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RESCUE ARCHAEOLOGY IN RUSSIA

A.V. Engovatova

Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (engov@mail.ru)

Keywords: rescue excavations, methods of investigation, practice and legislation of the

protection of archaeological resources.

Lately the rôle of rescue excavations and archaeological/cultural resourse

management in archaeology and preservation of cultural heritage has been discussed most
vividly both in Russia and Europe (Quality Management in Archaeology… 2007; Report
on the situation of urban archaeology in Europe 1999). In this paper we are seeking to
trace the actual results of rescue investigations as well as the whole complex of
methodological and practical issues faced by Russian rescue archaeology in recent
decades.
Preventive investigations on the sites of future development have been carried out
in Russia for a long time. As early as in the late 19th century archaeological excavations
sometimes preceded construction (Vinogradov 1947, p .34). Yet the integral system of
preventive investigations and excavations began to take shape in the Soviet Union in the
late 1920s – early 1930s. It was mainly due to large-scale development (the Volga–Don
Canal, the Dnieper, Baksan and Perm hydroelectric power stations, the Moscow
underground railway et al.) and special stress on planned economy.
A decree of the All-Russian Executive Committee and Council of People’s
Comissars “On the preservation of historical monuments” was published in 1934. It stated
the main principles of work, prescribed rescue excavations of sites threatened by
construction, and specified the way of funding rescue investigations. The “Special
Committee for Works of the Academy of Sciences on Sites of Construction” was created by
the Order 726 of October 16 1932 of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture.
The “Directions for recording and preservation of monuments of material culture on sites of
construction” called to involve in the search for archaeological sites not only specialists but
general public including ‘socially conscious citizens’ interested in their country’s history.
Dozens of expeditions were sent by the Academy of Sciences to Central Russia, the
Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia to fulfil these requirements. Museums and universities
were taking part in rescue excavations, too.
In the 1940s – 1960s the efficiency of the system of Soviet rescue archaeology
varied. Its successes and problems have been described in a number of papers (Munchaev
2004; Smirnov 2004; Engovatova 2009).
Since the 1970s the volume of rescue excavations has been gradually increasing as
testified by the number of permits to carry out archaeological excavations: more than fifty
per year (Sorokina 2008, F i g .36). To improve co-operation t h e Section of Construction
Expeditions was created on the basis of the then existing expeditions at the Institute of
Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1972. In 1984 it was renamed the
Section of Rescue Excavations and in 1988 – the Department of Rescue Excavations
(Munchaev 2004; Smirnov 2004). The expeditions of the Department have carried out
large-scale investigations on the sites of construction of the Great Stavropol Canal, the
Cheboksary hydroelectric power station, the amelioration, drainage and irrigation structures,
etc. Their work has actually created a new corpus of the archaeological record for
previously unexplored territories providing the basis for many a fundamental archaeological
study.In 1982–1984 the Department organized from 20 to 22 rescue expeditions per year
(Afanasyev, Alexandrova 1986, p.123).
It sould be noted that during the last decade specialized rescue departments were
created at the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg and at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the
Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk. This in itself is
testimony to the requirement for this field of research in the framework of the Academy.
Significantly, the share of rescue excavations carried out by the Russian Academy of
Sciences remains relatively stable over last years while that of museums and universities
reduces [Fig.1, 6]. This is scarcely surprising since the Academy includes specialized
sections that have proved to be more resilient to the economic situation of the 1990s. They
have succeeded in preserving and developing rescue archaeology and have repeatedly
supported various scholarly and administrative institutions in their efforts at managing
cultural resources.

Fig.1. The ratio of institutions carrying out rescue excavations in 2010– 2011:
Voluntary organizations, Administrative institutions, Museums, Non-governmental
enterprises, Universities, The Academy of Sciences institutions.

To assess the work of the Department of Rescue Excavations of the Institute of

Archaeology and formulate its long-term aims it is necessary to evaluate the current
situation of rescue archaeology in Russia.
The share of rescue excavations has increased during the last decade. While in
1999–2001 it amounted, on the average, to 60 per cent of archaeological activities, in 2008–
2011 it exceeeded 70 per cent [Fig. 2]. The statistics are based on the number of permits to
conduct achaeological works. The figures are not quite accurate since sometimes a single
permit enables the excavator to conduct investigations on several sites and some permits are
not used.
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Fig.2. The share of rescue excavations in the volume of archaeological fieldwork in

1999–2011.

During the last decade the share of rescue excavations in the volume of
archaeological investigations in Russia has approached that of European countries.
According to the data of the European Archaeological Association (ЕАА) the share of
rescue excavations in the Netherlands makes up about 70 per cent (van den Dries 2011); in
Romania – 76–87 per cent (Bors 2011); in Poland –70–80 per cent (Filipowicz 2011).
Interestingly, the majority of the former socialist countries have followed the same
path. Thus, the percentage of archaeological investigations conducted in the framework of
scholarly programmes in Romania has diminished; while in 2000 it made up more than 90
per cent of fieldwork, in the last five years it amounts to no more than 20 per [Fig. 3]. In
Russia this process has begun earlier and has been more prolonged. In 1984 70 per cent of
archaeological investigations were funded by the government while in 2009 these amounted
to 26 per cent.
 Fig.3. Changes in the ratio of rescue excavations to scholarly excavations
(percentage). А – Russia, 1983–2010; B – Romania, 2000–2010.

