The students of the Ural Institute of Humanities under the guidance of Rustam Ganiev, the Head of the Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanities at the Ural Federal University, will visit Uzbekistan, where they will do museum and archaeological internships. In addition, laboratory specialists will join colleagues from the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences on expeditions to Khakassia, Krasnodar Territory, the Voronezh Region, Yakutia, and possibly the Crimea this summer.

“We can say that this season of expeditions is more of an exploratory season. We plan to join the excavations that are already underway and look at new material, communicate with colleagues, and exchange experiences. Of course, we will dig and collect material – mainly bones. This year, our expeditions are more about integration,” says Anton Kochnev, a Junior Researcher at the Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanities at UrFU.

In August the students will go on an expedition to Samarkand. Employees of the Department of Russian History and the UrFU Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanities have agreed to resume research internships with Uzbek institutions. There are agreements with the Samarkand State University (one of the oldest universities in Uzbekistan), the Samarkand State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, and the Samarkand Archaeological Institute named after Yahyo Gulamov of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

“Preliminary agreements on the practice were concluded in November 2022 during the visit of the UrFU delegation to Uzbekistan. It was continued by the visit of colleagues from Uzbekistan to UrFU in February 2023. The agreement was signed in April this year. During the internship the students will visit Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent and Shahrisabz. Excavations are planned at the ancient settlement of Afrasiyab on the northern outskirts of modern Samarkand. In general, students have been practicing in Uzbekistan since 2010. This was the first group of students from Russia to come to Uzbekistan for excavations since 1989. However, there was a break of more than three years due to the Covid restrictions. Now the cooperation has resumed,” says Rustam Ganiev.

In Khakassia, paleontologists from the UrFU will participate in the excavations of the Inayskaya Cave. The excavations are carried out by the staff of the Laboratory of Paleoclimatology, Cenozoic Geology and Mineral Indicators of Climate of the Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the RAS and the Abakan Club of Speleologists. In Krasnodar Territory, UrFU paleontologists will work on the shore of the Sea of Azov at the Early Pleistocene site of Sinyaya Balka (Taman). The Voronezh region plans to participate in the study of the Kostyonkovo-Borshchevo complex of Stone Age sites (Palaeolithic sites of ancient man). In Yakutia, together with colleagues from the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha, the museum collections of mammoth fauna will be studied.

“In the Department of Mammoth Fauna Research of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha we are interested in museum collections. These are mainly carnivorous mammals, of which there are quite a few. We are also planning short-term field trips to the direct locations of mammoth bones – river banks, cliffs, etc.,” says Dmitry Gimranov, Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Paleoecology of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (UB RAS) and the UrFU Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanities.