Berezniaki

a gorodishche (site of a fortified town) of the D’iakovo culture of the third to fifth centuries; located near the village of Berezniaki, Rybinsk Raion, Yaroslavl Oblast. The site was investigated in 1934–35 by P. N. Tret’iakov.

Berezniaki was a settlement of a patriarchal commune; it consisted of several dwellings for individual families, a large communal house, a smithy, a common storehouse for grain, an enclosure for livestock, a structure for the women’s work, and a burial structure. The settlement, located on the banks of the Volga on a rise skirted by the Sonokhta River (a tributary of the Volga), was enclosed by a rampart and a wooden fence. The population engaged mainly in livestock raising and agriculture. Objects have been found that testify to connections with tribes of the Dnieper and the southeastern Baltic regions.