FtfllUJSCandia Qrchaeologica Xl (1994) Nikolai A. Makarov PORTAGES OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH: HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY AND ARCHAEOLOGY Abstract This article summarizes the results of archaeological research concerning portage sites in the Russian North. Extensive surveys and field work indicate that the medieval portages were routes through water partings and related settlements which were either individual or in groups. The concentrations of sites from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, the vicinities of portages and the character of finds clearly show that the colonization of these micro-areas was closely connected with the development of a general system of roads and routes linking the North with the Ancient Russian Metropolia. Nikolai A. Makorov, Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, VI. Dimitri Vlyanova 19, Moscow 117036, Russia. River routes connected by portages at watersheds Eastern Europe were referred to with tbe term fonned the main communication system on the Zavolochie (Le. areas beyond a portage or porta­ Russian Plain in the Middle Ages. They are as typi­ ges) since the eleventh century. The term survived cal of the cultural and economic potential of medi­ in the Land Cadastre Books (Vasiliev 1971, 103- eval Rus as the paved roads were an embodiment of 109; Piswvye knigi Obunezhskoj Pyatiny 1930, the power of the Roman Empire. Much attention is 177; Piswvaya knig. Belozerskogo yuesda 1984, given to portages in medieval documents, begin­ 171) until the sixteenth century, clearly pointing to ning with the famous description of "tbe route the important role of portages that hoth separated from the Varangians to tbe Greeks" in Povest Vre­ the Russian North from the rest of Rus (owing to menych Let, and continuing to the description of the difficulty of access) and connected far-off re­ Yrmak's campaign to Siberia in the Strogaoov gions. In the North, the process of medieval coloni­ Chronicle (Sibirskie letopisi 1907, 11,276,314). zation was strictly determined by environmental The amount of attention given to portages reflects conditions, viz. river routes and the locations of their importance in the system of communication. portages. These defined tbe directions of coloniza­ They were hoth the most difficult sections of the tion and the locations of settlements in various ar­ routes and sites where travellers met and traded, eas. Historical geographers have suggested a and fees and taxes were collected. It is, however, theory of two main water-portage routes connect­ surprising that although volok, tbe Russian term for ing the Ancient Russian Metropolia witb the north­ portage, is well known in chronicles and other ern areas. The nonhern route was along the Svir documents, the portage sites themselves, as objects River, Lake Onega, the Vodla River, Lake Keno­ of study and field work, have been bardly known at zero and the Onega River and further on to tbe all by experts until recent times. The relevant litera­ Northern Ovina. The southern route passed across ture consists of only. few articles (Burov 1975, Lake Beloye to the Porozovitse River, Lake 7~5; Chernov 1980, 37-38). These are valuable Kubenskoye, the Sukbona River, and the Northern contributions, but they do not give any general im­ Ovina. Both routes were studied by A.N. Nasonov pression of the appearance of a medieval portage. with reference to written sources and maps It is • known fact that vast areas of the north of (Nasonov 1951 98-116). The locations of the 13 Fig. 1. Portages on the watersheds of Nonhem Russia. 1 - Kensky; 2 - Uchlomsky; 3 - Badozhsky; 4 - Slaveosky; 5 - Moshinsky; 6 - Emetsky. northern portages were Ibus identified without any (fourteenth-fifteenth centuries) we cannot be sure arcbaeological field work. The available docu­ whether tbese reconstructions can apply to the Vi­ ments, maps and toponymic material appear to be king Age or early medieval times.' quite reliable for establishing the locations of the Between 1982 and 1992 the present author car­ portages. But insofar as information on these ried out field work involving the archaeological in­ portages is mainly from comparatively late sources vestigation of several micro-areas where portages 14 were located according to written sources of the and roads. The Badozhsky portage, situated be­ fourteenth-seventeenth centuries (even earlier in tween the Kovzha and Vytegra rivers, is an excep­ one case). The task at hand was to obtain at least a tion. The original appearance of this site was com­ general impression of the settlement pattern in the pletely changed during the construction of the micro-areas of the portages and to defme the ar­ Mariinsky water system at the beginning of the chaeological sites that corresponded to the term nineteenth century and later in the 1960s by the "portage". As there are usually no precise geo­ Volga-Baltic water route. As a result, a great graphic