The increase of the share of rescue excavations is related, on the one hand, with the
reduction of federal financing of the fundamental research on the humanities and with the
increase in construction and, consequently, in the number of rescue archaeological projects,
on the other.
Significantly, the number of permits in 1995 г. was 744 while in 2007, the year of
economic growth and construction activity – 1524, i.e. nearly twice higher. From the graph
it appears that the number of studies funded by scholarly projects and grants has been
relatively stable since 1995 ranging from 226 to 242. The growth has been mainly due to
fieldwork related to construction. In 1995 there were 216 permits to conduct rescue excavations
while in 2007 – 611. The number of permits to carry out archaeological surveys related to
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construction projects has been growing as fast as that to excavate [Fig. 4]. The volume of rescue
surveys and excavations is directly related to the economic situation both in Europe (Report on the
situation of urban archaeology in Europe, 1999) and in Russia (Engovatova 2010).

Fig.4. The number

of permits to
conduct
archaeological
fieldwork issued in
1994–2009.
a – form 1;
b – form 2;
c – form 3;
d – form 4.

Where in Russia are rescue excavations most widespread? Let us analyze the
number of permits to rescue excavations for each region [Fig. 5].

Fig.5. Regions
having obtained the
highest number of
permits to conduct
rescue surveys and
excavations in
2006–2008 and in
2009–2011.
 It would be natural to assume that rescue excavations correlate to the volume of
construction, yet it is only partially true. Significantly, the Tver area, which is not among thirty
regions most succesful in construction, has been the leader in the field of rescue excavations for
many years. Rescue excavations are prominent in the Irkutsk and Nizhny Nivgorod
Regions. On the other hand, in some areas rescue investigations are negligible in spite of
flourishing construction, e. g. in the Kaluga Region.
The analysis shows that archaeological resourse management depends primarily on
the activity and professionalism of the relevant local agencies. According to the law, these
decide the fate of archaeological sites implementing rescue investigations, changes of
construction projects and methods of site management.
Local economic development also influences the scale of rescue excavations but
only if the system of archaeological resource management works properly. In this
connection the case of the Moscow, Rostov and Krasnodar Regions and the Khanty-Mansi
Autonomous District is particularly instructive.
Who has carried out rescue excavations in Russia in the last decade and what is the rôle of
the Academy of Sciences institutes in this process?
In the 1990s rescue excavations were conducted by the Academy of Sciences
institutesm universities, museums and cultural resourse management agencies. The then
existing non-governmental institutions did not play a significant rôle having conducted less
than five per cent of the volume of [Fig. 6]. T h e m a i n t r e n d of the two last decades is
the increase of the share of non-governmental firms practicing rescue archaeology. It can
be traced owing to the analysis of granting permits to carry out rescue excavations. The
share of non-governmental institutions increased more than three-fold, from 10 to 33 per
cent [Fig. 7].

Fig.6. Percentage of institutions conducting rescue surveys and excavations in

Russia in 1992–2011.
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Fig. 7. Percentage of archaeological fieldwork conducted by Russian non-

governmental institutions in 1992–2011.

