ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES OF DYMER TOWN

In the autumn of 2021 and spring of 2022, the author conducted archaeological explorations in the territory of Dymer town and its surroundings. The surveys covered the valley of the Pekhovka River in its middle reaches. This is the first archaeological work carried out in this micro-region. The large-scale field research of the mid-1930s and 1960s—1980s were focused on the Dnipro bank, and did not cover the Pekhovka River valley and the Dymer town, the centre of the district, located deep in the plateau. As a result, 12 new archaeological sites were discovered. These are mainly multilayered settlements with materials from the Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, Old Rus period and Early Modern one. The paper provides information on the administrative, topographical and landscape location of the sites, their size, and describes archaeological artefacts. The high concentration of site in a small research area is emphasised. The problem of damage to archaeological sites as a result of uncontrolled detector search is tangentially raised. The cultural layer on all sites under survey without exception showed traces of numerous, systematic and deliberate destruction. At the same time, the evidence of burial mounds in the vicinity of Dymer was collected and analysed. From the 4 necropolises known in the second half of the 19th century, none survived till today. The locations of the kurgan groups are not localised. Particular attention was paid to the problem of localisation of fortifications of the 17th—18th centuries on the town territory. The data of written sources concerning the foundation of the town and its first owners is analysed. The attention is focused on the mentions of the castle of the starosta and the fortress of the Polish and Cossack outpost. The variants of fortification locations proposed by historians and local historians are analyzed in the paper. They have been verified in the field during the field research. For the first time, artefacts of the Old Rus and Early Modern periods were recorded in the downtown of Dymer, which is a key to the question of the town’s genesis. It has been suggested that the town was founded at the place of the ferriage of Pekhovka River to control two main routes. The castle and fortress most likely occupied the dominant point in the downtown of the modern town. It is likely that the location of the medieval fortifications is marked by the site Dymer 1. Finally, the paper outlines the prospects for further archaeological research on the territory of the town, in its outskirts, and in the territorial community (municipality).