references to portages in the land docu­ number of archaeological sites were irretrievably ments, we attempted to locate them by estimating lost. environmental conditions, place-names, the distri­ Surveys show that none of the portages was in bution and orientation of roads and archaeological connection with monumental archaeological sites sites. (hillforts or large barrows), or hydrotechnical con­ Of the six portage sites investigated in the field structions. But it was also discovered that the por­ work, three are in connection with the Svir-Onega­ tage micro-areas were centres of early-medieval Ovina water route: the Kensky portage, connecting dwelling sites and cemeteries. This concentration the basin of Lake Onega with Lake Kenozero and of dwelling sites is particularly interesting in view the Onega River; the Moshinsky portage connect­ of Late Iron Age and early-medieval zones of set­ ing the Onega to the Pya River (a tributary of the tlement, which in the Russian North mainly Vagal; and the Emetsky portage, connecting the emerged in the valleys of the large rivers or on the Onega with the Emtsa River (a left tributary of the shores of large lakes, but not on the water partings Northern Ovina) (Fig. 1). The remaining three where the portages were located. portages are in the Belozherie region , viz. the In the areas of five portages separate settlements Siavensky portage on the route from Belozherie to were discovered dating from the frrst millennium the Sukhona, connecting the Sheksna river system BC to the first millennium AD. This proves that the with Lake Kubenskoye; the Uchtomsky (or "Red") routes across watersheds were well known to the portage connecting Lake Beloye and the Onega indigenous population long before the Ancient river system; and the Badozhsky portage (also Russian colonists expanded into these areas. There mentioned in documents as Gostin Nemetskiy, or is no doubt that all six portages were "dry" sites German Merchants' [Portage)), connecting lakes where cargo was transported along roads by horses. Beloye and Onega (Fig. 1). All six portages were in The Uchtomsky, or "Red" portage is situated be­ areas colonized by the ancient Russian population tween lakes Volotsky and Volgoye on the route at a comparatively early stage. Experts agree that from Lake Beloye to Lake Vozhe. It is first men­ the portages were on the main routes along which tioned in the Beloozero Land Cadastre Book in early medieval colonization spread into these areas. 1585: "The residents of Beloozero town began to Ethnic and cultural change in these territories can transport goods via a new portage, which had been be defmed as a gradual mixing of Slavonic and made for their needs through the Pedma River to Finnic groups in different areas and with varying the Sbeksna. But they must not use the new por­ intensity. tage. The must deliver the goods through the old The practical task of field work was to carry out a portage as before: along the Uchtoma River to comprehensive sUlVey of "portage areas", the pre­ Pertoozero across the Red portage to Uchtoma and pare archaeological maps and plans of them, to re­ then along the Uchtoma River to Beloozero". cover datable materials through limited excavation, (Piszovaya kniga Belozerskogo yuesda 1984, 174). and to combine this data in a reconstruction of the There are two small rivers known as Uchtoma general history of settlement at the portages. At both on modem maps (scale 1:100,(00) and on the both Slavensky and Moshinksy, extensive excava­ cadastre map the Kirillov area, dating back to tions of cemeteries were carried out, revealing the 1790.' One of these issues from Lake Volotskoe, cultural character of the local population. The to­ named "Pertoozero" in the Cadastre Book; the tally excavated cemetery of Nefedievo at Volok other flows from Lake Dolgoye towards Lake Siavensky, with its 112 graves, dates back to the Vozhe. Accordingly, the "old portage" should be eleventh and twelfth centuries, and is one of the between these two lakes, and the "new" portage, largest burial sites hitherto excavated in the Rus­ independently founded by the residents of sian North between Lake Beloye and the White Beloozero, connected Lake Dolgoye with Lake Sea. The well preserved historical landscape of this Palshemskoye, the source of the Pidma River. The area makes it possible not only to investigate the map of 1790 shows the village of "Volok Golo­ past settlement pattern and its development, but vinsky" on the south-east shore of Lake Volotskoe. also to defme the exact locations of portage routes The village is at the shortest distance to Lake 15 1 ."" '" • -Il • -a ~:::.:::. -. -; , -...... Fig. 2. Archaeological siles at the Uchtomsky portage. A - tcntb-century dwelling site. 6 - eleventh-thirteenth century dwelling site; B - portage road; r - medieval cemetery. 1 - Pinshino 01; 2 - Pinshino II; 3 - Piosbino I; 4 - Valak B; 5 - Valak A; 6 - Dolgoe azero. Dolgoye, which is not more than two kilometres.