections and the share of beef more than 80% is recorded for all. It is assumed that the inhabitants of the settlements mainly raised cattle for hiding, and the meat was sent to the Solkhat ulus center and partially remained on the settlements themselves. The political decline of the main recipient of cattle-breeding products – Solkhat, in the late 1380s, a decrease in its area and number of inhabitants, and the lack of a port led to a reduction in the cattle-breeding settlements of its okrug at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, among which the settlement Zhemchuzhina-I, purposefully abandoned by residents. The question is raised during the search for archaeological research markers of craft industries for processing animal skins, the export of which was famous for the Golden Horde.