What is the reason for drastic increase in the number of non-governmental

institutions? The fact is that presently state-owned and private scholarly entreprises are not
enjoying equal rights with regard to taxation and book-keeping. The work of government-
funded institutions has been hampered by the Federal Law-94 of 21.07.2005 “On the
ordering of goods and hiring professional services for federal and municipal needs.” The
law obliges government agencies to invite tenders for rescue excavation contracts. As a
result non-government institutions that can reduce the price of work owing to tax reliefs
successfully compete with their governmental counterparts.
Non-governmental institutions can be divided into two groups. The first group consists
of firms founded by professional archaeologists in order to avoid bureaucratic hassle. Their
work meets all the requirements of archaeological science.
The second group has been focusing solely on making profit. Its members often act
as simple middlemen. Their low-quality work – or its imitation – results in destruction of
sites, scandals and lawsuits widely discussed in mass-media (Belovranin 2012).
When exploitation involves predesign as is the case with infrastructural projects,
such asroads, railways, pipelines, etc., it is possible to conduct surveys from the earliest
stages of planning and avoid impact on archaeological monuments and sites. In recent
decades this practice has been widely used by the Department of Rescue Excavations of
the Institute of archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Smirnov 1990;
Engovatova 2009), which enabled us to save many an archaeological site. It is worth noting
that even in the course of planning of such a complex project as the Cheboksary Hydro the
suggestions of archaeologists about the construction of special dams for the protection of
major archaeological monuments were adopted. The project of the road leading to
Olympic constructions in the city of Sochi was modified as well. A Byzantine temple
found near the Veseloe village in the Imeretinskaia Valley was preserved in situ and its in-
place preservation and site management ensured (Armarchuk, Mimochod 2012). However,
such protective measures actually depend on the free-will of designers who are by no
means eager to modify otherwise convenient projects.
Unfortunately, for lack of funds there has been a tendency to economise on
 archaeological investigations lately. As a result instead of involving archaeologists at the
stage of predesign designers often confine themselves to an archival certificate issued by a
cultural resourse management institution. It is yet another negative impact of
commercialization. A system of site preservation under conditions of large-scale
construction can only be elaborated on legislative level.
What should be the attitude towards the increase of the number of non-governmental
archaeological institutions?
On the one hand, large percentage of non-governmental institutions involved in
rescue archaeology is typical of certain European countries such as Poland or Great Britain.
On the other hand, archaeologists have vividly criticised the negative impact of
commercialization (Demoule 2007, 2010; Filipowicz 2011).
To summarise, it can be seen that a system of rescue archaeology involving
institutions of the Academy of Sciences took shape in Russia in the 20th century. The rôle of
these institutions remains crucial even with the emergence of market economy. The graph of
the volume of rescue research in recent years shows that they carry out about a quarter of
fieldwork [Fig. 6].
We hold that a great advantage of Russian rescue archaeology is its close links with
academia. The general system of scientific regulations, i.e. the obligatory applying for
permits to conduct archaeological investigations and mandatory scientific reports on them,
valid for the whole country, ensures unified methods of investigating archaeological sites
and making reports. It applies to rescue archaeology as well. There are no simplified
methods for it. A system of surveillance is only permissible for the study of late mixed
deposits (Regulation … 2007).
The mandatory submission of scientific reports to the Scholarly Fieldwork Council
to be subsequently filed in the State Archives makes the information on all the surveys and
excavations in Russia available to scholars. Unfortunately, the percentage of published
materials is negligible owing primarily to the high cost of publishing, hence the suggestion
of elecytonic publication of excavation reports. It is particularly justified with regard to
fully explored sites not threatened by possible looting after the appearance of the relevant
information in the media. In order to ensure prompt publication of the results of rescue
excavations the Institute of Archaeology founded a series “Materials of rescue
archaeological excavations” whose 18th volume is now in press. Transactions of the
scientific seminar “The Archaeology of the Moscow Region” mainly dealing with the
results of rescue excavations are published annually.
What are nowadays the immediate tasks of the Department of Rescue Excavations?
These are methodical and practical issues and improvement of legislation.
Complex areal approach to archaeological heritage management in situ in their
environment becomes increasingly important. We hold that the creation of protected areas
for archaeological sites and objects. Researchers from the Department of Rescue Excavations
participated in creating such zones in the town of Zvenigorod, on the Rostislavl and
Vshchizh habitation sites, on a series of sites on the Volgo Lake, et al. The Department also
took part in the town-planning of the towns of Klin, Volokolamsk and Orekhovo-Zuevo. To
multiply such examples, legislative support is necessary.
It is important to ensure complex character and large-scale investigations while
carrying out rescue excavations of archaeological sites threatened by construction. Such
works are conducted on large areas maintaining high standards of field methods and involve
specialists from varios branches of scholarship. Archaeologists are aware that besides
artifacts and and structure, i.e. pits, burialsm walls, etc., occupation deposits contain
biological remains, i.e. bones, scales, insects, grains, etc., which can only be properly
studied by specialists in the relevant fields. The analysis of organic matters can provide
additional information for the understanding of an archaeological object.
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Therefore only complex investigations produce adequate information on

archaeological sites and their early inhabitants. As examples we can cite rescue excavations
on such standard sites as the early medieval cemetery of Mamisondon (Albegova,
Vereschinsky-Babailov 2010), Zolotoi and Panitskoe barrow cemeteries (Mimochod 2009),
the Miakinino complex of sites (Engovatova, Koval 2007), occupation deposits of the cities
of Yaroslavl (Archeology of ancient Yaroslavl… 2012), Rostov (Samoilovich 2007), Vladimir
et al.
Thus, both world and national experience shows that rescue archaeology is an important
part of archaeological activity. Scientific research requires financing while, given the economic
situation in Russia, archaeologists have few opportunities, besides rescue excavations, to carry out
large-scale investigations. The existing system of grants enables us to study the most important sites.
Yet funding is limited and cannot ensure multifaceted study. Under the circumstances rescue
archaeology is a source of permanent investment in archaeological science.
The most important task of archaeological heritage management is to encourage the
amendment of legislation pertaining to the protection of archaeological monuments. The
existing laws are not very effective with regard to the protection of cultural heritage and do
not conform to certain articles of international acts adopted by Russia.
It is important to amend the law in order to prevent illicit excavations and looting of
archaeological monuments by the so-called ‘black excavators’ (by analogy with black
market) who have become a virtual plague in recent years.

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