A lot has been written about the discoveries of the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition: these are the scientific works of its employees, books based on its materials, and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles about the excavations and those who made them. Considering the history of the archaeological study of Novgorod, it is impossible not to pay tribute to those who obtained the first information on the archeology of this city. These include , first of all, E. A. Bolkhovitinov [1], whose work brought us ideas about the archaeological topography of Novgorod, the thickness of cultural strata, and the preservation of wood in the local soil. Interest in Novgorod history was great, and the question of archaeological research in this city arose repeatedly. In the 19th century, excavations were even carried out here, the results of which, unfortunately, have not come down to us, just as the materials of the excavations carried out by N. Roerich in the Novgorod Kremlin in 1910 have not reached us2. Thus, the excavations in Novgorod begun under the leadership of A. V. Artsikhovsky in 1929.3 cannot be considered a continuation of the pre-revolutionary archaeological work of V. S. Peredolsky or N. Roerich. In practice, there was no such precedent for all ancient Russian cities, since the single excavations of church ruins carried out in them did not pursue broad historical goals. N. I. Repnikov in Staraya Ladoga excavated a small settlement, which did not solve many theoretical and practical problems faced by researchers of Novgorod. At the end of the 1920s, no one was able to fully identify the history of at least one small ancient Russian settlement, they were dug reluctantly, rarely and clumsily. Even such a prominent archaeologist as A. A. Spitsyn wrote that "a substantial settlement is a rarity" (by the content of the settlement, he meant primarily things, not structures). But in the Novgorod soil there were a lot of preserved wooden structures. This was already we ... Read more